Any small steps we take toward that skill will help greatly in managing anxiety. The unpleasant truth is that learning to handle disappointment and rejection is a useful tool. Kathleen explains why we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves when we react in immature ways, but we should focus on the small victories in our growth and development. If we listen to those, we don’t get a template for love but a template for ruining our lives. Most love songs don’t portray a healthy, mature relationship. Much of our thinking is informed by the media, like the music we listen to and what we watch. Most of us can honestly identify how we act as mature adults and how we act childish, petty, and manipulative. The work of being human is a lifelong process, and you will eventually arrive at the place where functioning as a healthy and mature adult feels more normal than it did before. Kathleen says that it takes a lifetime to learn to manage anxiety and take yourself off anxious autopilot mode. It often takes a challenge or difficulty for us to realize the importance of those family ties. It’s beneficial in many ways for us to have meaningful and strong relationships with people both older and younger than we are. Kathleen explains the importance of rekindling intergenerational relationships because young people today are less connected to previous generations than ever before. Many relationships need to be rekindled, especially within our families. One focus of the book is to work on your relationships with your family because that’s the hardest place to manage anxiety and be mature. Always strive to be your best self, which to Kathleen means the most mature version of yourself. Evaluate by asking yourself who you want to be. Look for opportunities to try something different in your relationships and practice managing the anxiety you feel. Don’t avoid all the people who make you anxious, because you won’t have opportunities to practice calming down. Be curious, but don’t blame or shame yourself as you become more observant. Observing means to pay attention to the ridiculous things you do when you’re anxious. The book is humorous, practical, and helpful, and it’s based on the Bowen theory that anxiety is best analyzed by how we interact in relationships. The book tells the stories of young people who are striving to calm down and grow up in their relationships. She’s put together a collection of 18 stories based on client experiences that remain confidential. Kathleen wanted a book to hand to her therapy clients to highlight her work. Identify who your best self is in anxious situations, and even though you may fail more than you succeed, try to be that person every day. Kathleen says you should write these things down, so you have something tangible to look at when you begin to freak out. Be less anxiousĭeveloping your own principles and describing who you want to be each day will help you be less anxious. Do any of these sound like you? Most of us distance ourselves or avoid certain situations, try to control others, and create a triangle by pulling in a third person to calm us down. We avoid situations where rejection and disappointment are possible, and we convince ourselves that another person must change in order for us to calm down. We act as if our anxious imaginings are a reality, and we try to make other people act more mature instead of acting mature ourselves. Kathleen says we borrow standards of success from the world around us and borrow solutions from experts or family without using our brains to think for ourselves. There are things we all do that add to our anxiety, and most of the time, we are completely unaware. She shares how to build a more solid sense of self in an increasing anxiety-inducing world, along with tools that anyone suffering from anxiety can use to finally calm down. She also shares her top technique for taking charge of your anxiety and shedding anxious habits. In this episode, Kathleen shares numerous, helpful ways to cope with our anxiety-ridden times with smart and practical antidotes. She also runs her private therapy practice in DC. in Counseling from George Washington University, where she teaches at Trinity. She’s a freelance writer for Everyday Health, and her writing on mental health topics has appeared in New York Magazine, Salon, Slate, Bustle, Lifehacker, and many other publications. Kathleen Smith is a licensed therapist, mental health writer, and author of Everything Isn’t Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down. The truth is that there are specific principles to follow to live your best life and manage every anxious situation.ĭr. In today’s show, we are covering all the bases about what we are doing wrong in letting anxiety call the shots. Everyone deals with anxiety in life, but there are many steps we can take to take control.
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