The last installment of my four-part series on anxiety is exposure. We can see anxiety’s insidious effect on people by how it impairs our ability to behave by avoidance. When anxiety has its full grip on us, we end up avoiding things that we associate with anxious reactions. For example, if something happened at Walmart that put you in a panic, a natural inclination is to avoid going to Walmart for fear of reliving the anxiety.

One way to prevent anxiety from making us avoid things is by exposure. Facing our fears by exposing ourselves to it can help desensitize us from the associated fear. This gives us the courage to do something we previously avoided.

Gradual exposure is the ideal method. For starters, using the Walmart example, just imagine the anxiety that you think you will experience when you go to Walmart. Then, manage that anxiety. Next, go to the Walmart parking lot and drive off. Then manage that anxiety. Then, walk into a Walmart and walk out. After you manage that anxiety, you will be able to manage the anxiety associated with shopping in a Walmart.

​Managing anxiety by way of gradual exposure to something we are avoiding is a sure-fire way to eclipse anxiety’s grip on us.

This is my second of a four-part series on how to wage war on the four fronts of anxiety: our thoughts, feelings, physiology, and behavior. This time I will be dealing with engaging anxiety on the battlefield of feelings.

Researchers have determined that the best way to circumvent anxiety’s effect on our feelings is to engage in problem solving. Problem solving takes our minds off excessive worry about unrealistic threats by forcing us to think about the underlying problem in a logical, reasoning and rational process of coming up with solutions.

If you Google problem solving, you will find many patterns of steps. But each one should have four main components. First, identify the problem. Second, brainstorm a list of solutions that will have a positive effect on the problem. Third, pick the solution from the list which is most likely to give you what you want. Last, implement your choice and verify that it solved the problem. If at first you don’t succeed, you can return to the list of solutions and keep going back to it until you have been able to verify the problem is solved.

The energy that problem solving invokes is the sworn enemy of anxiety. Who knows? You may even be able to solve the problem of Rubik’s Cube.

This week in counseling, I am treating half of my clients for adult anxiety. Anxiety is the result of unrealistic worry that upsets our thoughts, feelings, physiology, and behavior. I want to address thoughts here.

Some have said that life is only 10% what happens to us and 90% what we tell ourselves about the other 10%. The 90% is self-talk. It can either be positive or negative. The self-talk that causes anxiety is the negative kind. For example, negative self-talk can take the form of, “I tried that before and I can’t do it.” Positive self-talk would be, “This didn’t work the last time I tried it, but I will give it another try. Who knows?” One of the treatments for negative self-talk is to

(1) realize what that negative self-talk is (done best by speaking those thoughts down on paper),

(2) finding the lie behind it,

(3) determining what the actual truth is, and

​(4) replacing the truth with the lie in the form of positive self-talk.
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You will experience at least some relief from anxiety with positive self-talk. After all, we are Americans, not Americant’s.

This week in counseling I brought up what I call “The Avenue to Mature Communication.” The idea is that some emotionally immature couples do not enjoy the intimacy that emotionally mature couples do. The first step down the avenue is accountability. Mature couples use communication to take responsibility for their words and deeds. This most often takes the form of requesting input from their spouses on how to improve as a partner and constructing sincere apologies. Immature communicators have no use for these two activities.

The second step down the avenue is vulnerability. Mature communicators are more concerned about NOT bringing up certain subjects than the fear that the subject will backfire on them. Immature communicators will take no such risk and will have a litany of subjects that are unapproachable with their spouses.

The final step down the avenue is empathy. This occurs when emotionally mature couples use communication to take responsibility for the effect they have on one another, intended or otherwise. Generally, the emotionally immature would rather blame someone else for what they say and do, much less take responsibility for the same.
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If you join the ranks of those who traffic down the avenue of mature communication when relating to your spouse, you can be assured that you will be using communication to its fullest and reap the relational benefits.