Your Brain on Anxiety: Safety and Acceptance
The Beatles said, “Let it be.” The classic hymn sings, “It is well with my soul.” In this post, we will seek to answer the question, “what does acceptance of circumstances have to do with relief?”
In my previous posts, we looked at several tasks relevant to managing anxiety. Let’s do a quick review:
Regaining control: Maintaining bodily control helps us calm an anxiety response. From here, we may feel stable enough to begin to process the anxiety.
Assessing the info: Then we can ask ourselves some questions in order to assess and process our anxiety. This includes finding information and deciding what might remain unknown about our anxiety.
With these two steps in place, we can look at our third and final task: managing anxiety, examining safety, and working toward acceptance.
What is feeling unsafe?
Often when we’re anxious, we will feel unsafe. As we’ve learned in previous blogs, anxiety is triggered because our brain has detected a threat. That is the state of feeling unsafe—feeling we are in threat of being harmed in some way (physically or emotionally). In the face of a threat, if we could start to feel safe, it signals to ourselves that we have fully processed and worked through that perceived threat.
However, many times we aren’t able to fully control a circumstance or gather missing information. It’s even likely the things we are anxious about are out of our control. That is why this final task involves finding safety through acceptance.
Safety in the face of uncertainty
Because many of our anxieties stem from fear of the unknown or a sense that we are not in control, the best way to regain safety is to accept uncertainty. This frees us from the idea that we always need to be in control. If we continually think in controlling ways toward our circumstances, we will find ourselves anxious and afraid most of the time. Instead, we need to recognize our limitations. If we are able to acknowledge and accept the reality that some things will always be out of our control, it may just be easier to confidently face the unknowns and uncertainties of this life.
Looking to your past for help
One practical way to get better at recognizing what’s out of our control is to look to the past for help. Many times, the thing we lack is perspective. When we are in an anxiety-producing situation, it can be hard to zoom out and recognize that it will not always be this way. Looking to our past gives us the perspective we need to see how past circumstances played out. We can find safety and acceptance in knowing that we have faced uncertainty before, and we can succeed in facing it again.
Safety in what you do know
No matter what is producing anxiety in us, we are always in control of one thing: ourselves. Of course, in circumstances involving real threats to our safety or well-being, taking practical steps to ensure safety must be our first concern (for example, in instances when someone is being physically abused). Taking control of these circumstances may look like seeking out aid from someone who can help to get you out of that situation. But in instances where this is not the case, finding safety often looks like seeking to control our attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs about the circumstance.
Psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl wrote, “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.” This says a lot about what our internal posture can do for our external circumstances. Even in the darkest of moments, when our circumstances seem bleak or unchanging, we can find empowerment in our ability to manage and control what’s going on internally. Circumstances will inevitably make us feel unsafe, powerless, and out of control, naturally leading to fear and anxiety. But if we are able to recognize the lie (that we are completely out of control), we can remind ourselves that we have the ability to change our attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs about any circumstance.
Practically, this can look like utilizing a mantra or reciting a verse like Psalm 94:19: “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.” This helps ground us in what our “why” is. It can also look like seeking support from others who can help remind you what is true. And as believers, we can find ultimate comfort and peace that despite our current circumstances, we serve a God who is in control and who knows all things. In the face of anxiety, we are able to find ultimate safety in aligning our hearts with God’s truth.
Trusting the One in control
Anxiety is a scary feeling, and we often feel afraid because something is out of our control. Focusing on what is in our control empowers us to move past feelings of anxiety to a place of acceptance where anxieties and fears will dissipate. Ultimately, if we put our trust in the Lord and remind ourselves that He is in control, we can have the confidence to face our fear and anxiety no matter the circumstance.