Anxiety in relationships

Anxiety seems to be very prevalent at the moment and it is understandable why. We are homebound more and depending on whether you have always lived with anxiety or whether it is more recent the approach has to be tailored to each individual.

Anxiety in relationships can come from various causes. Are you naturally an anxious person? Have you had a difficult childhood? Uncertain childhood? Are your needs being met? What personality type are you? High needs? Maybe too scared to speak out leading to suppressed emotions and needs?

All this and so much more can start a behaviour stemming from anxiety or even creating anxiety where there once was none. Anxiety comes from worry or fear or both. As a dual practitioner of counselling and naturopathy my understanding that anxiety can have a biological cause as well. Yes in genetic predisposition. However, if our hormones and neurotransmitters are out of whack then we feel anxiety more keenly than the average person.

We can over think or we can ruminate. Anxiety can cause us to act impulsively or even to not act. Is there a lack of satisfaction in your life? Do you feel like you are stuck and maybe even not heard?

In relationships we can feel anxious that we are enough or not enough. Are we doing enough to make our partner love us and will they stay interested? Will they leave us or will they be true to us?

In these situations we look at what makes you tick. Have you had attachment issues as a child? Were you from a happy family and were you raised in a stressed environment? Having a stable upbringing is so important but not everybody has had that. If you were from a broken family or if the environment at home was abusive or toxic then the modelling from the adults in the family could be unhealthy.

It can affect our love relationships.

Our expectations may be too high or maybe not high enough. We choose our partners for so many different reasons and sometimes it is sad to say that sometimes they are not meant to last a lifetime. Maybe they are a lesson for us. To show us what we really want. To grow and develop better self worth.

How to handle anxiety in relationships? Again this is a very wide topic. So many variables and stories so one solution is not possible to cover all of them. Each case is individual and needs individual attention. First of all I would say get counselling individually. Work through your issues. Be mindful in your communication style. Try to interrupt wrong thinking and replace it with reflective communication. What I mean is this: try to 'hear' the other person. Control the breath in order to stay present. Take as long as you need to respond. Use words that are noninflammatory such as "I feel...." "This makes me feel...." "It would be so good if we/you could do ......" so as to avoid sounding like you are accusing them. If there are disagreements and you feel yourself escalating then maybe politely excuse yourself to go take a breather. Maybe take a deep breath and explain to the other party lets have a time out. Acknowledge what you hear them saying and calmly tell them what you are saying.

If there are anxious fears of loss then try to counter argue the reasons you think you will have the loss with reasonable explanations of why you won't have the loss. Sometimes we magnify and then create the fear. We have a script we have followed that comes from past hurts.

We are trying to protect ourselves by rerunning the script. But try to stop. See that this is an old script. What you have now is not what you had then. Trust. Be brave. Stay centred and calm. You got this.

As you can see this is a huge topic and I have only scratched the surface.

I will write more on this next time. For now thankyou for reading and take care.

Lisa