Nurture Your Inner Child to Reduce Chronic Anxiety

Supressing Emotions, by burying feelings of anger, frustration, and grief can contribute to chronic anxiety. Many adults have made it past childhood without understanding how to identify emotions; even basic emotions such as sadness or anger. They were taught to hide their emotions, suck it up, and carry on about their day. As a result, many adults experience chronic anxiety. Consequentially, this can lead to behavioral, mental, interpersonal and spiritual chaos. Anxiety can also transfer to children and other family members. So, learning how to recognize symptoms of supressed feelings, how to identify what feelings are present at any given moment, expressing feelings in healthy ways, and learning how to communicate feelings to another person will help to manage chronic anxiety.

Anxiety can worsen over time when a person avoids particualr situations. It is impossible to will yourself past anxiety. The best way to confront anxiety is to move through it whole heartedly with acceptance and without avoidance. This is learning to actively cope with feelings so that they do not create bodily symptoms of anxiety.

Awareness is important. Understanding self-talk; how you talk to yourself, has a major impact on anxiety. Characteristics such as worry, doubt, self-criticism, and perfectionism create self-beliefs that are a way to avoid particular feelings and emotions of simply being human.

Anxiety seems to amplify with difficulties in interpersonal relationships. This often times is a result of diffulty expressing and communicating needs, and feelings to others. When a person is not able to set and inforce personal boundaries with others, anxiety can intensify. Learning to stand up for your rights and needs in a respectful way can help to manage the anxiety that arises from swollowing frustrations.

Factors of avoidance, self-doubt, and unclear boundaries all contribute to issues with low self-esteem. Growing up in a dysfunctional family where abuse, neglect or deprivation were experienced may have contributed to feelings of shame, inadaquacy, and insecurity. This leads to an ongoing cycle of avoidance of feelings and pain that contribute to self doubt, insecurity, and physical manifestations of anxiety. This is where nuruturing the inner child through exercises to strengthen the self esteem is critical.

Nature and Health Exercise To Nurture the Inner Child