You have anxiety? Me too! I started feeling anxiety at such a young age that it now seems built-in to my day-to-day experience of life. I call it Foundational Anxiety. It feels like part of the foundation of who I am. So how do I live with it?

I’ve done a lot of work to understand the anxiety and it’s origin in my life. I’m learning to let go of “having to be perfect,” “having to prove myself,” “having to take care of other people’s feelings,” “having to be vigilant all the time, lest something go wrong!” But foundational anxiety can be suuuuper hard to uproot, and I still notice anxious thoughts on the regular.

One cool thing is that I’ve stopped fighting the thoughts. Now I can say, “Oh, I’m having some anxious thoughts right now. How interesting.” Being able to notice that without freaking out or beating myself up allows me some space and options for how I want to respond to it. Here are some of my personal go-to responses when anxiety is cramping my style:

1. I shake it out, dance it out, move move move it out! I let the anxiety take physical form, and out it comes in a flurry of disjointed, wild motion. I herky-jerk around the room until I feel the anxious energy dissipate. It feels good to just let go like that.

2. I vocalize the anxious feeling. I make the sounds of the anxiety, whatever comes out. It’s usually something like, “Scribble scrabble, scribble scrabble, ra ra ra ra, scraddle scraddle.” Again, I just keep going until the anxious energy has dispelled.

3. I narrate the anxiety. I say it out loud. “OMG I’m so anxious right now! I’m worried about my playdate with my nephews tomorrow. I’m worried that my nephews are gonna be high energy, they’re gonna be out of control, and I’m not going to be able to corral them, and they’re gonna start tearing the house up, and I’m gonna get angry and lose it. I’m gonna lose it!” Putting it all out there, out loud, makes it feel smaller to me.

All of those have in common that they get the anxiety OUT OF MY BODY. That feels soooo relieving.

I also help myself relax with breathing exercises. Breathing both physically relaxes me and also gives my mind something else to focus on instead of looping anxious thoughts.

1. Counting breaths – just inhaling and exhaling, counting the exhales (sets of 4). “Inhale, exhale-one. Inhale, exhale-two. Inhale, exhale-three. Inhale, exhale-four.” Then repeat.

2. Belly, chest, spine breathing – Inhale into the belly. Inhale a little more into the chest. Exhale imagining the breath moving down your spine and out your tailbone. Repeat 5-10 times.

I think anxiety will always be part of my experience in life. It’ll flare up now and then, and then and now. But these techniques really help me lessen the imposition and distraction of the anxiety. I invite you to try them and see what you notice!