Breaking the Pattern of Anxiety

And I froze. My heart started pounding and my mind started racing and I felt myself going into full panic mode.

My brain jumped ahead. What could he possibly want? What was I going to have to deal with now? I had already dealt with so much from this man, and thought I was done with him.

So I stood there at my kitchen counter and panicked. I was already playing out what would happen next in my mind from how to respond without setting myself up for more of his bullying, all the way to speculating why he'd messaged me in the first place. I hadn't even read the message yet.

The Pattern of Anxiety

Whenever we get the sense that our wellbeing is threatened, even when it's something small or routine or just a thought of something that triggers anxieties, the brain reacts by initiating the stress response, or the “fight or flight” response.

The stress response is normal, and sometimes even helpful. Though when our nervous system is overly taxed, or we encounter something that resembles a past trauma, that stress response can go off the rails.

Anxiety can be described as the escalation of the stress response beyond what is physically and emotionally comfortable. In order to protect us better, the mind stores information and creates patterns of behavior. So over time, we don't even need an actual threat to feel anxious. A memory, a thought, or even a shift in tone can flip that switch and then there you are, in a full out panic.

Some of the most powerful and effective ways to stop anxiety are techniques that work with our physiology and directly impact the brain. The methods I teach my clients use both Hypnosis and Neuro-Linguistic Programming to break out of the pattern of anxiety. Here's how they work.

Pattern Interrupts

You can think of the pattern of anxiety as being caught in a loop, or like a train running on tracks. Once you interrupt that loop or take out just one piece of that track, the mind has a difficult time finding its way back into the pattern. This gives us just enough of an opportunity to change direction and stop anxiety from taking over.

A pattern interrupt is one of the concepts of Neuro Linguistic Programming and is a way of changing a person’s mental, emotional, or behavioral state. Imagine someone clapping their hands very loudly in the middle of your sentence and being so surprised by the noise that you forget what you’re saying. Your mind fell off track, and couldn’t find it’s way back right away - leaving that space where you can now choose to change direction.

You can create your own pattern interrupts easily, and once they're learned, they can change the way we used to respond to things that used to trigger anxiety.

Create Your Pattern Interrupt

Because our subconscious minds are able to respond to something so quickly, it is more effective to interrupt a behavior than it is to try to catch it before it happens. Once you realize you're feeling stressed or anxious, this is where you can interrupt that behavior. 

You can use almost anything as a pattern interrupt. Abdominal breathing works great and creates a sense of calmness. Changing your physical position, jumping, or passing a ball between your hands works well. You can count forwards or backwards by three starting at 7. Clap your hands, sing a theme song, try to remember what's in your freezer. 

You get the idea. Pick something that has nothing to do with the anxious state you don’t want to be in anymore. The real trick to success here is to decide ahead of time what your pattern interrupt will be. Don't wait until you're in the moment to try to think of something. Decide now which pattern interrupt you'd like to use, so that it's already there ready for you.

When you use your pattern interrupt you'll notice that your mind is farther away from those anxious thoughts and you have some space to work in. Now that you've interrupted the pattern, you can allow yourself to begin to think about something else. 

Another benefit comes in as you continue to interrupt that pattern of anxiety. Every time you interrupt the pattern, you take another piece of that train track out, so that the mind is prompted to make new connections, so the next time that trigger comes up you find yourself responding in a different way. 

One of the things I teach my clients is to remind themselves that "this isn't then." The mind has noticed something that reminds you of a past event, and is having you react as if that past event is happening again. Remembering that "this isn't then" helps to put that back into perspective. Add in the fact that "right now, I'm okay" and you've got a powerful tool for grounding yourself and moving forward with all the skills, abilities, and resources at your disposal.

The Role of Hypnosis

Imagine what it will be like when you don't have to keep coming up with ways to deal with anxiety, because the anxiety just isn't there anymore. Hypnosis helps you give your mind better information, to work with you instead of against you.

And the best part is, hypnosis works directly with your mind, allowing you to rewrite patterns that no longer serve you, so you can find yourself feeling calm and confident again, with less stress and anxiety.