Alrighty, friends. This is a continuation of the first part in a series of posts on anxiety. Each post covers one distinct aspect of anxiety (existential, biological and genetic, evolutionary, psychological, and behavioral) and all aspects can comprise your (or anybody's) experience with anxiety. Although some might be more relevant than others. The purpose of this isn't to tell you how to 'cure' your anxiety and it's not a magic fix; the purpose is to think about anxiety in a different way.

I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it. Lots of counselors that I know think of anxiety as purely a psychological problem. That is, they believe anxiety is a result of your thoughts... and that's about it. My take is that there are many more pieces to the puzzle (see the list above of all the different aspects). When we start to understand all these aspects and see how they influence and/or show up in our own lives and in our experience of anxiety, then we can start moving forward in an effective and efficient way in managing and living with our anxiety.

This may be my favorite series of posts EVER.

First and foremost, I love anxiety. To experience it can be hell (and that's putting it mildly), but I love to talk about it with clients because a) it normalizes what they're going through, and b) it de-stigmatizes anxiety. Both of which are wins.

Secondly, this is a multi-part blog. Anxiety is a lot. There are many ways of looking at it and understanding it, and I'm going to try to do it some justice by writing about it from each of those angles. For those of you who are wondering, "Um.. what angles is she talking about?" These angles: existential, biological and genetic (not the same, but will be covered at the same time because they can be confusing to understand as separate), evolutionary, psychological, and behavioral.

Anxiety - Part II (Existential)

Anxiety - Part I (Existential)