If You’re Anxious Raise Your Hand 🙋♀️
I would bet 95% of you will continue reading because anxiety is in full-force for women in midlife.
And for good reason. This is a time in our lives when the demands placed upon us are greater than ever. We also tend to see things more clearly, as they really are instead of how we've been making lemons out of lemonade, and the new perspective can throw us into a tailspin.
Welcome to this wonderful midlife journey. While this is a time when we undergo incredible transformations and reflect on ourselves and our lives, it is also a time when anxiety likes to make an uninvited appearance. It's that special time when we're gracefully (or not so gracefully) straddling the line between youth and wisdom, all while managing our relationship with our new best friend...anxiety.
Midlife is a time of self-discovery, to step into who you are, embrace your quirks, and flaunt your scars and wrinkles as a map of great a great life. We are profoundly grounded and radiate wisdom. As Gen X women, we find ourselves leaning into our Gen X superpowers like resilience, independence, loyalty, and nurturer. Those superpowers are amazing when we need to pull them out, but they can amplify our anxiety even more so, especially as midlife demands take over. These expectations keep us striving, pushing and demanding more of ourselves, adding to the anxiety we already possess.
This is a time when our hormones are all over the map which can throw off our internal chemical balance, amplifying our angst. And don't forget the psychological mindf&*k of midlife. Come on, we can all be fine with aging, but we look different, we feel differently, we think differently. Couple that with the worry around 'time life' and boy oh boy, no wonder these years can be our hardest years.
While we, as women, have a higher predisposition to anxiety disorders and experience anxiety more intensely, we are the smartest and wisest generation. This means we don't have to accept our fate, but instead know, without a doubt, we have what it takes to face anxiety head-on and emerge stronger, wiser and more fabulous than ever.
Do One Thing: This is our motto, take one action to change your situation or circumstance, to ease the uneasy. We want to explore three smart strategies to help regulate anxiety during this extraordinary chapter in your life.
Practice and cultivate mindful serenity: Imagine your special place where you can most easily escape from reality. Go there, either physically or just in your mind. Create this space that is just for you. Be alone with your thoughts, let them flow without judgment and acknowledge how you are feeling, then release the worry.
Rename the anxious emotion: In the realm of emotions, words hold immense power. When it comes to anxiety, a simple shift in language can make a remarkable difference in our mental well-being. It's time to learn linguistic transformation. Renaming anxious feelings to 'worry' or 'concern' can have a profound impact on our mental health. Both worry and concern, for example, carry a gentler tone and will shift you to a more constructive mindset.
You do not have anxiety: Watch the labels you put on yourself because those labels become wrapped tightly into your being. Instead of saying, I have anxiety or I am anxious, a simple shift to I feel anxious will separate you from your emotions. When we label ourselves, it becomes part of who we are and the more we can get our emotions under control (like anxiety) the less comfortable we are because it is a part of us. Who are we if we are not anxious. Embedding ideas, like this, into our subconscious will create a circuit where our brain scans for reasons to feel anxious.
No one is disputing the pressures of midlife. I know them. I feel them. Our goal is always to show you we do have more control than we think and the mind is a powerful tool.
