Anxious? Here’s How To Get To The Underlying Cause And Miraculously Feel Calmer In 5 Minutes

by Margaret Paul

Are you prone to anxiety? Do you wish you could remain more calm and centered in the midst of stressful or tense situations? Or at the very least, calm down more quickly, instead of wasting the better part of the day in a state of worry and freak-out?

Anxiety is so ubiquitous in our society. It can take a heavy toll on your wellbeing.

Your stress hormones surge, your blood pressure rises, and your insides feel as if they’ve been put through a cheese grater.

You start to fuss and obsess. You can’t focus on anything. When friends try to tell you to calm down, it only makes you more upset.

Don’t they get it?

You keep repeating the triggering event in your mind, over and over, until it becomes a much bigger deal than it actually was. Still, you can’t help yourself from spinning. And spinning. And spinning.

You just want some relief from this.

Has this happened to you before? More than a few times? Then keep reading, because I’m going to give you a quick tip on how to feel calmer in just a few minutes using part of a process that gets to the underlying cause of your anxiety, instead of merely numbing it.

What’s Really Making You So Anxious? It’s Not What You Think

What are the emotional causes of anxiety?

It’s not people’s stupidity or rude behavior. It’s not your sudden bad luck. It’s not because life is a struggle or the people in your life are being selfish.

Anxiety happens when we don’t feel safe.

Many of us were brought up with a lot of false beliefs about what exactly helps us feel safe.

One of the biggest false beliefs is that we can create safety and calm through:

• productivity (or needing to be doing something when there’s nothing to be done)
• worrying and ruminating
• controlling other people
• getting angry
• going along with what others want

The reason these are false beliefs is that they don’t actually make us feel safe. They only serve to create or heighten our anxiety or make our problems worse.

For example, our anger gets us into arguments. We exhaust ourselves with work and productivity. We hurt the people we love by trying to control them. We feel ashamed of ourselves for being weak and conceding to something we don’t agree with.

The strategies that we subconsciously employ to feel safe are actually dysfunctional, because they create the very anxiety we’re trying to vanquish.

When we turn to these types of addictions or dysfunctional behaviors in order to not have to face our painful feelings of anxiety and fear, we are self-abandoning.

This means we are distracting from, denying, or numbing our feelings because we are afraid to fully face them.

This pattern of dysfunctional coping behavior starts in childhood…

The Counterproductive Way We Handle Anxiety

When we were little, we couldn’t handle our big, painful feelings, so we created these strategies of denial, distraction, or numbing in order to feel safe. This may have served us then, but it doesn’t serve us now that we’re adults.

Instead, it leads us to feeling even more anxious, freaked out, or panicky.

It’s completely counterproductive!

That’s because we’re not doing what we must do in order to really feel safe: tend to our deepest internal emotions, or our “inner child.”

When we fuss, worry, rage, or get busy doing, we’re ignoring that child and not listening to what he or she needs. We’re not speaking up for that child.

That makes the child feel unsafe, and it makes us feel anxious as a result.

The way to handle anxiety as an adult is to tend to your inner child, by listening to it, paying attention to it, and speaking up for it.

When the inner child feels heard, it relaxes. Which means YOU relax.

Here’s a quick little exercise to get you started:

How To Feel Calmer In 5 Minutes

The next time you feel panicked and freaked out, resist the urge to distract yourself with substances, spin out with worry, or complain about the situation to others.

Instead, find a quiet and private place where you can try holding a doll, blanket, stuffed animal, or pillow, and say the same kind of soothing things you would say to an actual child.

While you are holding that pillow or stuffed animal, imagine your loving, compassionate higher self—perhaps an older and wiser version of you, holding you.

“You’re okay, I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

“I’ll take care of this.”

“I’ve got your back.”

“I won’t let anything or anyone harm you.”

You can gently ask your inner child what he or she is feeling and thinking right now, preferably out loud. You can also answer out loud (to yourself).

This is a therapeutic process that gets to the root of your anxiety instead of just masking or numbing it.

It works to instantly calm you down because your upset inner child needs to know that he or she isn’t alone, and the only way he or she knows this is when you show up as the adult you are, willing to learn and ready to listen.

This 5-minute exercise represents just one small part of a 6-step process I co-developed to help those who struggle with painful feelings explore how they’re abandoning themselves and promoting anxiety, fear, anger, or panic. It then takes you through, step-by-step, what to do in order to be loving to yourself to get relief from these painful feelings.

Here’s how to take this 5-minute action deeper, and get the secret to putting an end to your internal struggles and emotional overwhelm for good.

The Secret To Ending Internal Struggles And Calming Overwhelming, Unpleasant Emotions

Our feelings are like our internal GPS system. They let us know whether we’re taking loving care of ourselves or whether we’re abandoning ourselves.

If you’re frequently feeling anxious, it’s a sign that you’re not taking loving care of yourself.

It’s a sign that you’re self-abandoning and ignoring your inner child—your true self.

My eBook, Thriving At Last, will show, in 6 simple steps, how to start paying attention instead of self-abandoning.

In Steps 1-2, you’ll learn how to open up to and face an entire range of emotions you may not even realize you’re having. You’ll be able to see what’s been blocking you from these emotions and what false beliefs are driving you to persist in dysfunctional patterns of behavior.

Merely being mindful of what you’re feeling underneath the anxiety and freak-out will help you feel more centered, so you can take loving action on your behalf.

Instead of spinning with worry and doubt, you’ll feel decisive and grounded.

In Steps 3-6, you’ll learn what you need to do, or say, to be more loving to yourself. You’ll know whether you need to walk away from a person or situation that isn’t serving your best interests. You’ll learn how to set better boundaries using your inner wisdom, which is the best resource you probably aren’t using.

Start reading Thriving At Last, and feel even better after completing Step 1:

Our anxiety won’t heal us. Neither will our unproductive attempts to tamp down our anxiety.

That’s because we can’t heal fear with fear. Only love heals.

Let me show you the way.

Blessings,

P.S. What is YOUR inner child trying to tell you?

If you’re frequently experiencing upset, anxiety, anger, procrastination, malaise, then it’s a red flag that you’re not really listening to what your inner child—your feelings self—is needing and wanting from you. The thing is, the longer you ignore it, the greater your discomfort and the more intense your painful feelings will become.

Solve this today—with love. Learn how here: