Anxiety Reduction is More About Identity Than Strategy
Anxiety that tips the scales past the point of being helpful—the kind that makes you miserable rather than more capable of performing—is about identity. It’s about not knowing quite who you are and why you are where you are.
Yes, I have a lot of opinions about using certain strategies, mindsets, or evidence-based interventions over others, but that’s probably not what is going to bring about the best and most effective long-term solution to your anxiety.
You see the most obvious examples of this identity issue in social and performance anxiety. Most of the time, if someone is struggling with social anxiety or performance anxiety to the degree that they feel they need to come to counseling for it or read a book about it, there is an issue with knowing what their purpose and God-given personality really is, or there is an issue with accepting what it is.
They are struggling with an underlying theme or belief that they need to be something that is difficult for them to be, or believing that how they are most naturally is inadequate for the role they are trying to fill.
People who aren’t natural public speakers or aren’t natural at working a room—which is most of us—try to put on a persona or use lines that are not in line with their personality. This inevitably creates a ton of anxiety in them. Maybe they managed to pull it off for one public speech or one party, but all that really happens after that on a mental and emotional level is they are anticipating the next performance and wondering if they can improve on the last one. They didn’t really grow in confidence; they only grew in that feeling of pressure to operate at a high level again next time.
We feel unnecessary pressure when we try to mimic those around us who have natural abilities that we don’t have. We also feel pressure when we don’t take risks and reveal what it is we do have to say and contribute. Either way, you aren’t operating out of a solid sense of who you are and why you’re here—your identity.
To make this a little more practical, let’s look at what happens when my friends and I get together to hang out at Waffle House on the occasional Saturday evening. This group of guys happens to be some of the fastest-thinking, funniest, and wittiest group I’ve ever been around.
When I try to keep up with that, I can feel the pressure rising in me. When I shut down and don’t try at all to offer anything because I start feeling insecure, I feel the pressure rising in me.
There are strategies for how to handle this problem, but even strategies can lead to a sense of increased pressure about nailing the strategy. What I’ve had to establish before I go into situations like this is more of a sense of identity.
So, who am I as I try to handle the low roar of anxiety as I drive to the Waffle House?
I’m too serious for my own good. If you show me a meme, I’ll probably want to turn that into commentary about some deeper, pervasive belief in our cultural moment that made that meme possible. Real fun, right? But it is what it is.
I’m funny enough. I’m not as fast or as witty as my friends, but I can pick my spots. I don’t have to keep up, and I don’t have to shut down. I have something to offer. It normally gets a little laugh, sometimes moderate, sometimes it doesn’t.
Why am I here? I’m here to enjoy and here to love (Matthew 22:36–40). This identity is not easily worked into your bones and into your soul, but every step toward believing it and living it more fully is a step toward fullness of life. It’s a step toward self-forgetfulness and increased meaning, purpose, and enchantment in everyday life.
How does this play out when it goes well? I’m flexible rather than pre-planned and rehearsed. I’m outwardly focused rather than inwardly focused. I’m connected to something that seems much more lasting than how I mentally grade my performance on the way home.
Sometimes I talk a lot, but other times I talk very little. Hopefully, this is less based on my mood and more based on my goal of doing whatever love requires, but I try to let go of that much analysis for the sake of not growing self-absorbed again. When this goes well, I’m calmboth inwardly and externally. I don’t ruminate on it too much on the way home, and I was able to enjoy the experience more. The same goes for any public speaking I do.
I’ll be working out (and working into my soul) my identity for the rest of my life, but even knowing and naming just a surface knowledge of who I am and what I’m there for is far more powerful than any technique.
