If your anxiety pushes men away, you need some new information
If you’ve been dating and finding your connections end after about 3 months, it would be easy to think that you’re doing something wrong.
But what I’m here to say is, you’re probably not.
There is some information you need so you can let go of this thought and find it easier to “be yourself” on a date.
If there’s one thing I am familiar with it is the feeling of anxiety running through my body.
The tension in my stomach, the fluttering feeling in my chest, and the churning in my stomach.
What I have learned in the last year has done more to reduce my anxiety than the years I spent in therapy talking about it and learning coping strategies (nothing against therapy).
What I know now is two fold-
Anxiety is survival energy (primal fight/flight response) running in your nervous system.
It is often a call for more congruence that doesn’t feel safe.
Most people think anxiety is just worrying about something over and over again, and that is often a symptom.
But learning more about the electrical system we have running through our body- our nervous system taught me a lot about what we do and don’t have control over.
When I started to realize these electrical impulses and tension were based on instinctive ways of “reading a situation” (and not something innately wrong with me) I could see them as trying to help me.
If your body were trying to help you, what would you imagine it’s trying to help you do? (Get more rest? Stay safe from a new situation? Not repeat a painful experience?)
In my experience, the way we think about our experience really impacts the experience itself and sometimes the stories we are telling get derailed by our previous life experiences.
In fact, the stories we use as we are navigating life are often not even our own, but rather the interpretation of the people around us.
We can inherit trauma responses- including the painful stories we narrate- for many generations.
This is a way of passing on vital information (like “these berries are poisonous” or “run from lions”) that serves in keeping us alive and safe.
I share that to say, the thoughts that make you anxious are likely also trying to keep you safe.
Our job is to learn to *hear* them in a way that doesn’t create an emotional reaction (story).
Because the emotional response is often so quick after we think a thought, it is really difficult to control emotions.
It’s difficult to control thoughts, but when we learn how to direct our thoughts, it can be easier to feel fewer of the painful emotions as well.
This isn’t about not feeling, this is about recognizing what we can do to *feel* more supported in the moments we need it most.
The way I like to think of it is like a relationship between a man and a woman.
If your thoughts are masculine and your emotions are feminine, the goal is a partnership where they both exist in harmony.
But what happens when our thoughts are not empowering (they’re turned against us) is like a woman that is carrying something obviously heavy while a man watches.
This isn’t about women’s strength or emotions being the weaker experience, but rather about leveraging the natural gifts of each person to require less effort.
In the same way, your thoughts can do the heavy lifting so you can feel lighter emotions and make it easier for you to express yourself when you’re meeting someone new.
For example: when you’re on a date and want to know if he’s into you.
You may feel the anxiety creeping up in your body as you hear that thought going round and round.
“I wonder if he likes me”.
(ugh it gets me tension in my stomach just thinking about it) It feels like a ton of bricks.
Instead, if you were to ask a different question, you would notice a different experience.
Try this one instead: “He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to be. How do I feel about myself around him?”
What feels different shifting your focus like that?
What I began to notice is by creating a more empowering way of seeing the other person and the situation (reducing the internal pressure), so much of the instinctive need to be “on” was reduced.
Once I started to learn more empowering ways to see men, it really created a more fun, playful experience while I was on a date that let them see the silly side of me (which people naturally feel more at ease around).
Dating became much easier when I used this tool to bring my focus back to me (not like I’m on center stage, but really trusting that it was an obviously good sign that he was on the date and dropping the story that was making me feel insecure).
I will share the second side of anxiety next week but I want you to give this a try and let me know what you experience when you practice shifting the focus back to yourself and how comfortable you feel on a date.
Digging deeper into the stories that need to be recalibrated in your nervous system is counterintuitive and it is my specialty.
In fact, I share more about the relationship we have with our thoughts and feelings in my transformational self-study program Arise.
Module 1 is designed to help you gain some awareness about how you think about situations and how your feelings respond to your way of thinking so we can make shifts upstream that naturally help you release the pressure you may experience on dates.
The women that create the most empowering shifts are open-hearted, conscientious, and creative.
They are interested in personal development and healing and yet they have not found a way to translate that into their love life.
In addition to the 5 self-study modules in Arise, I offer 1:1 support which means we can really create some space to rewrite the narrative on a deeper level, healing generational trauma and transforming the way you show up around men. Email me (CSchandNutrition@gmail.com) if that feels like the support you’re ready for (don’t be shy if you have questions, I want to make sure it’s the right fit for you too).
