Consciously questioning anxiety can be highly beneficial in several ways, drawing on different approaches to understanding and managing this emotion. This active engagement with anxiety allows for a deeper understanding and can lead to more effective coping strategies.
One significant benefit is that questioning anxiety can help you recognise it as a feeling rather than a fact. By asking whether you need to hold onto an anxious feeling, you create a space to consider the situation without the immediate assumption that the feeling must dictate your reality. This allows for a re-viewing of the situation and can reveal that the presence of anxiety may not be as necessary as unconsciously assumed. This can provide an initial glimpse of what life could be like with less anxiety.
Furthermore, consciously questioning your anxiety can help you identify the triggers and underlying causes of your worries. By asking “What is causing the anxiety?” or “What are my Ideal Accomplishments? What exactly would be the best possible scenario in this particular situation?“, you can bring clarity to vague anxieties. This process of definition and exploration can counteract the “What if?!” scenarios that the subconscious mind might generate, leading to a reduction in overall anxiety. Inquiring “what you are telling yourself about life or yourself that’s scaring your emotional brain so badly that it has to stay anxious?” can also reveal the narratives that fuel anxiety.
Conscious questioning can also facilitate cognitive reframing. By actively questioning negative thought patterns and considering alternative perspectives, you can begin to reclaim control over your mind. For instance, instead of focusing on potential negative outcomes, you can ask “What is the worst that can happen?” and then evaluate the probability and your ability to cope with it. You can also reframe anxious thoughts by looking for the strengths that anxiety might bring, such as preparedness and heightened awareness.
Moreover, questioning anxiety can shift your focus towards solutions rather than the problem itself. Instead of dwelling on “why” you feel anxious, solution-focused questioning encourages you to ask “How would you like things to be?“. Questions like “What can you do about it?“, “What are my strengths and resources?“, and “Can I contact (or read about) someone who has successfully done this thing?” can help you identify and access your internal resources and develop proactive strategies.
In the context of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), consciously questioning can align with the principle of cognitive defusion, where you step back from your thoughts and observe them without getting caught up in their content. Asking yourself what you notice about your anxious thoughts, as suggested by mindfulness-based approaches, can help you see them as mental events rather than absolute truths.
From an “Embracing Anxiety” perspective, Conscious Questioning for Anxiety is a specific practice that helps bring anxiety’s information into the open for organisation and skillful response. By asking “What truly needs to get done?“, you can channel anxiety’s future-oriented focus into practical task management, making activation less destabilising.
Finally, by consciously questioning your anxiety, you can develop a deeper understanding of your unique anxiety responses and identify patterns of avoidance or control that may be unhelpful in the long run. This self-awareness, cultivated through inquiry, creates opportunities to make different choices and adopt more desirable coping behaviours.
In summary, consciously questioning anxiety offers several key benefits:
- Distinguishes feelings from facts, creating psychological space.
- Identifies triggers and underlying causes of anxiety.
- Facilitates cognitive reframing of negative thoughts.
- Shifts focus from problems to solution-finding.
- Promotes cognitive defusion by observing thoughts.
- Helps organise anxiety’s information for action.
- Develops self-awareness of anxiety responses and unhelpful patterns.
By actively engaging with your anxiety through conscious questioning, you can move from feeling overwhelmed by it to becoming an active agent in managing it.