Having seen people work with anxieties and develop the basis for a healthier relationship within themselves, I also know that anxieties can change, subside, but rarely ever completely go away. That doesn’t mean that we’ve failed in managing our anxieties; rather, it means that once we have the experience of successfully parenting our anxious selves to the point of having the experience of safety, that we’re better able to deal with a similar situation when it comes up again. And I don’t want to contradict the experience of some who can say the anxieties have fully left their experience. That’s great, but it may not be the experience everyone has.
So I think that, for most, it’s very likely these things come up again. But the opportunity is to remind ourselves of what we’ve learned and apply it to the new version of that situation.
I think of it kind of like a spiral staircase. As time goes on and we live our lives, we grow and go upward, but it’s usually possible to look down or backward and see where we’ve been and come from. Where anxieties are concerned, that ability means we can see a new situation where old anxieties may be triggered, but if we figuratively look down (or back in time), we’re going to see an earlier situation or experience that was similar, that we successfully worked through so our anxieties weren’t holding us back.
It’s an opportunity to strengthen that relationship we’ve worked on inside ourselves: remembering that if we listen, accept our anxious selves, and parent them in present time to an experience of safety, that we will come to be more and more able to live the life we want to for ourselves and those we cherish around us.
What’s next? Going forward with life!