Here is the full transcript of Tim Box’s talk titled “How To Stop Feeling Anxious About Anxiety” at TEDxFolkestone conference.
In this talk, Tim Box, a therapist and author, discusses his personal experiences and professional insights on managing anxiety. He begins by acknowledging the naturalness of feeling anxious in certain situations, emphasizing that anxiety itself is not always harmful. Box explains that anxiety is an emotion that signals when something important requires our attention, challenging the notion that it should be completely eliminated.
He shares his personal journey of overcoming debilitating anxiety not by fighting it, but by understanding and listening to it. Box stresses the importance of not viewing anxiety as an enemy but as a part of the subconscious mind’s mechanism to protect and guide us towards happiness. He advocates for kindness and self-compassion, noting that treating oneself with understanding and positivity can transform one’s relationship with anxiety.
Ultimately, Box concludes that accepting anxiety as a natural part of the human experience can lead to a healthier, less anxious approach to life.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, my name’s Tim Box, and I feel anxious. I feel anxious about whether or not I’m going to remember what I came here to say. I feel anxious about whether or not you guys are going to agree with what I came here to say. And if I’m completely honest, up until about 30 seconds ago, I felt a little bit anxious about the possibility of tripping up this rug on the way out.
But I think feeling anxious about these things, while seemingly unhelpful, is perhaps understandable. After all, it’s important to me that I say exactly what I came here to say, that my message gets heard, and that I achieve this without falling flat on my face. Right now, anxiety makes sense.
But there was a time in my life when anxiety really didn’t make sense. I used to feel the kind of anxiety that meant I would struggle to even walk into a room with this many people in it, let alone stand at the front and give a talk. Now obviously, something has changed since then, otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here now. And I think the main thing that’s changed is that whilst I still experience anxiety, I no longer suffer with it. But I didn’t achieve this shift by trying to get rid of it.
Understanding Anxiety
Now don’t get me wrong, back in the day, that’s exactly what I was trying to do. I would do all I could to avoid any anxiety-inducing situation. I would arrange my daily movements, specifically avoiding social situations. If I felt anxiety starting to flare up, I’d run away.
I’d do all I could to retreat to safety, and then employ various distraction techniques to take my mind away from the horribly uncomfortable feeling that something bad was about to happen. But it turns out, that was my big mistake. You see, you don’t get rid of anxiety by trying to get rid of it. Truth is, you don’t get rid of anxiety at all.
Now by some twist of fate, or perhaps as a direct result of what I went through back then, I now work with anxiety sufferers to help them understand and ultimately overcome those feelings. I’ve spent a large part of the last 10 years talking to anxiety sufferers about their anxiety. And whilst all those I spoke to had their own individual story, their own personal journey with anxiety, every single one of them at some point expressed exactly the same desire that I used to have, the desire to get rid of anxiety completely. Can you imagine if we all achieved that?
The Role of Anxiety
A world without anxiety. What would that even look like? Well, for example, this room would probably look empty. Anxiety is the feeling that tells us when something is worth demanding our attention.
So in some small way, it was anxiety that reminded you you had somewhere to be today. Without it, none of us would have turned up, and those that accidentally did would be watching an empty stage. None of us would have businesses, careers, because we wouldn’t have regarded study and gaining qualifications as worth bothering with. And none of us would have boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands or wives either here or at home, because we just wouldn’t have seen the value of washing and dressing up to make a good impression on that all-important first date that we probably forgot to turn up to.
So it seems anxiety is important. But of course, there are those that don’t feel anxiety. There are two very distinct groups. The first group, dead people. Dead people don’t feel anxious. You know, and I think that’s okay. They’re dead. They’ve got enough to not worry about.
The second group would be those we might refer to as psychopaths. Those people that for whatever reason lack the ability to have any concern for the consequences of theirs or anyone else’s actions. Now, I don’t know how you were brought up, but when I was a kid, I was given the distinct impression that being part of either of these two groups would be undesirable. So if being free of anxiety would be such a bad idea, why do we regard feeling anxious so negatively?
Dealing with Anxiety
Now I think the very obvious answer to that question is that it feels horrible. When we suffer high levels of anxiety over a long period of time, it can very quickly start to dominate our life, even go on to define our existence. Of course we’re going to try and get rid of it. But what if we can’t?
What if all of our attempts to control our anxiety response ultimately fail? Then where do we go? I think most people go along to their local doctor.
And I should state at this point, I’m a big fan of doctors. They’ve saved my life on more than one occasion, and I feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for them when it comes to treating anxiety issues, because it’s really not what they signed up for, and it’s certainly not what they’re trained for.
When it comes to anxiety, doctors are restricted in three important ways. Firstly, time. You get somewhere between eight and 11 minutes for an appointment with your local GP, which is nowhere near enough time to effectively diagnose and treat an anxiety issue.
Secondly, knowledge. Doctors are taught that anxiety is a mental health condition, and yet they’re not mental health specialists. If a doctor wishes to become one of those, they have to train for a further five or six more years to become a psychiatrist.
And thirdly, resources. Doctors are given precious little support when it comes to actually treating anxiety. They can put you on a 12 to 16 week waiting list for some form of counselling, but by the time we got to the doctor, we’re probably in such desperate need of assistance that being told we now have to wait three or four months to talk to somebody is not helpful. That leaves the only other option, medication. I’m not a fan of medicating anxiety.
Now, whilst I’m well aware that taking drugs can change the way we feel, back in the 90s I witnessed many of my friends on a Saturday night discovering that very simple truth. But with medication comes all sorts of unpredictable and unpleasant side effects. And in the unlikely event we do find the drug that agrees with you, that calms your anxiety response without any side effects, then of course it’s all too easy to now regard ourselves as dependent on that drug. And then the possibility of developing a dependency on our anti-anxiety medication just becomes something else to feel anxious about.
The truth is, a medical solution to a non-medical problem will not solve that problem. It will at best just patch over it for a short while. Now, the irony here is that most of the people I’ve spoken to, they already know all of this. They know the doctor is not a great option for our anxiety, which then begs the very obvious question, so why do we go there?
I believe we go there because these days we are told anxiety is an illness. And this is perhaps the one certain result of going to the doctor for your anxiety. You will come away from there labeled with an anxiety issue, maybe even diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, and now you have a brand new thing to feel anxious about. During these thousands of conversations I’ve had with anxiety sufferers, there was a common thread.
Anxiety as an Emotion
When asked what they felt most anxious about, the answer was generally how anxious they felt, and if it would ever stop. This concern is almost entirely created and fueled by the idea that anxiety is an illness. Anxiety is not an illness. Anxiety is an emotion.
Every emotion is important. Every emotion has a purpose. Every emotion is a natural and vital part of our human experience. In that respect, anxiety is no more sinister than any other feeling we might have. If we didn’t feel anxiety, we’d be one emotion short of the full set. That really would be a disorder. I want to share with you now an analogy that might go some way towards helping us understand our emotional responses.
I want you to think of your mind like a ship. Every ship has a captain and a crew. In this analogy, the captain is your logical, rational, conscious part of your thinking. It’s the part that knows where you want to go, why you want to go there, and has a fair idea of how you think you’re going to get there. Unfortunately, the part of our mind that has its hands on all the things that steer and sail our ship, that’s the crew.
That’s your subconscious. Your subconscious is in charge of all of your automatic responses, so your patterns of thought and behavior, your belief systems, and perhaps most importantly, your emotions. Your crew sails your ship by triggering the appropriate emotional responses. So, for example, if we regard something as dangerous, our crew might trigger the feeling of fear.
We’ll become uncomfortable, and this feeling will encourage us to move away from the danger to return to comfort. If we believe we’ve been wronged, a member of our crew might trigger anger. We’ll energize, and our focus will be drawn towards taking whatever action is necessary to right the wrong. So, what about anxiety?
Why do our crew trigger that particular emotion? Now, no doubt every single one of us will have our own idea about what anxiety means to us, but put simply, anxiety is the emotion that tells us when something is too important to simply lose focus of. It’s the voice of concern about an upcoming event or situation that refuses to be ignored. It’s the crew saying to the captain, “You need to pay attention to this.”
Understanding the Role of Anxiety
Now here’s the important part. Your crew are operating on one very simple principle: they’re trying to find the best strategy for the most happiness. Yes, safety is important. After all, safety is a huge component part of happiness.
We can’t feel happy if we don’t feel safe. But ultimately, at all times, your crew are trying to steer you in the direction of happiness. As the American author John Shedd once wrote, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
So even when your crew are making you feel awful, telling you things about yourself you really don’t want to hear, those seemingly self-destructive thoughts, “I’m not good enough,” “I’ll never succeed,” “I’m unlovable,” even these harsh words are simply designed to steer you away from any situation that might lead to an unhappy experience. They’re not trying to sink the ship, they’re just trying to sail it away from the stormy seas that we fear we might not be able to cope with. But every decision your crew makes is based upon the things you’ve learned throughout your life.
Recognizing and Responding to Anxiety
And because many of these things were learned when you were very young, some of them no longer apply. Some of them were just wrong in the first place. What this means is that as far as anxiety is concerned, your crew will very often make mistakes. But just because they get things wrong doesn’t make them the enemy.
Anxiety is the enemy. People want to throw those crew members overboard. And I can understand that. After all, if we regard a part of our mind as now actively trying to destroy us, then of course it would be easy to view it as the enemy.
If we then believe our mind has actually turned against us, it’d be easy to conclude our mind is broken. It’d be easy to believe that person that told us the way you feel means you are ill. I started this talk by telling you I used to suffer debilitating levels of social anxiety. So, how did I get control of that?
What did I actually do to reduce it? There are three main things I did that I think helped me change. The first thing I did, I refused to believe I was ill. Of all the things I felt anxious about, I decided not to feel anxious about feeling anxious.
Transforming the Relationship with Anxiety
I recognized every time I felt anxiety, it wasn’t random, it was always triggered by a situation or a thought process. Once I understood this, I could do the second thing. That’s to listen to my crew. I’d spent too long pushing them away, trying to ignore what they were telling me.
When you ignore someone with an important message, they might just start to speak louder to get heard. If you continue to ignore them, they might start to shout. The only way I was going to stop anxiety from shouting at me was to listen to it, to hear what it was saying to me. I sought to understand what my crew were trying to achieve with these feelings and to turn my enemies into my friends.
And the funny thing is, when you start listening to what your mind’s trying to tell you, you can stop shouting. When the crew stops shouting, the captain can be heard. That’s the point where your more logical thinking gets to have some input. You get to decide.
Is this feeling appropriate or inappropriate? Is it helpful or unhelpful? Once you have the ear of your crew and you know what you would want from them, the third thing, maybe the most important thing, is to always, always be kind to them. If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent a large part of your life beating yourself up over the things you did wrong or the things you didn’t quite do right or just about the way you feel.
Embracing Anxiety as a Part of Life
For all the criticism and negativity you’ve received from others throughout your life, the person who’s given you the most is probably you. This has the cumulative effect of destroying morale aboard your ship. A demoralized crew equals low self-esteem. And low self-esteem means now the slightest challenge will create anxiety.
But the good news is, you can repair the damage that’s been done very easily simply by deciding from now on to always talk to your crew, to yourself, with kindness and positivity. People do their best work when they feel empowered to achieve. Your crew are no different. Put simply, if you beat yourself up, you just end up beat.
If you build yourself up, who knows how far we can reach? This is why I think it’s okay, maybe even important, to feel anxiety every single day of our lives. It means the crew are still sailing the ship and still trying to get it in the right direction. It’s the part of you that makes you reread the important email before you send it.
It’s the part that makes sure you check your keys are in your pocket before you slam the front door on your way out in the morning. And it’s the part that makes your heart skip a little bit when you think about giving that important presentation at work or in a theatre. Truth is, I still feel anxious all the time. For example, every Friday morning, I wake feeling anxious because Friday is dustbin day.
Acceptance and Understanding
My crew wake me with the thought, “I need to go and take the bins out.” Now, it’s not debilitating anxiety, it’s barely a whisper. It’s just loud enough to get heard, and then when I’ve taken the bins out, it’s gone. And this might seem like a really trivial example, but this is exactly the sort of thing that will trouble us if we believe the way we feel is not normal.
I wonder if back in the day when I’d suffered high levels of anxiety, if I’d been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, would I now dread Friday mornings? Would I feel anxious about the prospect of my anxiety flaring up again? Would I curse myself for still not being free of anxiety? There tend to be two popular positions on high anxiety.
The first states, it’s a mental illness. It’s the way you’re wired, there’s little we can do about it. The second states, it’s not real, it’s all in your head, you just need to get over it. Neither of these positions are helpful, and both are wrong.
The last 10 years have taught me the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Of course, it’s real; we don’t ask to feel this way, and yet we do. Yet even though we feel this way now, doesn’t mean we can’t change it. The first step towards changing it is to accept it.
Once we accept anxiety as a natural part of our human experience and treat it not as our enemy, but as a trusted friend, you’ll be surprised how quickly the crew just get back to sailing the ship, and we start to feel a lot less anxious about anxiety. So, how do you feel today? Do you feel anxious about something? Good, that means you’re alive.
It means there’s a part of you trying to tell you something it regards as important. Have a listen, it’s here to help. My name is Tim Box, and now, 18 minutes later, I feel a lot less anxious. Thank you very much.