You Look Fine. But Inside, You’re Exhausted.

“You seem fine.”

It’s something people living with anxiety hear all the time.

And perhaps that’s part of this frustrating problem.

Because on the outside, you may look like you’re coping perfectly well. You go to work. You look after your family. You meet friends. You smile, laugh and carry on with your day.

But inside, it can feel very different. This was exactly me several years ago when I was a busy mum of 4 young boys living with the feelings and physical symptoms of anxiety.. Back then I didn't understand what was going on with me and I really struggled to find the help I needed. I was offered anxiety medications and talking therapy but thankfully it's been my journey of hypnotherapy training and learning about our mind and nervous system that has allowed me to fully understand anxiety and never fear it again. I feel incredibly confident to handle anxious feelings (and yes I still get them) but I know how to cope.

It took me a long time to understand what was actually going on with me. I thought the answer was to get rid of my anxiety, to stop feeling anxious and somehow get back to the person I was before. I didn’t understand then that anxiety is a completely normal human response, something we will all experience at times as life will always have more stressful times when we can feel increasingly anxious.

Instead, I was fighting the feelings, desperately trying to control them, worrying about why I was feeling anxious and wanting them to go away. This ongoing fight I was having within myself was actually keeping the cycle going. The more I feared anxiety and tried to get rid of it, the bigger the problem became for me, to the point it was all I was thinking about (and feeling in my body).

I started to believe that there was something wrong with me and found myself being labeled with Generalised Anxiety Disorder by my GP, a label which I believe really does not help. It certainly made me feel very disempowered, helpless and most importantly increasingly anxious!

What I understand now is very different. Anxiety isn't something we have to fear or never experience. It's a normal response that sometimes shows up when our mind or body senses a threat, understanding this and learning how to respond to it differently can change everything. I did it and you can too!

And this is the part I really want you to know: you can look completely fine on the outside and still be struggling enormously on the inside.

And this is the part I really want you to know: you can look completely fine on the outside and still be struggling enormously on the inside.

Your mind may be constantly busy, jumping from one worry to the next.

What if something goes wrong?
What if I can't cope?
What if something happens?
Did I say the wrong thing?
What if I've forgotten something?

You might find yourself replaying conversations, imagining worst-case scenarios or worrying about things that haven't even happened.

And when you finally get into bed at night, instead of switching off, your mind seems to turn the volume up.

Anxiety can be exhausting

Anxiety isn't always obvious.

It doesn't always look like a panic attack, and it doesn't always stop you from functioning. Sometimes it quietly sits in the background of everyday life, while you continue to do everything that is expected of you.

You go to work. You look after your family. You see friends. You get through your to-do list.

But inside, you might feel like you're constantly on alert.

It can look like:

• Constant overthinking
• Finding it difficult to relax
• Feeling tense or on edge
• Racing thoughts at bedtime
• Needing reassurance
• Avoiding situations because they feel overwhelming
• Feeling butterflies or a knot in your stomach
• Waking during the night with your mind racing
• Constantly preparing for something to go wrong
• Feeling exhausted from being “on alert” all the time

You may even have become so used to feeling this way that you don't remember what it feels like to have a quieter mind.

You might have started telling yourself:

“I'm just a worrier.”
“That's how my mind works.”
“I've always been anxious.”

But having anxiety doesn't mean there is something wrong with you.

Anxiety is a normal human response. Your mind and body are designed to respond when they sense a threat, and sometimes that response can become overactive or get triggered when you aren't actually in danger.

And this is where understanding anxiety can make such a difference.

The anxiety cycle

One of the things that kept me stuck was my relationship with the anxious feelings themselves.

When I felt anxious, I wanted the feeling to stop.

I would check how I was feeling, worry about the sensations in my body, analyse my thoughts and look for reassurance that I was okay.

The problem was that the more attention I gave to the anxiety, the more I noticed it and it became a vicious cycle of feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the anxious mind and uncomfortable feelings of anxiety I felt in my body. Understanding the close connection between our mind and physical body has been life changing for me.

When we are constantly checking, fighting or trying to control a feeling we can end up keeping our attention focused on exactly what we're trying to escape from.

That's why simply telling yourself, “There's nothing to worry about,” doesn't always make the anxious feeling disappear.

Understanding this was a huge turning point for me.

I began to realise that I didn't need to treat every anxious thought or physical sensation as something that needed fixing.

What if you could respond differently?

This doesn't mean you'll never feel anxious again. Life will always bring challenges. There will be stressful days, difficult situations and moments when your body reacts with anxiety. That's part of being human but the difference is in how we respond.

Imagine being able to notice an anxious feeling and think:

“Okay, I'm feeling anxious right now.”

Without immediately adding:

“What's wrong with me?”
“Why am I feeling like this?”
“How do I make it stop?”

Imagine not having to fear the physical sensations or being able to notice a worrying thought without feeling that you have to solve it.

Imagine going to bed without your mind running through every possible scenario, feeling more comfortable in your own mind, at peace and calmer, feeling more present in the actual moment you are living in right now.

For me, learning to understand anxiety rather than constantly fighting it changed everything. Don’t get me wrong I still feel anxious sometimes and that's ok. The difference is that I don't fear those feelings in the way I once did. I understand them, I recognise what is happening, and I have learned ways of responding that don't automatically pull me into the same cycle.

You are not your anxious thoughts

Another important part of my journey was learning that a thought is not a prediction.

Just because your anxious mind tells you something might happen doesn't mean it will.

An anxious thought can feel incredibly convincing and our physical bodies can respond as if that thought is very real but a thought is still just a thought.

So it's really important not to believe every thought your mind produces, don't analyse them and you don't necessarily have to make them go away.

Sometimes the first step is simply noticing:

“I'm having an anxious thought.”

This small shift can create some space between you and the thought, rather than allowing it to automatically take you down a familiar path of worrying, checking and seeking reassurance.

Where hypnotherapy comes in

This is where hypnotherapy became such an important part of my own journey. Rather than simply trying to push anxious thoughts away, hypnotherapy can provide an opportunity to explore the patterns behind the way you think, feel and respond. And then reprogram your mind to respond differently in the way you think, feel and behave, creating new patterns and new automatic responses.

For some people, anxiety can become a familiar pattern that the mind has learned over time but these patterns can be changed.

For me, it wasn't about learning how to make sure I never felt anxious again, it was about changing my relationship with anxiety. And that's the place I feel I'm in now. I still have anxious moments and I know I always will but that's ok, I'm human. But one thing is for sure I no longer live in fear of anxiety and I truly believe this has been life changing for me.

The goal isn't to become someone who never feels anxious. It's to become someone who no longer has to be afraid of feeling anxious.

You don't have to keep struggling alone

If you've lived with anxiety for a long time, you might have started to believe that this is simply the way you are. Maybe you've told yourself you're a worrier or you've become so used to overthinking that you can't imagine having a quieter mind. Or you are functioning perfectly well on the outside while feeling completely exhausted on the inside.

I want you to know that you don't have to simply accept that this is how things will always be.If you're curious about whether I could help you with both hypnotherapy and my experience of having helped many people too I'd love to have a chat with you.

There's no pressure to work with me at all, just an opportunity to talk about what you're experiencing and explore whether working together could be right for you.

You may have lived with anxiety for a long time. But you don't have to spend the rest of your life being afraid of it.

If this all resonates with you send me a message and let's have a chat.

For more support, explore how I work with anxiety and unhelpful thought patterns.