hi so I wanted to talk to you guys today about a relatively new insight that I've had now it's
not a new insight in terms of like totally new information but it's a new connection
and a new way to describe something that I think might be really helpful for all of you
so for those of you who know me you know that I worked as a psychotherapist for about 20 years
before starting this online Channel and coaching programs and one of my specialties was anxiety
so a lot of the people who follow me right now are very interested in how do they lower their anxiety
how do they deal with you know living a happier life right and if you are new here by the way
welcome glad you're here if you like this please do subscribe it's a big help and I do have a ton
of videos on anxiety so you can also check all of those out and also recently I began developing a
series on boundaries so I have a boundary program and I've been putting videos out on boundaries and
I know the people who are following me primarily for anxiety are not necessarily checking in with
the boundary videos and vice versa so as I was thinking about this I realized that anxiety is
actually fundamentally a boundary problem and I want to explain what I mean by that and I do think
this might help you understand really some of the reasons that anxiety is actually not useful even
though our brains try to convince us that it's useful there's a part of us that knows it's not
useful and knows it's too much but another part of it is like oh but I better worry about this right
so a basic concept in boundaries is that they are about where we begin and where we end where
someone else begins where they end right what we're responsible for what we have control over
what we have influence over right those are two different things and then really what's totally
out of our hands so good boundaries are really about understanding understanding and navigating
that space of where we have control where we don't have control troll what's healthy self-care what's
reasonable caretaking of somebody else how do we navigate that space of being an individual
right individuating as well as the fact that we are interconnected not only with other humans
but also with the planet also with the universe right we are interconnected with others and our
boundaries are often about understanding that interconnectedness so you're probably listening
to this and you're saying okay Barbara what does that have to do with anxiety so there's sort of
two different paths we could go down here but I want to start with the main one which is that
anxiety is basically a boundary problem all right bear with me so for example you are worrying about
something if you are worrying about something and there's something you can get up and do today then
you get up and you do it right if there is nothing you can do about it then your anxiety is going
over and over and over something that is out of your control and I we often get confused about
these things so we often might think we have control over something when we actually don't
right but often we know we're worrying about something that's out of our control so that's
basically a boundary issue it's basically not accepting where I end and where the universe
begins right and this is going to bring in the question of spirituality so again bear with me
because there's many different ways to look at this and I want to give you a couple examples okay
I'm going to start with sort of a silly example let's say you're planning your ideal wedding date
right and you want it to be outside beautiful day in June in the Northeast and in a beautiful garden
right so you have the whole thing planned and then you worry about the weather whatever it rains what
if it thunderstorms and you worry well you have no control over the weather so what can you do you
can have a plan B and then you can also refocus that the important thing is the event and the
Gathering and the being with loved ones and not that it necessarily is going to exactly match the
picture in your head because we don't have control over the weather so that's sort of an easy one for
people to understand but in those situations many people would continue to worry and worry
and worry and what a damper right what a damper on a time in life that really should be enjoyed and
exciting and instead it's a worry okay let's take a slightly more complicated situation where you're
worried family members are going to fight at the wedding okay really unpleasant we don't want that
to happen it's out of our control right I mean obviously you could try to put some things in
place or I don't know keep them separated there's some things you can do but at the end of the day
that is also probably out of your control so the worrying about it is actually actually a boundary
problem your anxiety is not willing to accept where you end and others begin your anxiety is
confused right your anxiety thinks that by going around and around and over and over this issue
like some solution will pop up right but probably if that really is an issue in the family no matter
what solution you come up with might work might not work how do your control and obviously we
can go to much more intense situations major storms coming there's all sorts of things that
we can feel anxious about right life is uncertain unpredictable we don't always want to accept that
and our anxiety mechanism is a very very old part of the human brain like it's a very ancient part
of evolution and it gets over activated in us today how we live compared to what we used to
do so let's say major storm coming okay no knowing that and being prepared for it super useful do you
need to leave the area right do you need to put in place some safety measures what do you need to put
in place and then after that after you do what you can that's reasonable right so a reasonable amount
of worry to take care of a problem you can do something about awesome but then if your brain is
worrying worrying worrying it's a boundary problem because really what happens in that storm is not
up to you so the reason I bring spirituality into this and no matter what your beliefs right like
what I'm saying does not require any particular spiritual belief but there is a spiritual element
in recovering from anxiety because if you believe in God then whose hand is this in it's in God's
hands right if you don't believe in a particular God and you believe in the universe right or just
nature well it's in Nature's hand it's not in your hands seeing ourselves as part of the larger whole
can be super helpful right we are integrated with other humans we are part of a universe and so this
actually comes to accepting where we are powerless right people hate feeling powerless and I get it
right nobody wants to feel powerless but when it comes to those things that we truly are powerless
over accepting that really does help us move on and it helps that anxious thing happening in the
head move on so I'm curious if this concept of thinking of anxiety as being a boundary problem
a boundary problem of knowing where you end right where you begin where you end and where the
universe picks up or where another person picks up and that's where we are trapped in anxiety is
when we want somebody else to do something and we have no control over that or we want the universe
to do something and cooperate and we have no control over it so I'm curious if that concept
makes sense to you or you feel like it might be a helpful way to think about it and then
the big question right the big question of kind of like what are we humans doing here like what
is this all about like the big picture and that's where spirituality and some sense of being part
of a whole can be helpful a belief in a higher power can sometimes be helpful for people and
if you don't have that and you simply believe in science well that's an answer too right really any
way that your sort of big picture view of the universe can be incorporated and I'm
also wondering whether that makes sense to you so yeah give me some comments let me know I think the
concept of a benevolent higher power right I think that's easy for people to grasp but when I just
said that even if you simply believe in science it is sort of a comfort that may not make sense to
people so I'm just going to explain that briefly but if you really truly believe solely in science
there's like nothing else happening except for the chemical you know scientific reactions well then
we're born and then we will die and then we will be regenerated as trees and mushrooms and grass
and other things we will go back into the universe scientifically right taking away the concept of a
different level of existence right so if it's all scientific okay how can we have the best time now
and I don't mean like the partying best time but I mean how can we be the happiest and live
the most joyful lives we want to and help other humans animals the planet wherever we'd like to
put our focus our families simply our families simply ourselves how can we take the uncertainty
that exists in the universe and be as happy as we can today like let's make this worth it let's make
the best use of this life this gift that we've been given this life that we can by focusing on
what we can do to improve things right and get out of this tortured state of always worrying
about things outside of ourselves so I did say earlier that there's another approach to the whole
anxiety and Boundary issue which is that setting boundaries can make people anxious feeling anxious
makes us not set boundaries so that's sort of a more typical line of conversation and I will be
bringing that into my boundary videos but on this one which really is seeing anxiety as a problem of
knowing where we end right hope this was helpful let me know if you're not subscribed to my Channel
Please Subscribe if you like this video give it a like it's a big help and I'll see you next week