Anxiety is a problem for a great deal of our fellow human beings. But what if I told you that what is hidden inside that anxiety is the creative energy of our ambition. The home of “strong desires to do or achieve”, as ambition is defined.

We all have ambition, from the people with the greatest amount of excited energy to the most stoic and subdued individuals that exist. There is a bubbling of creative impulses in all of us. And yes that means you as well.

If you respect and live right by this ambition it is possible to bring about the life of your dreams. But neglect it or use it irresponsibly, and find yourself in a world that is starving with meaning and ripe with anxiety.

Anxiety and Stress.

You don’t have to be a Psychiatrist to understand what anxiety is. It is an uncomfortable pest that enhances fearful thinking, distorting the way we see the world. Anxiety will leave a person feeling worried, unsafe and doubtful of abilities, as well as overly leary of the intentions of others.

Anxiety is not the same as stress but it is built upon stress. Meaning that the more stress builds, the more prone to the anxiety we will be.

This, of course, isn’t to say that stress is bad. In fact, a certain amount of stress is essential to having a life that is challenging and rewarding.

When we feel stressed it means there is a challenge at hand. It means our current skills have met up with a situation where we may not believe they are up to the task. That stress can be a motivator, it is the energy coming from inside of us to wrestle success out of the current opportunity. But if that potential motivator is resisted too often, gnawing anxiety will begin to grow.

A healthy you is destined for stress and a reasonable amount of struggle. It is how you learn, and how you grow and shape yourself into a well-rounded individual. But if you wish to keep this stress from growing into anxious feelings you better learn to listen to the impulses that are at the heart of the growing stress.

Anxiety Hints at Your Ambition.

When it comes to anxiety, like anything else in this world, it is made of pieces. You know, old unused energy over here, a bunch of moments of being too hard on yourself for not meeting expectations over there. It grows like a snowball rolling down a snowy hillside.

In this snowball that continues to increase in size is the energy of bodily impulses. It is the energy of ambition, it is the creative energies that lie at the core of you and me.

To feel anxiety is to feel pieces of yourself that are looking for your attention. Wait, not just looking for it, they are begging for it. Like a crowd of starving people waiting to have some food tossed into their vicinity. They are loud, they are needy, and they need your love desperately. Deny them that compassionate attention and they may eventually chase you down and threaten everything you care about.

Each impulse that fuels anxiety has a strong desire to do or achieve something. They are loaded with ambition. Now the important question is this. How do we get in touch with all of this hidden anxious ambition so we can find a productive use for it?

How to Reclaim Your Ambitious Energy From Anxious Feelings

1. Recognize Anxiety as Such.

Being able to recognize when you’re anxious is critical to being able to get to reclaim its energy for good use. But how do you recognize anxiety? You slow down and give yourself a chance to spot its symptoms.

In an article from healthyplace.com, they give a list of physical and emotional symptoms that can be a clue to being anxious. Here are some of the most common.

Nausea or dizziness

Headaches

Muscle tension

Difficulty concentrating

Irritability

Feelings of apprehension

Feeling tense and jittery

If you notice 2 or more of these symptoms going on with yourself it’ll be in your best interest to take stock of what is going on. Why? Because important energy is likely being bottled up. And I guarantee you will not enjoy the uncomfortable mental obsession and depression that will result from not dealing with these feelings.

These feelings may begin subtly enough that you may not even recognize them. But eventually, if the energy within them is not tapped into and used, the subtleness could morph into great pain. After recognizing these feelings the next step is taking responsibility for them.

2. Take Responsibility for Your Anxiety.

After you recognize anxiety it is important to take responsibility for it. By this, I mean that no matter what led us having this anxiety, we need to realize that it is now ours to deal with.

This can be an unnerving but empowering realization to arrive at. You might want to place blame on others for feeling this anxiety. Maybe you want to blame the government, family, the job or whatever relationship you feel has wronged you. Well, I am here to tell you, that is mostly a useless activity. If you find yourself stuck in blaming others for your painful feelings, do yourself a favor and knock that shit off.

The only productive use for blaming is to do so with the intent of taking back power for current feelings and hidden ambition. Then use that power to set healthy boundaries with self and others, feel emotions, and getting all that energy locked onto creative and productive outlets.

4. Seek a Creative and Productive Outlet for Ambitious Energy.

We are all creative. Now I don’t mean that all of us know how to draw well, sing or play an instrument well or write well. What I mean is that we can’t avoid having a creative relationship with ourselves and the world around us. Everything we do has an effect.

But just being creative isn’t necessarily a good thing, havoc and pain can, of course, also be something we create. Pain begets anxiety, when causing pain for self and for others it always catches up. It isn’t enough to just do anything with our anxious, creative energy, it should also be productive.

Now you may be thinking that you have no clue what to do with yourself that could help. But I assure you, the amount of creative and productive ways to place the ambition of our anxious energies is limited only by the willingness to do something healthy. Every single day holds a crazy amount of opportunities to put our ambition to good use.

It can certainly be difficult to know exactly what to do when we are anxious. Sometimes we need to use that energy to take care of areas of life we have been neglecting. Other times we may need to use that energy to attack a new and challenging opportunity. And of course, there are many times where the best to do is take the night off, shut down all the electronics and actually allow our brains to relax.

Closing Thoughts.

Listen, I know anxiety is not an easy thing to deal with. For many years of my own life, I was crippled by anxiety. Through those years, I wasn’t aware that I was creating my own anxiety with the lifestyle I was stuck in.

But what I have learned through coming back to my right mind is this. Anxiety is a warning system to tell us that something needs to change and change fast. I also know that many times when anxious, our thoughts and perceptions can be dangerously misguided.

When working with the tips written above, take responsibility for what you’re feeling but don’t be too hard on yourself. Talk to other healthy people, talk to a trained professional if needed.

Now as you move forward in your life, know this, it is going to be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it. If you listen to the feelings of anxiety, cry the tears, and take the right actions, you will wind up in a better mind and a better life.

The ambition that fuels your anxiety, when used creatively and productively will lighten up your world and the worlds of those around you. Don’t be afraid of it, welcome it. Quit resisting, surrender to the healthy places it desires to go.

Well, that is all we have for today and thank you so much for stopping into My Life Experiment. What is written here has come from struggle and growth.

We sincerely wish you amazing success in reclaiming the energies of your ambition from anxiety. I offer you the challenge of applying what you have read here, as well as experimenting with your own healthy ways of taking back your energy from anxiety. If you take today’s lessons to heart and apply them, you will greatly benefit.

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