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3 Types of Anxiety with Noelle McWard Aquino
“I just want to stress again how painful I know that anxiety is and how much distress it can create in a person's life and that you really can help people develop freedom from it. That it is something that can get better. And I just hope that anybody who is suffering with it will try to find help for themselves in some form because everyone deserves to live a more peaceful and self assured life.” - Noelle McWard Aquino
3 Types of Anxiety with Noelle McWard Aquino
Welcome to Imperfection in Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people-pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stress and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I’m your host Dawn Calvinisti.
In this episode I’m joined by Noelle McWard Aquino. Noelle is a psychotherapist and group practice owner in Chicago, IL. She specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders, as well as couples therapy. Noelle writes an ongoing blog series for PsychologyToday.com called Unpacking Anxiety, based on her work and model for understanding and treating anxiety. She has an upcoming book due to be published in late 2024 about anxiety.
You can learn more about Noelle by visiting her website www.counselingsolutionschicago.com/
Noelle shares that anxiety is a general and broadly used term as if it describes the same experience for everyone who suffers from it. There are actually three types/manifestations of anxiety, each rooted in unique and distinct characteristics, with a different underlying need or issue that is seeking to be expressed through the anxiety. By understanding where your anxiety is coming from and its unique manifestations, you can better address the underlying need in a meaningful way, leading to mastery over your anxiety. Her message brings such hope for those who cope with anxiety. I know you are going to find incredible help in what Noelle reveals.
Here’s our conversation.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Dawn Calvinisti: I would love to welcome Noelle McWard Aquino to the show today, especially because we're talking about anxiety and it is so amazing to have an expert on who has dealt with this for many years.
I hope that we can really bring a lot of information, but also just maybe a different perspective on anxiety today.
[00:00:20] Noelle McWard Aquino: Thank you. And thanks for having me.
[00:00:23] Dawn Calvinisti: I'd love to hear a little more. I mean, I know you're in psychotherapy. I know you've been doing this for a long time, but can you give us a little bit about, like, why is this important to you? Why is this an area that you focused on?
[00:00:34] Noelle McWard Aquino: Sure. So I've been a practicing psychotherapist for about 30 years. And when I started my career back in the early 1990s I was working in a setting where we worked with everything from children to senior citizens, every issue that a person might present with for therapy. And so I really worked with whoever walked through the door.
And for some reason that I didn't understand at the time, the clients I was really most drawn to working with were clients with anxiety. I think it's something about the sort of activation or sense of urgency that many of them present with that was sort of really appealing to me and made me want to get in there and help them and help them to feel better.
And so it did become an area that I was I was very interested in early on in my career and also felt ill prepared to sufficiently help people with anxiety. So early in my career, a lot of the training that I sought out on my own was around the treatment of anxiety disorders and that sort of helped form my specialization in treating anxiety.
But I later became a mother and I have two children and my younger child, who is now 23, has lived with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder for really, most of his life, and it's been something that has been very active and present, really throughout his life, and so I've really had a very I always say a front row view to the distress that comes with living with an anxiety disorder, and that really is why this matters to me and, why I want to be able to provide help to anybody who is suffering with anxiety in any way that I can.
[00:02:16] Dawn Calvinisti: Thank you for sharing that. I've shared a little bit on the podcast about my own journey with anxiety, but one thing that I think all the time is when people talk about anxiety, It almost feels like it's this umbrella covering when you say anxiety, and yet it can present so differently depending on the person, and I'd love to discuss a bit about that because I think sometimes people don't realize what it is or how it can present or the fact that it is different and unique.
[00:02:42] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking that. So I I completely agree with that. And I have, I've developed just in my own work with clients. And now it's something I teach to therapists and I have a book that will be coming out in late 2024 that talks about all this because I too came to that realization pretty early on in my career that we do talk about this word anxiety as if it's this, as if it describes the same experience for every person and it actually doesn't. There are different manifestations of anxiety that actually present very differently and that also have, a different underlying need or, what I say is sort of at the root of the anxiety and what, what really informed this for me or taught this to me was listening to clients and over time and working with a lot of clients who had anxiety, even though the details of their anxiety were always different, even though their life circumstances were different, their backgrounds were different.
I was noticing that there was these patterns in the way that they were talking about their anxiety and they were using the exact same words to describe their experiences with it. And for me, how I came to think about that is, is to me, there are three primary types of anxiety or three main ways in which anxiety manifests.
And each one has it's own unique characteristics that makes it different than the other two. Each has its own underlying need that's seeking to be expressed through the anxiety, which is really important to understand because if you understand what that is, then you also can better tailor how you work with your anxiety to what that underlying need is.
So they also each have different solutions and different approaches that work better. Depending on where your anxiety is coming from. And then another thing that I noticed is that each type of anxiety has its own, what I call objection or way that the anxiety fights to preserve itself when it's challenged.
And it shows up the same way for every single person within these three categories of anxiety. Right.
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[00:04:51] Dawn Calvinisti: I love that you've recognized this. I think this is so key, and often when I'm talking to people who say they have anxiety they'll tell me, like, everybody just tells me breathe, I'm just supposed to breathe. And then I'll hear, one person I breathe and it works so well and another person says, they tell me to breathe and I think I can't breathe.
What are you talking about? And right there, like it tells you, it doesn't work the same for everybody and what you think calms it doesn't necessarily calm for everyone. So can you break down the three for us so that we can hear a little more about the differences?
[00:05:21] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah, absolutely. So the three and I'll go, I'll name them and then go through each one. They are future catastrophizing, control, and distorted beliefs. So future catastrophizing is when we're in a situation and we have certain information or facts available to us. And from that information, we make up a story about some future outcome that is a catastrophic or worst case scenario story.
So this is, somebody who wakes up and they have a headache and they think, Oh my God, what if I have a brain tumor and I have to have surgery and I end up disabled or die. Or, somebody who their boss speaks to them in a sharp tone and they think, I'm going to get fired. It's, it's those worst case scenarios that we automatically jump to.
And usually they start with the two words, what if, and then everything that follows what if it, what if is a story that we're making up. So this is the anxiety that I think what most people, when we think about anxiety, they're actually thinking about anxiety that presents through future catastrophizing.
These are people who are worriers because they're constantly thinking of the what if scenarios and then relating to them as if they are either going to happen or are likely to happen. And so they, they tend to be worriers sort of, fretters. They have more of that anxious energy that we tend to think about.
So that's, that's one category of anxiety. The second one is control. This one is a little bit more nuanced and complex. The first part of control is that for all of us in any situation that we're in, there's always. Things that will be in our control and always things that are out of our control.
Things that are in our control or what we think, how we choose to react. I never say that how we feel is in our control because it's not, but how we choose to react to how we feel. Is in our control. And then there's all the things that are not in our control. What somebody else thinks, what somebody else is doing, why they're doing what they're doing acts of nature can be outside of our control.
Governmental decisions, all kinds of things are outside of our control. So one way that this shows up is if we are someone who tends to overfocus on the things that are not in our control, and by overfocus I mean expend a lot of our mental energy, our physical energy, or our emotional energy on the things that we can't control, like Why is somebody doing this thing?
And this is unfair. And, trying to get somebody to do or think or feel differently, that's going to create anxiety because we're trying to influence something that we don't have the power to influence. So it can show up in that way, but there's, there are much deeper ways that this shows up in much more, and these are also very common ways.
And I always describe it as starting with a baseline feeling state of either I'm not okay, or things are not going to be okay. Oftentimes, people whose anxiety stems from control aren't even aware that that feeling sits at the, at the foundation for them that it's sort of running in the background at all times.
This either I'm not going to be okay. Or things are not going to be okay. And when that's our baseline feeling state or belief we tend to adopt one of two different coping strategies for that. The first is to try to control as much of our external environment as we possibly can. And the unconscious thought behind that is if I know what to expect, or if things happen the way that I think that they should, then I'll be okay.
And so this looks like people who have often high expectations for themselves and others who have rigid. Beliefs and ideas about how things should be done. You don't believe that there's a right way to do things and everything else is the wrong way. People who tend to over research and sort of underneath that is this fear that if I make the wrong decision, it's not going to be okay.
So I have to keep researching and, to come up with the right decision, the best decision so that it will be okay. People who tend to over prepare. So it can show up in that way and the other coping strategy. That people adopt when there's this underlying feeling of I'm not okay, or it's not going to be okay, is trying to anticipate everything that could go wrong, which is catastrophizing, but then creating a plan for what they're going to do if that thing happens.
And the thought behind this is if I can anticipate everything that could go wrong and I have a plan ready, then I'll be okay. And the problem with both of these strategies, well, one thing I'll say is that for people who do that anticipating and making plans, everyone will tell you it's exhausting to be constantly thinking through all these scenarios and trying to figure out how you're going to be prepared for them.
But the problem with these strategies is that As good as they might sound, they don't actually work and they can't work because, first of all, back to that first concept of things in our control and things not in our control, none of us will ever be able to control our external environment.
There's just far too many things that are not in our control than things that are in our control. And when that's our coping strategy, we're essentially making our sense of well being dependent on what is happening outside of us and saying that we can only be okay. As long as what's happening out there looks the way that I want it to, or I think that it should.
So that's a big problem. And the other problem is with the imagining everything that could go wrong and making a plan is none of us are fortune tellers. And we, we can't predict the future. We can't know what things are going to happen in advance. Any plan that we create is not going to be a workable plan because we're just not going to have.
The details available to us, what we can guarantee is things will go wrong that things go wrong problems happen. That's a given when they do. We all have to figure out what to do based on the facts available to us at that time. We're never going to be able to predict that in advance. So these strategies that people are using to try to feel like they will be okay.
They don't work and they create a lot of anxiety. So people who, whose anxiety comes from control, they are universally very competent, successful, high functioning people who will describe themselves as stressed out, overwhelmed and exhausted. And really what they are is anxious. So that's the, that's the second type of anxiety.
And then the third type is distorted belief and distorted beliefs is when you believe something negative about yourself to be true, that is in fact false. And these are usually very core beliefs about who we are about our being. They can be things like I'm unlovable. There's something fundamentally flawed about me.
I'm a failure. I'm stupid. I'm an outsider. I don't fit in. So it's these kinds of core beliefs that we attach to and believe to be true. And when we have anxiety that stems from these core beliefs not only do those beliefs affect how we feel, but they also affect how we Just exist in the world and how we interact with other people.
So there's always behaviors that we often unconsciously adopt in an attempt to either compensate for or to correct for those, flaws that we believe exist within ourselves. So with this we tend to see people who are not only anxious, like social anxiety for example, It stems from distorted belief, the belief that other people are judging me, that I'm, they're viewing me as awkward or weird in some way.
When we have anxiety that comes from distorted beliefs, there often tends to be depression that comes along with that also, because they are always negative beliefs. And we also see a lot of like self judgment, self criticism, self loathing that accompanies anxiety that comes from distorted beliefs.
[00:13:30] Dawn Calvinisti: I love how you've broken these down. I have to say, I mean, on this podcast, we talk to the three Ps. So people who are people pleasers and perfectionists and tend to procrastinate. And with the people that I mostly speak with, the women I mostly speak with, that number two, where it's about control, tends to be the most often the one that I see.
And I think it's, it's interesting to hear because I think many people think because they are very high functioning, because they're very capable, often very driven, self motivated, like look like a success from the outside in all those ways, and even often identify themselves as all those things don't actually even recognize that they have anxiety.
[00:14:14] Noelle McWard Aquino: That's right. Yeah, I mean, and they will easily say they're stressed, they'll easily say they're exhausted, but what they really are is, is anxious. I just want to comment really quickly because I love what you just said the three P's, each one lines up with one of these three root causes. So, the perfectionism is about control.
Procrastination is about the yeah. catastrophizing because when we fear something, our most common response to that is avoidance, which also is, would become procrastination. So very often procrastination would go with the distortion or the future catastrophizing and people pleasing often stems from distorted belief.
It's like believing that you're, there's something unlikable about you or something that people are going to judge and the people pleasing becomes one of those behaviors. Of how you compensate for that. So I love that. Cause it totally lines up.
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[00:15:09] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. It's, it is really interesting when I think whenever you identify with certain things strongly, you can, you can take a look at that because there is a belief system under there. And that's really what you're talking about is underneath each of these, there is a root core really ingrained belief about ourselves or the world or our circumstances that we're not just going to shake in a day.
It's not like, Oh, well, I've recognized and so now I can let go of it because it is so innate to what we do think, how we act, how we respond to things. And can, can you speak a little bit about like when you identify with this, then what's the action? What, what can you do? Because it is a process.
[00:15:54] Noelle McWard Aquino: It is. And it's a long one. And all of this is hard work and it's really important people understand that. And the other thing that's really important that people understand is that when you do the work of trying to get to the other side of your anxiety, you are going to be uncomfortable.
Like there's, there's no way. to get think yourself into a state where you feel comfortable first and then you can do the work. The work requires you to be uncomfortable. And because of that, it's very hard and it does take time. And it requires a lot of patience. I always, when I talk about like these three root causes there, there is sort of a fundamental issue underneath each one.
And, and so what you do about it is going to be catered to that. And each individual person has their own unique story of how they came to, have anxiety. That's rooted in future catastrophizing or control or future beliefs. So understanding your own story, your own history with that is, is really important.
But in, in a broad sense, if I kind of go through each one catastrophizing at the heart of catastrophizing, or so really what that underlying need of catastrophizing is, is, is our human discomfort with uncertainty. And we just, from a neurobiological standpoint, We as human beings associate uncertainty with danger and the catastrophizing is a coping mechanism.
It's part of a, our mind has adapted to try to anticipate the things that could go wrong. Or, it's sort of like the losses we might suffer. So that could be loss of life. It could be loss of. Pride. It could be loss of, security. It could be loss of connection and community.
So, these become the things that we catastrophize about. And it is our, it is our brain's way of trying to protect us. But, I always say there are some people who live in circumstances and communities or in societies where if they walk out the door, danger is waiting for them, that there are, that they are in danger of loss of some significant thing.
Way. But many of us who catastrophize do not exist in those kinds of life experiences, and yet we make up these stories all the time. So the work that we really want to do when, when our anxiety comes for catastrophizing, it is really twofold. It is to really start to recognize. When we're creating those stories and to really stop and be able to pull out what are the things that I actually know and what are the stories that I'm making up and and to really recognize what is the story that that's all it is that it is that it's not based in any reality and really return our focus to the things that we actually know it's it's differentiating between what is and what if and we want to stay away from the what ifs and we want to put our attention on the what is.
One of the things that was really helpful with that are mindfulness practices because catastrophizing is about jumping ahead and being in the future. And mindfulness is about teaching us how to be in the present with what is and how to be in the present with what is in a just a very nonjudgmental way and to observe like what we're thinking or feeling in any particular moment and recognize that's just a thought or that's just a feeling and to not get too attached to any of it and to really again be present to what actually is versus things that I'm just worrying about in the future that aren't You know, in my reality at this moment, so those kinds of practices tend to be very helpful with with catastrophizing and maybe less so with some of the other, with control or distorted belief.
If you are actively anxious, where you're physiologically, your body is dysregulated or aroused breathing does help. Breathing is, is, the thing that will most easily calm our. Nervous system and bring it back into a state of regulation. So if accompanying your anxiety, there is that that feeling of, physiological arousal or, a dysregulated nervous system.
We do want to attend to our body too and and help it to get calm as well. And breathing can be really useful, for that. But it's true when somebody is really, if they are. Highly anxious and in a highly aroused state, the last thing you want to hear is just breathe.
And it's not easy to do when you are actually aroused, but it's, it is a very helpful thing to be able to do in those moments.
[00:20:42] Dawn Calvinisti: It is. It's, it's one of those things where some of the women that I've talked to have suggested if, if you can't first get your breath, then be present with your senses. So start noticing how many colors can you count around you? What are you touching? What does it feel like? Because as your body comes into this present moment, then your breath tends to naturally slow.
And then you can go over and count your breath or whatever it is that you want to do. But it is interesting when things are heightened and we're looking into the future, how everything just seems so much worse, so much more distorted so much more ramped up. And so you're right, getting control of that is super important.
[00:21:19] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah. And that's just also part of the way our brain is structured because when once we perceive danger, then our brain does hyper focus on it. And we do lose some of our prefrontal cortex functioning, which is the reasoning and meaning making part of our brain. And that does shut down because from a survival instinct matter.
You don't need those functions to survive. And so our brain is really trying to, harness all of our resources towards survival. And part of the way it does it is by magnifying and, hyper focusing on the perceived danger. So yes, things always, feel much worse and more real when we're in those aroused states.
And I love what you described like what you just described was a grounding technique, which is about how you get into the present moment. And I haven't heard that particular one of like noticing colors. And I love that. I think that's a really nice way to think about getting ourselves grounded in the moment.
[00:22:17] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, I find with kids, like they get the idea of what the senses are and so being able to say, okay, just start, start looking at each sense and what can you do in this moment? Tell us a little more as we move on into the control area. So what are we looking at there?
[00:22:31] Noelle McWard Aquino: So with control, if your anxiety stems from control, at the root of that is the belief I'm not okay, or things are not going to be okay. And the solutions that you have come to are about externalizing the conditions under which you can be okay. As long as everything out here outside of me looks the way I want it to, then I'm going to be okay.
So the solution to that is that we need to bring our sense of well being internal, which means that we recognize that no matter what happens, no matter what goes wrong I am the reason that I'm going to be okay. And it's recognizing that, that I possess at all times, qualities, strengths, characteristics.
I have internal resources that are available to me at all times that will help me to cope with whatever happens. And I will be able to figure out what to do. And I will find a way to be okay. So it's identifying those internal resources, the, the, the qualities I say, you couldn't help but bring to a situation, even if you tried and these include one's intelligence or experience or problem solving skills or creativity or, analytical thinking.
It's, it, our knowledge base, it's like all the things that. are in us and that we bring to any situation. So it's really moving our sense of well being to internal and and trusting that I am the reason that I'm going to be okay. There's also a lot of practices that have to go along with that though that are intensely uncomfortable for people whose anxiety stems from control.
They are things like learning where the line of good enough is. So there's a lot of perfectionism that we see in people whose anxiety stems from control and the sort of solution to perfectionism is good enough and, for anybody who. Is a perfectionist nobody likes that term good enough because what they hear in that is it.
You're asking me to not have any standards or just be okay with mediocrity or just not caring. And that's really not what what good enough means at all. It is the line at which any additional effort. I make will not yield a better result. I think of it in terms of the law of diminishing returns.
At the point at which any more effort you put in to making something better is not going to yield a better outcome, will create additional extra stress and exhaustion. So we have to learn how to work with this idea of good enough and Like practice doing less and stepping back and, seeing how that goes.
And it always goes fine, but people never believe that it will. And so, so it's like, how much time do you spend researching for things? And can you start to limit that? Or how much time do you spend preparing for things? And can you start to reduce that? So there's work on finding the line of good enough.
There's work on doing less. And recognizing that we, we have to make more space for rest. We have to make more space for fun. We have to make more space for enjoyment. And to make more space for that, we have to let go of other things that. we feel must get our attention first, whether it's the dishes in the sink or the laundry that needs to be folded or, the prep work I need to do for, the presentation or whatever that may be.
Because there's so much over functioning that happens for people who it's anxiety stems from control. So to get on the other side of that, There has to be a willingness to step back and do less and discover that their world is not going to come crashing down around you and your life is still going to function effectively, if not more so, through doing less.
And then the third piece that I think often goes with this also is letting go of responsibility that's not yours. And Because people whose anxiety stems from control tend to feel overly responsible for other people tend to say things like, if I don't do it, who will? Or if I don't do it, it won't get done.
Or just naturally tend to try to anticipate the needs of people in their lives and meet those needs out of a sense of responsibility or that I need to help them or, I have good ideas for them or what, whatever that may be. Good ideas that probably are excellent ideas, but that they're not necessarily wanting or going to take.
So it's learning how to step back and, and, be less responsible for others, all of which is extremely difficult. Cause when I talk about earlier, there's an objection that each of these sources of anxiety has that tries to keep, keep it in control. The objection for anxiety that stems from control is the belief that.
these behaviors are the reason why I'm successful. And if I stop doing them, I will not be as successful. And, and because that belief is so ingrained, asking people to, to let go of any of these behaviors feels very threatening.
[00:27:55] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, this one I can see all over me because this is definitely my space is, having dealt so much with perfectionism. And I think for a lot of the listeners, they will resonate with a lot of that as well. And it is really hard to work through any of these because you do, you do have to get uncomfortable because we've now made this our norm which, which is why, we've also for many of us learn to also cope with anxiety and not actually change it. So, this is great to have some of these ideas in our head now that we can look at and say, okay, where is this coming from? And how can we, maybe redirect now that we know where this root is. And so the final one, what are the things that we can do when we just have uh, a distorted belief.
[00:28:38] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah. So distorted belief is obviously rooted in having these false beliefs about ourselves. And so there's a few different ways that we want to work with that. The first is, if by definition, that core belief that we hold, and we, part of the work first is to identify what that is, what that false belief is people generally have one or two that just run through everything that just sort of sits at the, at the ground level for, for every bad thing that we think about ourselves.
And is to identify what that that false belief is. And by definition, if it's a distorted belief, it means that it's not true, which means something else is true. So a lot of the work around distorted belief is identifying what is actually true. And when we come up with that, and this can be very challenging.
It sounds like Such an easy thing to do. And it's actually quite challenging for many people. It doesn't work just to pick something that's like the opposite of the negative belief, or, that's the positive version of it. If we, what we come up with has to be first of all, true. So coming up with something, I use the example, like.
I, I can have the distorted belief of like, I'm going to be awkward or I'm awkward. And that can make me very shy in certain social situations or avoidant of certain social situations. And a corrected belief for that would not for me, for me to jump to, well, I am, perfectly graceful and poised in every situation I'm in and everybody who meets me likes me.
I mean, that's not true. And, that's. That's not a helpful, corrected belief. So we have to come up with something that's true and that for us, we can say is a hundred percent believable and a hundred percent true. So, things that, that might work for me, I love Brene Brown who says, Be kind, brave and awkward and, recognizing that, awkward, we know kind is a good quality.
We know brave is a good quality and throwing awkward in there as like that. That's part of how you are more human to people, is a way of reframing that or, thinking I am awkward sometimes, but in general, I do fine in situations and people generally respond well to me. That could be something I could tell myself that would feel, believable and true.
So part of the work is around. Really figuring out what that core belief is, what's actually true and then practicing using that in situations where that core belief just wants to run the show and, replace it. And then we also want to start being curious about and paying attention to all the behaviors that we have adopted.
because of that false belief that we have. So if I just stay with that example I gave for myself, some of the behaviors that I have around that is I can be really shy in certain situations where I don't know people and I kind of will hang back and I'm not going to be comfortable necessarily approaching people if I don't know them or feel comfortable with small talk or I might avoid situations where like I don't think I'm going to know anybody.
And So those could be behaviors that, that I would adopt because of that belief. And then it becomes challenging myself to change the behavior that lines, so that it lines up with what's actually true. So sort of challenging myself to. Okay. You might feel awkward, but you can go to this event where you don't know anybody and you can talk to people and, and sort of push myself into, going to situations or approaching people that I maybe wouldn't necessarily do on my own if I were letting that core belief from the show.
So we want to pay attention to all of it, like the belief and the behavior. And then the third thing that I think is really helpful with In particular, it could be helpful with all three, but in particularly with the distorted belief is practicing a lot of self compassion, recognizing that, everybody struggles at times.
Everyone feels challenging emotions at times that. We are no different than anybody else and really speaking to ourselves around those challenges the way that we would to somebody we love or somebody that we care about. Because there does tend to be a lot of criticism, self criticism that comes with the distorted beliefs.
[00:33:00] Dawn Calvinisti: This is absolutely fascinating. And I think like we could literally go on for hours about any one of these. One thing I would like to ask you before we start wrapping up is when it comes to recognizing this and maybe, maybe people are listening are only now understanding even that Oh, this might actually be anxiety that I'm dealing with.
What, what are things that we can do at this moment when it comes to just finding some support for ourselves? Who can we go to? Where should we be looking? Even, can you give us like where we can find you? Those types of things so that we have some support systems as we're starting to weed through what we're now processing.
[00:33:37] Noelle McWard Aquino: yeah, absolutely. So in I'll sort of start with the like the broader question around that. I truly do believe and again have a lot of experience just in my own personal life with my son. And I always say I don't suffer from an anxiety disorder, but I do. I know what it is to be anxious because I'm a human being and we all have anxiety.
But when it, it's something that really is acute and really does impact your life, it is a lot of work to get to the other side of it. And it is possible to get to the other side of it. And so I'm always a big proponent. I'm a therapist. I'm a big proponent in, getting support, mental health support.
And for, for those that it's accessible to To access a therapist. I think that's a great way to, to get help. If you don't have as easy access to a therapist I mean there are a lot of, there's a lot of books out there on the top of anxiety. There, there is, I have mixed feelings about this, but there is a lot of content on social media and on many of the people who are putting out content on social media also are creating.
Courses that are pretty affordable that are video courses where you can just learn more information. So I think those are, all options are available to people. And I think if you were going to just like start your own, like, where would I start first if I. Don't can't access anything outside of myself.
Just journaling from a place of, just having curiosity with yourself and really thinking about how these different themes might show up in your life is also a really good place to start. If anybody is wanting, wanting to find me I, so I'm only able to practice in the state of Illinois because that's where I'm licensed, but I, on my website, which is www.counselingsolutionschicago.com. I do have an anxiety relief guide that does go into the three types of anxiety and just can be a reminder for people of what we've been talking about today. I I do have a book that will be coming out late in 2024 that does, will go into depth on all of this.
And it will include exercises that people for each of the three different anxiety types that people can practice to help them start to get more in touch with, really those individual roots for themselves, where, where this comes from, from them and some practices that they can use to start doing the work of overcoming it.
[00:36:07] Dawn Calvinisti: Thank you so much for that. I I will put the website and the anxiety guide link in the show notes. So feel free to go there to grab that. And if you'd like to connect with Noelle, then for sure check out her website and we will be watching for your book at the end of the year. I think that's really exciting that there's resources that you can actually do and focus on and practice to help yourself within that.
One thing I do ask every single guest that comes on the show is of the three Ps, so people pleasing, Perfectionism and procrastination. Which one do you tend to go to?
[00:36:41] Noelle McWard Aquino: Well, I can do all of them. I mean, and at different times, and I would say at different times in my life, certain one showed up more I would say when it was right, raising my children, probably perfectionism was more predominant at that time. I would say, though, the, the, the biggest one that resonates is the people pleasing.
And that that's the one that of the three would be my sort of go to.
[00:37:05] Dawn Calvinisti: I like that we, we all have something that we tend to go to. We all tend to be, more than one of these and certainly it changes at different stages of our life. That's, that's for sure. Is there anything else that you would like to say to our listeners before we sign off for today?
[00:37:18] Noelle McWard Aquino: I would just say, first of all, I so appreciate this opportunity. I've really enjoyed talking with you and I just want to stress again how painful I know that anxiety and how much distress it can create in a person's life and that there really are, you really can help people. Develop freedom from it.
That it is something that can get better. And I just hope that anybody who is suffering with it will try to find help for themselves in some form. Because everyone deserves to live a more peaceful and self assured life. And so that's really my wish for everyone.
[DAWN CALVINISTI]
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Until next week, pursue progress no matter how imperfectly.
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3 Types of Anxiety with Noelle McWard Aquino
“I just want to stress again how painful I know that anxiety is and how much distress it can create in a person's life and that you really can help people develop freedom from it. That it is something that can get better. And I just hope that anybody who is suffering with it will try to find help for themselves in some form because everyone deserves to live a more peaceful and self assured life.” - Noelle McWard Aquino
3 Types of Anxiety with Noelle McWard Aquino
Welcome to Imperfection in Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people-pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stress and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I’m your host Dawn Calvinisti.
In this episode I’m joined by Noelle McWard Aquino. Noelle is a psychotherapist and group practice owner in Chicago, IL. She specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders, as well as couples therapy. Noelle writes an ongoing blog series for PsychologyToday.com called Unpacking Anxiety, based on her work and model for understanding and treating anxiety. She has an upcoming book due to be published in late 2024 about anxiety.
You can learn more about Noelle by visiting her website www.counselingsolutionschicago.com/
Noelle shares that anxiety is a general and broadly used term as if it describes the same experience for everyone who suffers from it. There are actually three types/manifestations of anxiety, each rooted in unique and distinct characteristics, with a different underlying need or issue that is seeking to be expressed through the anxiety. By understanding where your anxiety is coming from and its unique manifestations, you can better address the underlying need in a meaningful way, leading to mastery over your anxiety. Her message brings such hope for those who cope with anxiety. I know you are going to find incredible help in what Noelle reveals.
Here’s our conversation.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Dawn Calvinisti: I would love to welcome Noelle McWard Aquino to the show today, especially because we're talking about anxiety and it is so amazing to have an expert on who has dealt with this for many years.
I hope that we can really bring a lot of information, but also just maybe a different perspective on anxiety today.
[00:00:20] Noelle McWard Aquino: Thank you. And thanks for having me.
[00:00:23] Dawn Calvinisti: I'd love to hear a little more. I mean, I know you're in psychotherapy. I know you've been doing this for a long time, but can you give us a little bit about, like, why is this important to you? Why is this an area that you focused on?
[00:00:34] Noelle McWard Aquino: Sure. So I've been a practicing psychotherapist for about 30 years. And when I started my career back in the early 1990s I was working in a setting where we worked with everything from children to senior citizens, every issue that a person might present with for therapy. And so I really worked with whoever walked through the door.
And for some reason that I didn't understand at the time, the clients I was really most drawn to working with were clients with anxiety. I think it's something about the sort of activation or sense of urgency that many of them present with that was sort of really appealing to me and made me want to get in there and help them and help them to feel better.
And so it did become an area that I was I was very interested in early on in my career and also felt ill prepared to sufficiently help people with anxiety. So early in my career, a lot of the training that I sought out on my own was around the treatment of anxiety disorders and that sort of helped form my specialization in treating anxiety.
But I later became a mother and I have two children and my younger child, who is now 23, has lived with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder for really, most of his life, and it's been something that has been very active and present, really throughout his life, and so I've really had a very I always say a front row view to the distress that comes with living with an anxiety disorder, and that really is why this matters to me and, why I want to be able to provide help to anybody who is suffering with anxiety in any way that I can.
[00:02:16] Dawn Calvinisti: Thank you for sharing that. I've shared a little bit on the podcast about my own journey with anxiety, but one thing that I think all the time is when people talk about anxiety, It almost feels like it's this umbrella covering when you say anxiety, and yet it can present so differently depending on the person, and I'd love to discuss a bit about that because I think sometimes people don't realize what it is or how it can present or the fact that it is different and unique.
[00:02:42] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for asking that. So I I completely agree with that. And I have, I've developed just in my own work with clients. And now it's something I teach to therapists and I have a book that will be coming out in late 2024 that talks about all this because I too came to that realization pretty early on in my career that we do talk about this word anxiety as if it's this, as if it describes the same experience for every person and it actually doesn't. There are different manifestations of anxiety that actually present very differently and that also have, a different underlying need or, what I say is sort of at the root of the anxiety and what, what really informed this for me or taught this to me was listening to clients and over time and working with a lot of clients who had anxiety, even though the details of their anxiety were always different, even though their life circumstances were different, their backgrounds were different.
I was noticing that there was these patterns in the way that they were talking about their anxiety and they were using the exact same words to describe their experiences with it. And for me, how I came to think about that is, is to me, there are three primary types of anxiety or three main ways in which anxiety manifests.
And each one has it's own unique characteristics that makes it different than the other two. Each has its own underlying need that's seeking to be expressed through the anxiety, which is really important to understand because if you understand what that is, then you also can better tailor how you work with your anxiety to what that underlying need is.
So they also each have different solutions and different approaches that work better. Depending on where your anxiety is coming from. And then another thing that I noticed is that each type of anxiety has its own, what I call objection or way that the anxiety fights to preserve itself when it's challenged.
And it shows up the same way for every single person within these three categories of anxiety. Right.
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[00:04:51] Dawn Calvinisti: I love that you've recognized this. I think this is so key, and often when I'm talking to people who say they have anxiety they'll tell me, like, everybody just tells me breathe, I'm just supposed to breathe. And then I'll hear, one person I breathe and it works so well and another person says, they tell me to breathe and I think I can't breathe.
What are you talking about? And right there, like it tells you, it doesn't work the same for everybody and what you think calms it doesn't necessarily calm for everyone. So can you break down the three for us so that we can hear a little more about the differences?
[00:05:21] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah, absolutely. So the three and I'll go, I'll name them and then go through each one. They are future catastrophizing, control, and distorted beliefs. So future catastrophizing is when we're in a situation and we have certain information or facts available to us. And from that information, we make up a story about some future outcome that is a catastrophic or worst case scenario story.
So this is, somebody who wakes up and they have a headache and they think, Oh my God, what if I have a brain tumor and I have to have surgery and I end up disabled or die. Or, somebody who their boss speaks to them in a sharp tone and they think, I'm going to get fired. It's, it's those worst case scenarios that we automatically jump to.
And usually they start with the two words, what if, and then everything that follows what if it, what if is a story that we're making up. So this is the anxiety that I think what most people, when we think about anxiety, they're actually thinking about anxiety that presents through future catastrophizing.
These are people who are worriers because they're constantly thinking of the what if scenarios and then relating to them as if they are either going to happen or are likely to happen. And so they, they tend to be worriers sort of, fretters. They have more of that anxious energy that we tend to think about.
So that's, that's one category of anxiety. The second one is control. This one is a little bit more nuanced and complex. The first part of control is that for all of us in any situation that we're in, there's always. Things that will be in our control and always things that are out of our control.
Things that are in our control or what we think, how we choose to react. I never say that how we feel is in our control because it's not, but how we choose to react to how we feel. Is in our control. And then there's all the things that are not in our control. What somebody else thinks, what somebody else is doing, why they're doing what they're doing acts of nature can be outside of our control.
Governmental decisions, all kinds of things are outside of our control. So one way that this shows up is if we are someone who tends to overfocus on the things that are not in our control, and by overfocus I mean expend a lot of our mental energy, our physical energy, or our emotional energy on the things that we can't control, like Why is somebody doing this thing?
And this is unfair. And, trying to get somebody to do or think or feel differently, that's going to create anxiety because we're trying to influence something that we don't have the power to influence. So it can show up in that way, but there's, there are much deeper ways that this shows up in much more, and these are also very common ways.
And I always describe it as starting with a baseline feeling state of either I'm not okay, or things are not going to be okay. Oftentimes, people whose anxiety stems from control aren't even aware that that feeling sits at the, at the foundation for them that it's sort of running in the background at all times.
This either I'm not going to be okay. Or things are not going to be okay. And when that's our baseline feeling state or belief we tend to adopt one of two different coping strategies for that. The first is to try to control as much of our external environment as we possibly can. And the unconscious thought behind that is if I know what to expect, or if things happen the way that I think that they should, then I'll be okay.
And so this looks like people who have often high expectations for themselves and others who have rigid. Beliefs and ideas about how things should be done. You don't believe that there's a right way to do things and everything else is the wrong way. People who tend to over research and sort of underneath that is this fear that if I make the wrong decision, it's not going to be okay.
So I have to keep researching and, to come up with the right decision, the best decision so that it will be okay. People who tend to over prepare. So it can show up in that way and the other coping strategy. That people adopt when there's this underlying feeling of I'm not okay, or it's not going to be okay, is trying to anticipate everything that could go wrong, which is catastrophizing, but then creating a plan for what they're going to do if that thing happens.
And the thought behind this is if I can anticipate everything that could go wrong and I have a plan ready, then I'll be okay. And the problem with both of these strategies, well, one thing I'll say is that for people who do that anticipating and making plans, everyone will tell you it's exhausting to be constantly thinking through all these scenarios and trying to figure out how you're going to be prepared for them.
But the problem with these strategies is that As good as they might sound, they don't actually work and they can't work because, first of all, back to that first concept of things in our control and things not in our control, none of us will ever be able to control our external environment.
There's just far too many things that are not in our control than things that are in our control. And when that's our coping strategy, we're essentially making our sense of well being dependent on what is happening outside of us and saying that we can only be okay. As long as what's happening out there looks the way that I want it to, or I think that it should.
So that's a big problem. And the other problem is with the imagining everything that could go wrong and making a plan is none of us are fortune tellers. And we, we can't predict the future. We can't know what things are going to happen in advance. Any plan that we create is not going to be a workable plan because we're just not going to have.
The details available to us, what we can guarantee is things will go wrong that things go wrong problems happen. That's a given when they do. We all have to figure out what to do based on the facts available to us at that time. We're never going to be able to predict that in advance. So these strategies that people are using to try to feel like they will be okay.
They don't work and they create a lot of anxiety. So people who, whose anxiety comes from control, they are universally very competent, successful, high functioning people who will describe themselves as stressed out, overwhelmed and exhausted. And really what they are is anxious. So that's the, that's the second type of anxiety.
And then the third type is distorted belief and distorted beliefs is when you believe something negative about yourself to be true, that is in fact false. And these are usually very core beliefs about who we are about our being. They can be things like I'm unlovable. There's something fundamentally flawed about me.
I'm a failure. I'm stupid. I'm an outsider. I don't fit in. So it's these kinds of core beliefs that we attach to and believe to be true. And when we have anxiety that stems from these core beliefs not only do those beliefs affect how we feel, but they also affect how we Just exist in the world and how we interact with other people.
So there's always behaviors that we often unconsciously adopt in an attempt to either compensate for or to correct for those, flaws that we believe exist within ourselves. So with this we tend to see people who are not only anxious, like social anxiety for example, It stems from distorted belief, the belief that other people are judging me, that I'm, they're viewing me as awkward or weird in some way.
When we have anxiety that comes from distorted beliefs, there often tends to be depression that comes along with that also, because they are always negative beliefs. And we also see a lot of like self judgment, self criticism, self loathing that accompanies anxiety that comes from distorted beliefs.
[00:13:30] Dawn Calvinisti: I love how you've broken these down. I have to say, I mean, on this podcast, we talk to the three Ps. So people who are people pleasers and perfectionists and tend to procrastinate. And with the people that I mostly speak with, the women I mostly speak with, that number two, where it's about control, tends to be the most often the one that I see.
And I think it's, it's interesting to hear because I think many people think because they are very high functioning, because they're very capable, often very driven, self motivated, like look like a success from the outside in all those ways, and even often identify themselves as all those things don't actually even recognize that they have anxiety.
[00:14:14] Noelle McWard Aquino: That's right. Yeah, I mean, and they will easily say they're stressed, they'll easily say they're exhausted, but what they really are is, is anxious. I just want to comment really quickly because I love what you just said the three P's, each one lines up with one of these three root causes. So, the perfectionism is about control.
Procrastination is about the yeah. catastrophizing because when we fear something, our most common response to that is avoidance, which also is, would become procrastination. So very often procrastination would go with the distortion or the future catastrophizing and people pleasing often stems from distorted belief.
It's like believing that you're, there's something unlikable about you or something that people are going to judge and the people pleasing becomes one of those behaviors. Of how you compensate for that. So I love that. Cause it totally lines up.
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[00:15:09] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. It's, it is really interesting when I think whenever you identify with certain things strongly, you can, you can take a look at that because there is a belief system under there. And that's really what you're talking about is underneath each of these, there is a root core really ingrained belief about ourselves or the world or our circumstances that we're not just going to shake in a day.
It's not like, Oh, well, I've recognized and so now I can let go of it because it is so innate to what we do think, how we act, how we respond to things. And can, can you speak a little bit about like when you identify with this, then what's the action? What, what can you do? Because it is a process.
[00:15:54] Noelle McWard Aquino: It is. And it's a long one. And all of this is hard work and it's really important people understand that. And the other thing that's really important that people understand is that when you do the work of trying to get to the other side of your anxiety, you are going to be uncomfortable.
Like there's, there's no way. to get think yourself into a state where you feel comfortable first and then you can do the work. The work requires you to be uncomfortable. And because of that, it's very hard and it does take time. And it requires a lot of patience. I always, when I talk about like these three root causes there, there is sort of a fundamental issue underneath each one.
And, and so what you do about it is going to be catered to that. And each individual person has their own unique story of how they came to, have anxiety. That's rooted in future catastrophizing or control or future beliefs. So understanding your own story, your own history with that is, is really important.
But in, in a broad sense, if I kind of go through each one catastrophizing at the heart of catastrophizing, or so really what that underlying need of catastrophizing is, is, is our human discomfort with uncertainty. And we just, from a neurobiological standpoint, We as human beings associate uncertainty with danger and the catastrophizing is a coping mechanism.
It's part of a, our mind has adapted to try to anticipate the things that could go wrong. Or, it's sort of like the losses we might suffer. So that could be loss of life. It could be loss of. Pride. It could be loss of, security. It could be loss of connection and community.
So, these become the things that we catastrophize about. And it is our, it is our brain's way of trying to protect us. But, I always say there are some people who live in circumstances and communities or in societies where if they walk out the door, danger is waiting for them, that there are, that they are in danger of loss of some significant thing.
Way. But many of us who catastrophize do not exist in those kinds of life experiences, and yet we make up these stories all the time. So the work that we really want to do when, when our anxiety comes for catastrophizing, it is really twofold. It is to really start to recognize. When we're creating those stories and to really stop and be able to pull out what are the things that I actually know and what are the stories that I'm making up and and to really recognize what is the story that that's all it is that it is that it's not based in any reality and really return our focus to the things that we actually know it's it's differentiating between what is and what if and we want to stay away from the what ifs and we want to put our attention on the what is.
One of the things that was really helpful with that are mindfulness practices because catastrophizing is about jumping ahead and being in the future. And mindfulness is about teaching us how to be in the present with what is and how to be in the present with what is in a just a very nonjudgmental way and to observe like what we're thinking or feeling in any particular moment and recognize that's just a thought or that's just a feeling and to not get too attached to any of it and to really again be present to what actually is versus things that I'm just worrying about in the future that aren't You know, in my reality at this moment, so those kinds of practices tend to be very helpful with with catastrophizing and maybe less so with some of the other, with control or distorted belief.
If you are actively anxious, where you're physiologically, your body is dysregulated or aroused breathing does help. Breathing is, is, the thing that will most easily calm our. Nervous system and bring it back into a state of regulation. So if accompanying your anxiety, there is that that feeling of, physiological arousal or, a dysregulated nervous system.
We do want to attend to our body too and and help it to get calm as well. And breathing can be really useful, for that. But it's true when somebody is really, if they are. Highly anxious and in a highly aroused state, the last thing you want to hear is just breathe.
And it's not easy to do when you are actually aroused, but it's, it is a very helpful thing to be able to do in those moments.
[00:20:42] Dawn Calvinisti: It is. It's, it's one of those things where some of the women that I've talked to have suggested if, if you can't first get your breath, then be present with your senses. So start noticing how many colors can you count around you? What are you touching? What does it feel like? Because as your body comes into this present moment, then your breath tends to naturally slow.
And then you can go over and count your breath or whatever it is that you want to do. But it is interesting when things are heightened and we're looking into the future, how everything just seems so much worse, so much more distorted so much more ramped up. And so you're right, getting control of that is super important.
[00:21:19] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah. And that's just also part of the way our brain is structured because when once we perceive danger, then our brain does hyper focus on it. And we do lose some of our prefrontal cortex functioning, which is the reasoning and meaning making part of our brain. And that does shut down because from a survival instinct matter.
You don't need those functions to survive. And so our brain is really trying to, harness all of our resources towards survival. And part of the way it does it is by magnifying and, hyper focusing on the perceived danger. So yes, things always, feel much worse and more real when we're in those aroused states.
And I love what you described like what you just described was a grounding technique, which is about how you get into the present moment. And I haven't heard that particular one of like noticing colors. And I love that. I think that's a really nice way to think about getting ourselves grounded in the moment.
[00:22:17] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, I find with kids, like they get the idea of what the senses are and so being able to say, okay, just start, start looking at each sense and what can you do in this moment? Tell us a little more as we move on into the control area. So what are we looking at there?
[00:22:31] Noelle McWard Aquino: So with control, if your anxiety stems from control, at the root of that is the belief I'm not okay, or things are not going to be okay. And the solutions that you have come to are about externalizing the conditions under which you can be okay. As long as everything out here outside of me looks the way I want it to, then I'm going to be okay.
So the solution to that is that we need to bring our sense of well being internal, which means that we recognize that no matter what happens, no matter what goes wrong I am the reason that I'm going to be okay. And it's recognizing that, that I possess at all times, qualities, strengths, characteristics.
I have internal resources that are available to me at all times that will help me to cope with whatever happens. And I will be able to figure out what to do. And I will find a way to be okay. So it's identifying those internal resources, the, the, the qualities I say, you couldn't help but bring to a situation, even if you tried and these include one's intelligence or experience or problem solving skills or creativity or, analytical thinking.
It's, it, our knowledge base, it's like all the things that. are in us and that we bring to any situation. So it's really moving our sense of well being to internal and and trusting that I am the reason that I'm going to be okay. There's also a lot of practices that have to go along with that though that are intensely uncomfortable for people whose anxiety stems from control.
They are things like learning where the line of good enough is. So there's a lot of perfectionism that we see in people whose anxiety stems from control and the sort of solution to perfectionism is good enough and, for anybody who. Is a perfectionist nobody likes that term good enough because what they hear in that is it.
You're asking me to not have any standards or just be okay with mediocrity or just not caring. And that's really not what what good enough means at all. It is the line at which any additional effort. I make will not yield a better result. I think of it in terms of the law of diminishing returns.
At the point at which any more effort you put in to making something better is not going to yield a better outcome, will create additional extra stress and exhaustion. So we have to learn how to work with this idea of good enough and Like practice doing less and stepping back and, seeing how that goes.
And it always goes fine, but people never believe that it will. And so, so it's like, how much time do you spend researching for things? And can you start to limit that? Or how much time do you spend preparing for things? And can you start to reduce that? So there's work on finding the line of good enough.
There's work on doing less. And recognizing that we, we have to make more space for rest. We have to make more space for fun. We have to make more space for enjoyment. And to make more space for that, we have to let go of other things that. we feel must get our attention first, whether it's the dishes in the sink or the laundry that needs to be folded or, the prep work I need to do for, the presentation or whatever that may be.
Because there's so much over functioning that happens for people who it's anxiety stems from control. So to get on the other side of that, There has to be a willingness to step back and do less and discover that their world is not going to come crashing down around you and your life is still going to function effectively, if not more so, through doing less.
And then the third piece that I think often goes with this also is letting go of responsibility that's not yours. And Because people whose anxiety stems from control tend to feel overly responsible for other people tend to say things like, if I don't do it, who will? Or if I don't do it, it won't get done.
Or just naturally tend to try to anticipate the needs of people in their lives and meet those needs out of a sense of responsibility or that I need to help them or, I have good ideas for them or what, whatever that may be. Good ideas that probably are excellent ideas, but that they're not necessarily wanting or going to take.
So it's learning how to step back and, and, be less responsible for others, all of which is extremely difficult. Cause when I talk about earlier, there's an objection that each of these sources of anxiety has that tries to keep, keep it in control. The objection for anxiety that stems from control is the belief that.
these behaviors are the reason why I'm successful. And if I stop doing them, I will not be as successful. And, and because that belief is so ingrained, asking people to, to let go of any of these behaviors feels very threatening.
[00:27:55] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, this one I can see all over me because this is definitely my space is, having dealt so much with perfectionism. And I think for a lot of the listeners, they will resonate with a lot of that as well. And it is really hard to work through any of these because you do, you do have to get uncomfortable because we've now made this our norm which, which is why, we've also for many of us learn to also cope with anxiety and not actually change it. So, this is great to have some of these ideas in our head now that we can look at and say, okay, where is this coming from? And how can we, maybe redirect now that we know where this root is. And so the final one, what are the things that we can do when we just have uh, a distorted belief.
[00:28:38] Noelle McWard Aquino: Yeah. So distorted belief is obviously rooted in having these false beliefs about ourselves. And so there's a few different ways that we want to work with that. The first is, if by definition, that core belief that we hold, and we, part of the work first is to identify what that is, what that false belief is people generally have one or two that just run through everything that just sort of sits at the, at the ground level for, for every bad thing that we think about ourselves.
And is to identify what that that false belief is. And by definition, if it's a distorted belief, it means that it's not true, which means something else is true. So a lot of the work around distorted belief is identifying what is actually true. And when we come up with that, and this can be very challenging.
It sounds like Such an easy thing to do. And it's actually quite challenging for many people. It doesn't work just to pick something that's like the opposite of the negative belief, or, that's the positive version of it. If we, what we come up with has to be first of all, true. So coming up with something, I use the example, like.
I, I can have the distorted belief of like, I'm going to be awkward or I'm awkward. And that can make me very shy in certain social situations or avoidant of certain social situations. And a corrected belief for that would not for me, for me to jump to, well, I am, perfectly graceful and poised in every situation I'm in and everybody who meets me likes me.
I mean, that's not true. And, that's. That's not a helpful, corrected belief. So we have to come up with something that's true and that for us, we can say is a hundred percent believable and a hundred percent true. So, things that, that might work for me, I love Brene Brown who says, Be kind, brave and awkward and, recognizing that, awkward, we know kind is a good quality.
We know brave is a good quality and throwing awkward in there as like that. That's part of how you are more human to people, is a way of reframing that or, thinking I am awkward sometimes, but in general, I do fine in situations and people generally respond well to me. That could be something I could tell myself that would feel, believable and true.
So part of the work is around. Really figuring out what that core belief is, what's actually true and then practicing using that in situations where that core belief just wants to run the show and, replace it. And then we also want to start being curious about and paying attention to all the behaviors that we have adopted.
because of that false belief that we have. So if I just stay with that example I gave for myself, some of the behaviors that I have around that is I can be really shy in certain situations where I don't know people and I kind of will hang back and I'm not going to be comfortable necessarily approaching people if I don't know them or feel comfortable with small talk or I might avoid situations where like I don't think I'm going to know anybody.
And So those could be behaviors that, that I would adopt because of that belief. And then it becomes challenging myself to change the behavior that lines, so that it lines up with what's actually true. So sort of challenging myself to. Okay. You might feel awkward, but you can go to this event where you don't know anybody and you can talk to people and, and sort of push myself into, going to situations or approaching people that I maybe wouldn't necessarily do on my own if I were letting that core belief from the show.
So we want to pay attention to all of it, like the belief and the behavior. And then the third thing that I think is really helpful with In particular, it could be helpful with all three, but in particularly with the distorted belief is practicing a lot of self compassion, recognizing that, everybody struggles at times.
Everyone feels challenging emotions at times that. We are no different than anybody else and really speaking to ourselves around those challenges the way that we would to somebody we love or somebody that we care about. Because there does tend to be a lot of criticism, self criticism that comes with the distorted beliefs.
[00:33:00] Dawn Calvinisti: This is absolutely fascinating. And I think like we could literally go on for hours about any one of these. One thing I would like to ask you before we start wrapping up is when it comes to recognizing this and maybe, maybe people are listening are only now understanding even that Oh, this might actually be anxiety that I'm dealing with.
What, what are things that we can do at this moment when it comes to just finding some support for ourselves? Who can we go to? Where should we be looking? Even, can you give us like where we can find you? Those types of things so that we have some support systems as we're starting to weed through what we're now processing.
[00:33:37] Noelle McWard Aquino: yeah, absolutely. So in I'll sort of start with the like the broader question around that. I truly do believe and again have a lot of experience just in my own personal life with my son. And I always say I don't suffer from an anxiety disorder, but I do. I know what it is to be anxious because I'm a human being and we all have anxiety.
But when it, it's something that really is acute and really does impact your life, it is a lot of work to get to the other side of it. And it is possible to get to the other side of it. And so I'm always a big proponent. I'm a therapist. I'm a big proponent in, getting support, mental health support.
And for, for those that it's accessible to To access a therapist. I think that's a great way to, to get help. If you don't have as easy access to a therapist I mean there are a lot of, there's a lot of books out there on the top of anxiety. There, there is, I have mixed feelings about this, but there is a lot of content on social media and on many of the people who are putting out content on social media also are creating.
Courses that are pretty affordable that are video courses where you can just learn more information. So I think those are, all options are available to people. And I think if you were going to just like start your own, like, where would I start first if I. Don't can't access anything outside of myself.
Just journaling from a place of, just having curiosity with yourself and really thinking about how these different themes might show up in your life is also a really good place to start. If anybody is wanting, wanting to find me I, so I'm only able to practice in the state of Illinois because that's where I'm licensed, but I, on my website, which is www.counselingsolutionschicago.com. I do have an anxiety relief guide that does go into the three types of anxiety and just can be a reminder for people of what we've been talking about today. I I do have a book that will be coming out late in 2024 that does, will go into depth on all of this.
And it will include exercises that people for each of the three different anxiety types that people can practice to help them start to get more in touch with, really those individual roots for themselves, where, where this comes from, from them and some practices that they can use to start doing the work of overcoming it.
[00:36:07] Dawn Calvinisti: Thank you so much for that. I I will put the website and the anxiety guide link in the show notes. So feel free to go there to grab that. And if you'd like to connect with Noelle, then for sure check out her website and we will be watching for your book at the end of the year. I think that's really exciting that there's resources that you can actually do and focus on and practice to help yourself within that.
One thing I do ask every single guest that comes on the show is of the three Ps, so people pleasing, Perfectionism and procrastination. Which one do you tend to go to?
[00:36:41] Noelle McWard Aquino: Well, I can do all of them. I mean, and at different times, and I would say at different times in my life, certain one showed up more I would say when it was right, raising my children, probably perfectionism was more predominant at that time. I would say, though, the, the, the biggest one that resonates is the people pleasing.
And that that's the one that of the three would be my sort of go to.
[00:37:05] Dawn Calvinisti: I like that we, we all have something that we tend to go to. We all tend to be, more than one of these and certainly it changes at different stages of our life. That's, that's for sure. Is there anything else that you would like to say to our listeners before we sign off for today?
[00:37:18] Noelle McWard Aquino: I would just say, first of all, I so appreciate this opportunity. I've really enjoyed talking with you and I just want to stress again how painful I know that anxiety and how much distress it can create in a person's life and that there really are, you really can help people. Develop freedom from it.
That it is something that can get better. And I just hope that anybody who is suffering with it will try to find help for themselves in some form. Because everyone deserves to live a more peaceful and self assured life. And so that's really my wish for everyone.
[DAWN CALVINISTI]
Thanks for listening to today's show. If you found value in what you heard, please share it with a friend and rate and review us on whatever platform you listen on. It really helps get us out to other women who could benefit from listening.
Check out our show notes for details from the show and to connect with me or our guests. Want to continue the conversation? My website is www.pursueprogress.com or DM me @pursueprogresswithdawn on Instagram.
Until next week, pursue progress no matter how imperfectly.
Links from this episode:
CONNECT WITH DAWN:
Website: https://www.pursueprogress.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pursueprogresswithdawn.com
Imperfection in Progress Podcast: https://www.pursueprogress.com/podcast
Imperfection in Progress Membership: https://www.pursueprogress.com/imperfectioninprogressmembership
CONNECT WITH NOELLE:
Website: https://www.counselingsolutionschicago.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noellemcwardaquino
Free Gift: Anxiety Relief Guide
Link to Free Gift: https://www.counselingsolutionschicago.com/
OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:
Umbrella Virtual Solutions: https://www.umbrellavs.com
Book Your Free 30 Minute Strategy Call with the host, Dawn Calvinisti: https://link.theviphub.ca/widget/bookings/dawncalvinisti/strategy
Private Podcast Deep Dive on Anxiety: https://www.pursueprogress.com/deepdive
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