Anxiety or Self-Trust Issues? [Poolside Confessions]

The Real Source of Anxiety

I was thinking about something recently and I thought this will be such an incredible conversation for Poolside Confessions, which is where we gather around my pool and I confess things. And in today’s case, I’m looking at my pool because it’s been raining off and on all day. Welcome to the School of Self-Image where our motto is simple, elevate your self-image, elevate your life. I’m Tonya Leigh, your hostess, and I’ll guide you to become the woman who doesn’t just dream bigger. She lives bigger. Let’s dive in.

But here’s what I was thinking about. I was thinking about the seasons of my life where I have experienced the most anxiety. Now from the outside, you may look at certain seasons and think, why were you anxious? Things were going super well, you were having so much success. And then maybe you would look at other seasons and say, “Yeah, I can see why you were having anxiety then because things weren’t going so well.” Here’s what that taught me and that anxiety is never about what’s going on outside of you. It’s always an internal experience.

The Discovery Behind Anxious Seasons

And that’s when, the other day I had this epiphany. I discovered the one thing that always accompanied my seasons of anxiety and that is a lack of self-trust. Now hear me out. I want you to think about a relationship with another person and let’s pretend this is someone that you spend a lot of time with and yet they never do what they say they’re going to do. So you make plans for lunch and they cancel at the last minute and it happens over and over and over again. Or you’re with this person and you can tell they don’t trust themselves.

They’re a little bit erratic, they stay stuck, they don’t listen to themselves. They’re not self-led. And then on top of that, they’re always full of dread. They’re always telling you why things won’t work out, why you need to be scared, why you need to be nervous. And yet that is the kind of relationship we have with ourselves. That person we can’t feel at ease with, we can’t relax around because we never know what to expect. They don’t calm our nervous system. We don’t trust them.

Not Doing What You Say You’ll Do

And so for me, I realized the seasons of my life where I had a lot of anxiety, I was doing one of three things. Number one, I wasn’t doing what I said I was going to do. And this was a big one back in the day where I was trying to lose weight and I would wake up in the morning and say, “Today is going to be the day. Today is going to be the day that I follow my plan. Today is going to be the day that I go for the walk.

Today is going to be the day,” fill in the blank. And day after day I let myself down. And I also had so much anxiety. So not following through, not keeping promises to yourself, will lead to this low-grade anxiety because you don’t trust you. And again, you can’t feel at peace and at ease in your life if the one person you’re with every single day is someone you don’t trust and that person is you.

Ignoring Your Intuition

The other component that I’ve realized has accompanied my seasons of anxiety and this is the lack of trust and it’s a lack of trust in my intuition. It’s that moment when you have that whisper, that knowing, “Don’t go there, don’t date that guy, go there, do this thing,” and you don’t listen to it. And what happens is you create this internal conflict. It’s like your soul knows but you’re not trusting that knowing and that’s what can create so much anxiety in our lives. I’m going through this right now.

My soul knows something so clearly, so deeply. And had I not had this revelation, I would probably be having a lot of anxiety right now, but I just remind myself every time I have ignored my intuition, it has never led to a place that I want to be. And every time I’ve listened to it, it has led me to some of the most incredible places in my life. And sometimes, and this needs to be said, immediately you may think you’re not being led in the right direction, but what ultimately ends up happening is you’re learning a much needed lesson that by following your intuition, you were able to learn so that then you can ultimately create, experience, and become who you’re here to become. And so learning to trust our intuition is such a big component of lessening our anxiety.

Having Your Own Back

And then the final component of my seasons of anxiety is when I didn’t have my own back. And what this looks like is knowing that no matter what, you are going to be okay. No matter what, you are going to pick yourself up, you are going to figure things out, you are going to do whatever you need to do in order to care for yourself. Again, let’s think of the other person analogy. If every time you fell down, your best friend runs away and she’s like, “I can’t help you”, like would she even be your best friend? Would you feel at ease with her? Probably not. But what if she, every time you messed up, you made a mistake, she sat beside you and she held your hand and she’s like, “Girl, I got you. Let’s figure out what went wrong. Let’s figure out what you need to do. Let’s figure out the next step. I’ve got your back no matter what.”

Now the one thing that I have noticed around this is so much of our anxiety comes from focusing on the future and more importantly, telling ourselves scary stories about the future and that’s not having your own back. That’s just scaring you into staying where you are and staying where you are isn’t where you want to be, right? You want to grow, you want to learn, you want to create. Now here’s what I’ve noticed about anxiety. Almost all of my anxious moments have been when I am telling myself a scary story about the future. So I am imagining the worst case scenario and I’m living in that. And so what often happens is that in order to feel safe, this is what we tell ourselves. In order to feel safe, I need to create that thing, but you haven’t created that thing yet. And so we deny ourselves that sense of safety in the here and now.

And that’s why having your own back is the answer to that because when you have your own back, you’re not scaring yourself every single day. You’re encouraging yourself. You are loving yourself through it and you’re reminding yourself, even if that thing doesn’t happen, we’re going to be okay. And so it gives you this sense of courage. It gives you this sense of peace knowing I’m going to go after that thing and even if it doesn’t work out, I will have learned lessons, I will continue to learn and grow, and I will ultimately end up where I’m supposed to end up. And that has brought me so much peace to the point that now, even though I’m doing big, scary things, someone told me the other day, they’re like, “You’re just so relaxed.” And it’s not because I have some special gene, it’s just because I have practiced these three things.

The Self-Trust Solution

I’ve practiced doing what I say I’m going to do, listening and following my intuition, and having my own back. And I promise you all those three things, those three things have created this sense of deep self-trust that has allowed me to have less and less anxiety. Now is it 100% gone? No, because I have a human brain that’s always trying to interrupt my peace, but now I have the tools to deal with it. So something to ponder on this beautiful day. Do you just need to trust yourself more? If you’re someone who has anxiety, is that the answer for you? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Make sure you hit that subscribe right down below and I will see you next week.