TCK Anxiety - Taking Easier Seriously
Learning how to handle our anxiety well is an important skill, but let’s not forget to check if we can just make life easier.
This month, I presented on this aspect of TCK anxiety care - taking seriously the idea that we can and should address anxiety by making life easier for our TCKs when we see that they are overwhelmed.
Anxiety is, to put it simply, the feeling we have when our body is responding to a challenge. It’s the way our organs act when our sympathetic nervous system is activated. Sometimes it can feel comfortable, like when we’re enjoying the challenge. This might be the case when we’re getting ready for an athletic competition. It’s uncomfortable when its very intense and when we don’t like the challenge we’re having to face. And, if we stay in that state for a long time, it can have emotional and health consequences.
It doesn’t harm us to get activated, just to get stuck there. A healthy nervous system goes back and forth between relaxed and activated. We can learn to relax our bodies in the midst of challenging moments, but let’s not skip the obvious - the need to make sure our TCKs are having some non-challenging moments.
Reducing chronic stressors reduces chronic stress. In this presentation I discuss some of the big challenges that our TCKs face, how they can add up, and how we can get creative to decrease the overall challenge level they are facing. Let’s take easier seriously.
