Geral Blanchard, LPC, is a psychotherapist who is university trained in psychology and anthropology. Formerly of Wyoming and currently residing in Iowa, Geral travels the world in search of ancient secrets that can augment the art and science of healing. From Western neuroscience to Amazonian shamanism, he has developed an understanding of how to combine old and new healing strategies to optimize recovery, whether from psychological or physical maladies.
Getting to Know Anxiety
Geral T. Blanchard • Dec 10, 2021
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is the nervous and unsettled tendency to worry, to look ahead apprehensively with a feeling of dread and foreboding, with unexplained or unwarranted fears. It is also a physiological reaction: a frightening pounding of the heart, sweating, hand trembling, foot twitching, weepy tearfulness, jerky motions, nervous tics, etc.
What else does anxiety do to us? It seems to interfere with sleep, causes us to be more irritable and angry than usual, easily distracts us so we can’t focus well, causes us to retreat into ourselves for a feeling of safety, and reduces our self-confidence.
What causes anxiety? For some it is caused by a chaotic or dangerous home environment, perhaps a traumatic situation where abuse is observed, experienced, or both. It can be the result of parental instability; maybe the fear their folks will divorce and they will be abandoned. Sometimes it is caused by social discomfort, what is called social anxiety, when we get nervous in new or crowded situations thinking we don’t quite measure up to others.
Very frequently, however, it is the result of an inherited brain anomaly. The lower region of the brain – the deep limbic system – may be revved up in the amygdala (fear response center) and the basal ganglia (anxiety production center) regions. Too much electrical stimulation of this area is frequently the culprit and needs to be calmed, either neurologically (electrically) and/or biologically (nutrients or meds). When this neighborhood of the brain is agitated, a negative mood state sets in and we “cop an attitude” or get depressed. And it blows a circuit in the upper brain region, particularly the frontal lobe, where crisp thinking occurs. When the lower brain is too “hot,” it can shut off our good thinking abilities until we can calm ourselves down. Then we seem to get smart again.
Can this be changed? Yup! Even if a person inherits a hyperactive deep limbic system it can be retrained, bringing it back to a normal functioning state again, and again, and again. Eventually the brain relents and neuroplasticity occurs, namely, a reset of brain activity happens. This takes a while. We can also do it with mind power, meditation being one example. Some people calm the brain by calming the body, yoga and aerobic exercise being great examples. Others have found profound relief from Alpha-stim treatments, a safe microcurrent stimulation of the lower brain region.
Do anxiety and depression occur together? Yes, more often than not because they are like first cousins. And when we get a handle on one, the other settles down. It is best when there is a dietary and exercise program in place that deals with both at once – a “tag team” approach. Fortunately, natural treatment remedies are now understood to be legitimate and very effective, as effective as pharmaceuticals with all their
side effects and great expense. Many of the nutrients have virtually no negative impact, and some even have unrelated
side benefits.
Are physical and cognitive ailments (poor thinking) linked to anxiety? Absolutely!
Often the symptoms of anxiety are misunderstood as serious physical ailments when they are not. Highly anxious persons have more physical symptoms than other folks. In part, this is because they become anxiously watchful. More hyperalert than others, they commonly spot bodily signs or disturbances very early on. We call this somaticizing.
Here is how it works: I get nervous (which is apprehension about bad things happening), I sense tightness in my body (maybe my breath, my muscles, my heart, etc.), and I worry that it may be the sign of a serious illness. My focus goes to the spot that is “wearing” my mental anxiety. This concentrated attention actually aggravates the symptomatic condition and I head to the doctor’s office. Interestingly, the reverse happens too; relaxation and joy diminish physical symptoms, even pain. So how we think can deceive us and worsen how we feel physically.
Now, here is the kicker. We go to the doc with very real symptoms. She/he examines us and says, “Sorry but I can’t find anything wrong with you. Maybe we need to do more testing or you need to see a specialist.” We go to another doc still feeling crappy and a bit frustrated, again nothing is discovered. The mistaken conclusion many folks make is, “He’s saying it’s all in my head; I’m a whiner, or worse yet, a wacko.”
Curiously, when the anxiety diminishes the body can take care of itself better. When our mental radar isn’t set on high alert, very real symptoms dissolve into nothing. The good news is this means that with a good intellect we can control many of our ailments. We can take control of much of our health. We just need to know the body’s psychosomatic system, that is, how we are connected top to bottom, how nervousness can cause actual aches and pains, intestinal problems, even things like temporary paralysis (freezing up). And we must beware of shallow people who carelessly say, “Oh, it’s all in your head honey, you need a psychiatrist.” No! It is more likely you need a health coach and your friends may need some counseling.
Do clients resist this therapeutic approach? Only all the time. They need good information and sufficient time to reflect before they start messing around with their brain, their thinking, and their body. And, what is also interesting is that when folks are depressed and anxious, their thinking is only about one third as accurate as it normally is. When anxiety and depression diminish, people feel smarter; the truth is, their brain is just more online. So it is a good idea to allow the computer to go online for you before swallowing any wild ideas, or any pharmaceuticals or supplements. Let the literature help you make a decision on your schedule.
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Other Topics
Basics of MDMA
Rituals and Ceremony
Brain and MDMA
Trauma
Heart
Energy Movement
Quantum Physics
Native Cosmologies
Nature
Spirituality/Enlightenment
Kogi Tribe
Books written by Geral T. Blanchard
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Just as we have started to witness the reality of individual post-traumatic growth (PTG) – not just bouncing back after trauma but bouncing forward – could we entertain the concept of intergenerational growth (IG) – in other words, thriving from generation to generation?
There can be two levels at which trauma is processed. The first tier may be a time of quiet denial or the dissociation of nearly all thoughts of how painful the past was. The body feels it, but the mind does not speak it. On the second level a person awakens to the entirety of it, often an unpredicted and sudden onslaught of previously suppressed details with extensive associated pain. When trauma is reconstituted at the second level it often happens unwillingly. A person may be swept away by an awakening that seems very ugly. It feels like too much to absorb in its entirety. The result is often to feel afraid, even shattered – at first. Now with everything out in the open, what must be done with it?
At the second level of awareness, it is almost impossible to go on pretending that everything is fine. No longer can the visuals and emotions be kept submerged. One wonders, “Damn it, will I ever get better?”
Traumatized persons, with their pervasive pain, typically seek mood altering experiences. This can include ascetic restrictions, hedonistic over-eating, chemical dependency, sexual dependency, sexual anorexia or celibacy, romance addiction, relationship dependency, compulsive gambling, TV or movie binging, rock climbing, auto racing, reliance on antidepressants and/or antianxiety medications, religious addiction, and so much more that can serve to pacify, distract, and avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings. By thrill-seeking, the higher the risks being engaged, the greater mood alteration one can experience. It’s a big dopamine splash and more.
These are the adult versions of childhood thumb sucking, according to Dr. Harvey Milkman, the author of Craving for Ecstasy (the feeling of ecstasy, not the drug). Harvey pointedly said, “Growing up consists of finding the right substitute for your thumb.”
There are many emotional reactions to a drug-free spiritual awakening experience and a ceremonial MDMA journey. While this article focuses on empathy – both the feeling and the cognitive component – it is obvious to those who have awakened from a spiritual emergency that a variety of related emotions arise.
It is one thing to imagine how another person feels. Psychopaths, despite what the general public believes, are very good at empathy on an intellectual level. Even criminal psychopaths can put themselves in another person’s position and understand their perspective. It is bigger, better, and far healthier when empathy, in its deepest sense, allows us to “feel with” other people by recognizing a sense of oneness with them, what’s called unity consciousness. To hurt others would be to hurt ourselves.
It’s impossible to talk about projection without incorporating a discussion about Sigmund Freud and Donald Trump. In this article I will skip Donald but throw in a little Carl Jung. Freud, of course, named several distinctive defense measures – reality distorting strategies to keep us safe. Two of the big ones are displacement and projection.
First, a definition of projection: This is evident when an individual attributes their own unacceptable impulses onto others. For example, a person might accuse others of engaging in thievery when, in fact, they are swindling money from their employer. Some of the behaviors and thoughts we are most ashamed of could be called shadows. We can see them first in other people before we can “call them out” in ourselves. We are defending against humiliation and mortification lest we be exposed.
Does this empathogen work in a similar manner as psychedelics, blasting us off to a sudden and dramatic awakening of the mind and soul? Not necessarily. Much like massive stress, psychedelics and MDMA can knock people off an unhealthy path and offer them an entirely different trajectory, but there is a lot of arduous individual work that must follow the use of these propellants.
So, could it be concluded that MDMA is a transcendent spiritual event -- a chemical event, or perhaps a neurological experience? By themselves, both seem unlikely. They can change activity in the brain, but enlightenment comes from hard work before and after their use. Entheogens and empathogens likely have a catalytic but not a primary casual effect in awakening.
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With the “help” of psychology and the diagnoses of PTSD and C-PTSD, an entire trauma industry has developed. Much help has been delivered and, unfortunately, in many instances the assigned labels stick like glue and there can be difficulty relinquishing the newly imposed identity of “breakage.”
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