The Protective Side of Anxiety: A Different Way to Look at Worry
Note: This perspective represents one therapeutic approach among many and may not resonate with everyone's experience of anxiety.
Reframing Our Relationship with Anxiety
What if anxiety isn't always the enemy we've been taught to believe it is? Many therapeutic approaches, including Coherence Therapy, invite us to consider whether anxiety might actually be our system's attempt at a solution. Maybe those anxious feelings are a protective response that made perfect sense at some point in our lives.
This reframing can be helpful for some people, though individual experiences with anxiety vary greatly. Rather than viewing anxiety as something broken that needs fixing, this perspective explores it as a message from our deeper wisdom—even when that message feels overwhelming or outdated.
The Protective Origins of Anxiety
Many therapeutic approaches suggest that at some point in our lives, often at a very young age, we learned that something or someone wasn't safe. Our brain and body, in their incredible wisdom, may have developed strategies to protect us. For many people, anxiety became an early warning system, a way of staying alert to potential threats.
This learning often happens at levels deeper than conscious thought. Our nervous system may remember and respond, even when our logical mind can't quite put together why we feel anxious in certain situations.
The Challenge of Old Messages in New Contexts
The protective strategies that once served us can sometimes become problematic when they're activated in contexts where they're no longer needed. It's like having a smoke alarm that's so sensitive it goes off when you're making toast—the alarm system isn't broken, but the calibration might need adjustment.
For some people, anxiety carries messages from earlier experiences, and sometimes these messages may be heightened or mismatched to current reality. The part of us that learned to be hypervigilant might still be trying to protect the adult we've become.
The Polyvagal Perspective: Connection and Safety
According to polyvagal theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, our nervous system responds to safety and threat in predictable ways. When we feel truly safe and socially connected, our ventral vagal system may allow us to be calm, present, and engaged with others.
However, when our system detects a threat, whether real or perceived, we may enter states of fight-or-flight activation or even shutdown and withdrawal. Many people find it helpful to understand these responses as protective, rather than pathological, which can help us approach anxiety with curiosity rather than criticism.
Taking Time for Exploration
For many people, feeling safer and reducing anxious responses takes time and gentle exploration. Therapeutic approaches often focus not on forcing ourselves to "get over" anxiety, but on understanding its roots and slowly building new experiences of safety.
Therapeutic work often involves:
Exploring what situations or relationships may trigger protective responses
Understanding the historical context that might have created these protective patterns
Gradually building experiences of safety and connection
Learning to differentiate between past threats and present reality
The Necessity of Our Protection
Perhaps most importantly, many therapeutic approaches acknowledge that our anxiety may have been, and in some cases still is, necessary. It may have protected us when we needed protection and helped us survive difficult circumstances. Honoring this protective function, rather than fighting against it, can sometimes be a helpful step toward a more peaceful relationship with anxiety.
Moving Forward with Compassion
This perspective isn't about dismissing anxiety or pretending it doesn't cause real distress. Instead, it's about potentially approaching our anxious responses with curiosity and compassion, recognizing them as adaptive strategies that our system may have developed for very good reasons.
When we can explore anxiety as a message rather than a mistake, we might open up space for understanding, healing, and gradually building new patterns of safety and connection.
For more information on polyvagal theory and the nervous system, visit the Polyvagal Institute website.
.Important Disclaimer: This post is intended for educational purposes only and reflects general therapeutic concepts found in various approaches to mental health. It is not intended as professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Individual experiences with anxiety vary greatly, and what feels helpful to one person may not work for another. If anxiety is significantly impacting your daily life, relationships, or well-being, please consult with a qualified mental health professional who can provide personalized assessment and support tailored to your specific needs.
