Wellbeing News

Anxiety First Aid

My favourite book of 2024 was Wild Creature Mind, written by respected Australian psychologist, Steven Biddulph. Now in his 70s, this book offers his lifetime wisdom for ways to better manage anxiety for young people and adults.

I’d like to give an outline of the key strategies to track and settle anxiety when it takes over.

1.  Notice that you are “out of sorts” and decide to spend five minutes and get somewhere new in sorting it out.

2.   Say to yourself (instead of “I am anxious, or I am angry/discouraged/lonely/frightened)  -  SOMETHING IN ME is anxious, (or whichever state it feels like).

3.  Notice that when you say it to yourself  in this way, something shifts a tiny amount, there is more spaciousness inside you, and a separation of the feeling, and “you”.

4.  Now,  go to where that “something” seems to live in your body - the clustering of unpleasant or uncomfortable sensations that tell you you are not totally fine. WHERE DOES IT LIVE?

5.  It always feels vague at first, but try and find a word that captures the sensation - gripping, or churning, or pulsating, or cold, or hard. Everyone is different, and no two times are the same.

6.  When you try the first word, it is never quite right.  This is because the felt sense is gradually emerging and it changes as it “comes into the light”.   Find a better word that seems to fit the new sensation.  

7.   Send friendly, welcoming thoughts to this (we most often send angry thoughts to parts of us that are uncomfortable, and so we perpetuate the division in ourselves).   Appreciate it as your friend, like a wild creature wanting to help you. You might even want to ask this part of you.“What are you wanting to say to me?” 

 You may find you can “thank” this part of you which is wanting to protect you - but assure it that you are safe now, and it can “stand down”.  Or it may be that it grows stronger, that you are no longer anxious but resolute or strengthened.  

8.  Notice what happens now.  Sometimes it dissolves, just having needed to be given some attention.  Sometimes it moves - often this is an upward movement - from belly to heart, or from heart to throat, as it is made more welcome and accepted.  

9.   You might find that you shudder, or sob, or sigh, or want to curl up in a ball if you are in bed, you might feel some tears.  Sometimes you may get a sense of resolve, that some action needs taking in life.

Either way, you will know when you are there because you feel more whole and at peace.   Gene Gendlin taught that “if you don’t feel good, then the work isn’t finished”.  But at least be happy you have gone some of the way.  

There is some amazing science behind how this works by bringing the left brain (words and focussed attention) to the right brain which knows what is wrong, and has deep access to the hippocampus memory banks and can only speak through its strong connections to our body.   

Our Wild Creature Mind works by using all of ourselves,  whereas typically we often become trapped in the left hemisphere where we go round in circles and mistake words for reality.  Google or look up Iain McGilchrist, the British psychiatrist/neuroscience researcher, if you are interested in the background for this. 

The School Counsellors at JMSS are available as gentle listeners, to help co-regulate a student to feel safe enough to go inside and befriend the anxious or rage-filled parts of us, and to help feel settled and healed. 

Please don’t hesitate to contact the School Counsellors in 2025 if support is needed.

~ George Vlamakis (Student Wellbeing Coordinator)

george.vlamakis@jmss.vic.edu.au