Why There is No Shame in Having Anxiety

If you feel ashamed of having anxiety, you are not alone. Anxiety has this unique way of making you feel embarrassed and ashamed of having anxiety. Like you have anxiety because you aren’t strong enough or tough enough to overcome it. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In today’s episode, you are going to learn why developing anxiety is actually a sign of toughness, why many of the most formidable people on this planet have anxiety, and how to get rid of all your shame so you can once again see yourself as the strong and courageous person that I know you are. 

Most anxiety sufferers find themselves ashamed of their anxiety and I personally was no exception. During my struggle with anxiety, my life appeared to be going well. I was living in a safe and comfortable home, started a great job, and had an amazing fiance. On the surface, my life did look pretty good. But on the inside, I was being endlessly tortured with wave-after-wave of anxiety all day long. I had panic attacks, heart palpitations, chills, derealization, light-headedness and just every other anxiety symptom you can imagine.  

So, there was a sharp dichotomy between the sunshine of my external life and the dark storm of my internal suffering, and this absolutely wreaked havoc on my mental state. I’d find myself thinking, If my life is going so well, then why do I have anxiety? I mean, what in the world do I have to be so anxious about?! 

This same thought process unfortunately finds its way into the minds of many anxiety sufferers. Kevin Love, the 5x NBA All-Star, wondered the same thing during his own struggle with severe anxiety and panic attacks, “I remember thinking, What are my problems? I’m healthy. I play basketball for a living. What do I have to worry about?!” 

These types of questions can bounce around your head like a pinball, demanding answers, and they often turn even more toxic. For example, you might think: Other people have real challenges and hardships in their lives…and here I am with anxiety about nothing!’  or  I must not be tough enough to overcome this. If I were stronger, I would have beaten this thing by now.  

First, you must understand that any thoughts of personal inadequacy are severely misguided. Anxiety has nothing to do with strength, courage, toughness, or any other perceived personal inadequacy.  

Let’s take Brandon Brooks, for example. Brandon is a 6’5’’ 346lb Pro-Bowl NFL offensive lineman, and he’s well-compensated for his efforts. In 2018, he signed a four-year, $56 Million Dollar contract. But at the time of signing that contract, he’d been secretly battling anxiety for several years. In fact, Brandon had already missed five NFL games due to anxiety, which at the time was nearly 5% of the NFL games in his entire career. 

That can be surprising to hear, right? I mean, Brandon plays one of the most violent sports known to man. He goes head-to-head with some of the toughest and most athletic people on the planet, and plays through pain and injuries that would likely cripple you or me. So, I doubt anyone would question Brandon’s toughness, and if they did, I’d like to see them do it his face.  

But Brandon’s not an outlier in the NFL. A 2019 Harvard Medical School study found over 26% of NFL players reported symptoms of anxiety. So this begs the question, how can a league full of some of the toughest men on the planet be so filled with anxiety? The answer is that it’s because anxiety has nothing to do with strength or toughness. Instead, it’s how you respond to anxiety that perpetuates the problem and makes it worse. And that’s exactly why so many formidable individuals wind up with anxiety. Police officers, firefighters, and the members of the armed forces, are some of the most courageous people on the planet. But they’re also some of the individuals most commonly treated for anxiety.  

Now, their occupations do make them more susceptible to experiencing anxiety, sure, but these individuals are trained to react to problems with resistance and force. And so when they experience anxiety — what do they do? Well, they react in the same way they had been trained to - they put up resistance to try to protect themselves. And this is what sends them into the anxiety trap and ultimately creates their anxiety disorder.  

This same thing has happened to you. When you became afraid of anxiety and all its strange and intense sensations, you saw it as a threat. And so what did you do? Did you lay down and “give in” to anxiety? Did you accept defeat?  No, you put up resistance and tried to defend and protect yourself. And while we now know that is not the correct approach, the reality is that’s the opposite of weakness. That is courage. That is toughness. 

The bottom line is there is no reason to be ashamed of your anxiety. Anxiety is not a personal flaw or shortcoming, it’s simply an overactive and sensitized nervous system. And when you understand and recognize this, and begin your recovery from anxiety, you suddenly become free from the shame that you’ve felt towards your anxiety. You will no longer see it as a negative reflection on you; instead, you’ll view it as nothing more than a malfunction in your body, not much different than a physical injury, and you just didn’t know how to heal it till now.  

If you want the full blueprint for recovering from anxiety, then you need to download the 5-Step Cure to Anxiety and Panic Attacks in the link below. It’s absolutely free and it’s a proven step-by-step guide to a full recovery.