Dr. Sandra Parker's Podcast

Inside each of us is a powerful tool for transformation. We have all been given this tool. It is wired into our bodies and our brains. That tool is "signal anxiety" - the felt sense of vulnerability that is at the heart of being human.

Growth, like all forces of nature, follows natural principles. If we want to take an active and conscious role in our personal development, it is valuable to have a deeper understanding of just how growth works.

Why is it so hard to keep the changes we make? Why is it so easy to understand the good advice out there, and so hard to make use of it in a way that sticks?

So many of us know the frustration of reading a new self help book, or hearing a motivational speaker, or watching a program on personal growth, hoping to make change in our lives, only to find ourselves unable to make and keep lasting change. What is going on?

The secret is that change is vulnerable. All change involves things that are uncertain, new, different, and not entirely within our control. And the felt sense of vulnerability is a signal in the body that feels like threat. Signal anxiety. If we cannot attend to and take care of signal anxiety, we cannot be present and stay present. We do not feel safe. And if we do not feel safe, we cannot grow.

We need to be able to tolerate the felt sense of signal anxiety in the body, a feeling that naturally arises when we try to make change, if we are to be able to keep the change we make.

Inside each of us is a powerful tool for transformation. We have all been given this tool. It is wired into our bodies and our brains. That tool is "signal anxiety" - the felt sense of vulnerability that is at the heart of being human.

There is a way to know when growth is calling, and a way to answer that call for maximum personal power. It is in your relationship with yourself - and specifically your relationship with little signals of anxiety in the body, asking for your attention. As you grow your ability to attend to your signal anxiety, and to hold yourself in the felt experience of vulnerability, you can risk feeling the depth and truth of your core emotion. And you can grow.

The most human experience of all is the knowledge that we are vulnerable. We do not actually have ultimate control over the most meaningful aspects of our experiences. This is because the most important dimensions of our lives arise out of our feelings. Core emotion flows through us like a biological river, originating in our reactions to internal and external stimuli. So while we can learn how to ride that river of feeling, we cannot actually control it.

Our vulnerability arises in our relationships with other: we cannot make others respect us, be generous with us, care about us, or leave us alone unless they so decide. Our vulnerability arises in the outer circumstances of the world: the economy, the weather, the forces of gravity or other forces of nature, the passage of time. It is there in our own bodies: we get sick, injured, we age, and we inevitably will die.

We do not control others, the world, our bodies - and even more, we do not ultimately control what we feel. We can make choices about that flow of information and energy within us - to notice and regulate and express it appropriately - but it is what it is. We can be hurt in so many ways. And that is the message that arises in signal anxiety.

Whether you are aware of it or not, your anxiety is trying to talk to you. It speaks to us of this tender human truth. We are vulnerable. And if we listen we can enhance our capacity to be present. And we can grow.

Signal anxiety feels like threat, and our first reaction is to think that we are in danger. We are biologically wired to move away or avoid when we feel this way. But signal anxiety is really a message to you from your body telling you that you are vulnerable, not that you are in danger.

Vulnerability is not danger. The body has only the language of sensations with which to speak to us, and we must learn to distinguish when our arousal is speaking to us of human limitations that are painful or hard, but not dangerous, versus situations where we need to actively fight or flee. So that we can hear our call to growth accurately, make use of it, and grow.

People often say that they feel anxious all the time - but if that is the case then they are not actually feeling the sensations of anxiety. They are feeling the story they have made up to explain and move away from the discomfort in the body. If we are actually tuning in to the sensations of signal anxiety, the body is soothed by that attention, and our tension decreases. There are fluctuations and changes, ups and downs - we do not stay in a chronic state of anxiety when we come home to the body. This is a capacity that we need if we are to grow: the ability to stay with ourselves in the physical sensations of signal anxiety, holding ourselves with warm interest and nonjudgement, and truly mattering.

Anxiety is not the same thing as signal anxiety. Anxiety is one pathway for people do to get away from the vulnerable body sensations of signal anxiety. Anxiety leads to constriction in the body and in life. And the trick to opening up and embracing life is to do the opposite of what comes naturally when signal anxiety arises.

Worry, generalized anxiety, panic, obsessing,compulsions, and other forms of pathological anxiety arise out of experiences of feeling overwhelmed. Anxiety problems are ways that we try to regain control when we feel that we might be out of control. Yet all these anxious behaviors do is distract us away from another feeling in our body that is actually normal and healthy. That feeling is signal anxiety. It is the feeling of vulnerability.There is a fundamental hman truth: we are not in ultimate control of many of the important things in our lives. Aging, illness, the economy, other people's choices or feelings or opinions, even the flow of our own feelings, are all things that are determined by nore than just our will. And the vulnerability that arises from that truth is uncomfortable.If we are to be calm, grounded, and comfortable in our skin we need to grow our tolerance for the discomfort of that hard truth. We need to be able to stay with what being vulnerable feels like. We need to be able to stay in the body and feel and deal with the sensations of vulnerability. And that feels like signal anxiety.

Growth is optional. We need to make certain choices in order to grow. Growth feels vulnerable. It evokes a sense of threat. But while that feeling of threat is uncomfortable, it is not dangerous. When growth calls we need to choose to answer the call, despite the discomfort in our bodies.

If we ignore this call, if we try to escape from the discomfort of its vulnerable feeling, we will find ourselves trapped in patterns that cripple our freedom, limit our joy, stifle our expression, and exhaust our energy.

We end up feeling anxious, distracted, depressed, disconnected from our truth, isolated from others.

We end up living a life that is defended - cut off from the information and energy that resides in the flow of core emotion beneath the signal of anxiety.

Defenses are many and varied and they all work to remove us from the felt sense of vulnerability. Defenses against the experience of vulnerability take us away from the body, the moment, from the information in our emotions. People walk away from themselves in the felt sense of anxiety all the time. But relief from the unpleasantness of anxiety comes at a high cost: the loss of who we really are, and the loss of opportunity to grow into all that we can be.

You matter. The time for neglect is over. Make the choice to pay attention to yourself. Listen to your anxiety, your call to growth. And grow.

Emotion is the engine for personal growth. But not all emotion is created equal. Core emotion is the gold that we are aiming for, and we need to be able to distinguish between the precious power source of core emotion, and the "fool's gold" of defensive emotion...

In this video a simple but essential equation is presented: Anxiety + Emotion = Overwhelm.

Feelings are vulnerable, and they therefore often evoke little signals of anxiety in the body. When we take care of those signals with warmth, interest, and non judgement, we soothe the body and can benefit from all the riches in our emotions. But, if we do not take care of signal anxiety, emotion can become overwhelming, and we do not reap its benefits. In fact, the feeling of overwhelm reinforces the urge to stay away from feelings. But if we do that we cannot grow. We need to take care of signal anxiety first, then we can allow the power of emotion to carry us where we need to go. And grow.

In this video a simple but essential equation is presented: Anxiety + Emotion = Overwhelm. Feelings are vulnerable, and they therefore often evoke little signals of anxiety in the body. When we take care of those signals with warmth, interest, and non judgement, we soothe the body and can benefit from all the riches in our emotions. But, if we do not take care of signal anxiety, emotion can become overwhelming, and we do not reap its benefits. In fact, the feeling of overwhelm reinforces the urge to stay away from feelings. But if we do that we cannot grow. We need to take care of signal anxiety first, then we can allow the power of emotion to carry us where we need to go. And grow.

Emotion that grows us is emotion that we are able to regulate effectively. It is not growth promoting to be flooded with more than we can manage, and we need to grow our capacity to tolerate and regulate signal anxiety, so that we can grow our capacity to feel our emotion to its full depth and breadth. So that we can become all that we can be in the richness and comlexity of who we really are.

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