This helpful and straight-forward advice comes from Sabrina Alexis Bendory, relationship coach and author of You’re Overthinking It, who shares her tips in the light, airy kitchen of her home. She is the perfect cross between a helpful girlfriend, straight-shooting sister, and insightful relationship therapist rolled into one. Her advice is sound and jarringly no-nonsense.
As she offers her 5 ways to stop relationship anxiety, we wonder: How did she learn all this wise advice at such a young age? And also: I wish I had know all this, and was able to practice what she is preaching here, from my earliest dating years. (Like everyone else, I wasted time in my 20s on guys who didn’t appreciate me, until I found the right one, who still does.) Sharing her advice here seems like a public service, so that my friends who are out there dating can try following this now. You can watch her advice here or read it below.
Why We Love This Advice: Relationship anxiety can manifest in ways we don’t even realize. We have to learn to read ourselves as much as we do others. Here is how to do that, and help manage your anxiety when it does crop up. One other thought: If someone is giving you anxiety, rather than helping take it away or feel better, then maybe this isn’t the person for you!
HERE is Sabrina Alexis Bendory‘s excellent aDVICE:
5 Mindset Shifts to Stop Relationship Anxiety:
1. Recognize that stressing solves nothing.
Now, stressing can feel like you’re doing something productive. It feels like if you spin your wheels hard enough, you’ll get to some place of clarity and understanding and maybe you’ll solve whatever the issue is. That’s not what’s going to happen. Instead you just going to stay stuck in the same place, you’ll expend all this energy, and all it’s actually going to do is activate all your fears and insecurities and it’s going to make any problems you are already having even worse. When you catch yourself stressing, remind yourself this isn’t solving anything. This is actually only making things worse. Try to put your hand on your heart, slow your breathing and remind yourself that “Everything is going to be okay.”
2. Set a panic deadline.
This is a really effective strategy, especially if you have an anxious attachment style. So let’s say you’re seeing a guy, things were going really well, he was texting your consistently. And then one day he doesn’t text you for a really long time. Now your attachment style begins to activate, you start to panic, you feel like you can’t even take a deep breath. What you’re going to do? You’re going to set a panic deadline. Meaning you’re going to say to yourself: I am not going to allow myself to be upset about this right now. If I don’t hear from him in the next two days, then I will allow myself to be upset. Then just move on, do something else, and any time that worry and panic starts to spin up, just remind yourself, “No, I will panic in two days.” I promise you, usually whatever the issue was will resolve itself before you even make it to the panic deadline.
3. If it doesn’t work out, you will be okay!
This is the most confident mindset you can possibly have. This is the core of confidence. Confidence is knowing that “I will be okay no matter what.” I know it feels like there is so much at stake but there really is not. You will be okay if it does not work out with this person. It just means this is not the right person for you. Now you are free to go out and find the right person. That’s a good thing!
4. Imagine the other possibilities.
The reason we stress ourselves out is that we invest so much in this other person, oftentimes before they have shown any real investment in us. There is this underlying feeling of “I need to make this relationship work.” If you are still in the early stages of dating, do not fully invest in one person. Unless it is clear and explicit that this is a committed exclusive relationship. keep your options open. You don’t even need to actually go out and date other people, just keep the door open for that possibility. Also just mentally keep the possibility open, that “Maybe I’ll stay single a while longer, and that’s okay.” Be okay with several outcomes, so that you’re not only invested in this one thing working out.
5. Take control of your mind.
We think our minds run the show. and we let it steer us any which way, and steer us in any direction, even down the darkest, most destructive paths. We let it tell us that we’re worthless, that we’re never going to to find love, or get what we want, that we’re unloveable. That it’s never going to work out for us, that it’s going to work out for everybody else but it’s not gonna workout for us. You do not need to listen to this narrative playing out in your mind. You can stop it, You can challenge it. Ask: “Where did it come from? When did I decide this?” Give it a try and let me know how this works out for you. And make sure to follow me for more relationship advice – Sabrina Alexis Bendory.
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