Anxiety as a Friend for Communication

I always thought anxiety as my biggest enemy, especially during social settings.

I still have vivid memories of stammering over my words, my brain short-circuiting as I try to form sentences in my mouth while the person that I was talking with looked at me confused. I am pretty sure that I blew several job interviews because my anxiety kept getting in the way.

As far as I am concerned, anxiety was something to be handled, to be overcome. I considered it to be a defect part of myself that I have get rid off to reach that elusive ideal self that I always dream about.

However, Kelly McGonigal, a lecturer at Standford, gave me a new perspective on anxiety as it relates to communication. 

During an episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast uploaded on Standford Graduate School of Business, she talked about how anxiety can actually be a fuel to drive better communication. 

Rather thinking about anxiety as a hurdle, she believes that anxiety is a sign of engagement. If we feel anxious about something, that means that we care about whatever it is that we are doing.

During moments of anxiety, we often feel like our hearts pounding in our chest. The energy that comes with that can be used in order to further engage ourselves with what we set out to do.

Instead of making the anxious part of ourselves to calm down, she suggested that we should instead use them as a fuel to become more present.

Having said that, while the idea that McGonigal espoused is an interesting one, I found that it is lacking in terms of detail. What she said certainly helps reframed what I believe about anxiety, there is no further elaboration in what steps to take to harness anxiety.

Nevertheless, what McGonigal said has opened up my perspective. At very least, her idea gave me something to think about when it comes to anxiety.