Clearing the Anxiety

Do you ever have days where all your insecurities come flooding in at once? You lay in bed thinking about how the girl you thought you were friends with is talking badly behind your back. Thinking about how your body doesn’t look the way you think it should or want it to. How you’ll never be as good or pretty as (insert anyone). How your last interaction with a loved one that passed away should have been better. How you’re investing everything you have into this career that one injury could ruin, or that you’ll never reach the potential you think you’re capable of?

Okay maybe the last couple are pole vault specific, but you get the idea. It is anything and everything all at once. I tend to be a very anxious person by nature. Ever since high school I’ve had nights where I can’t settle my mind down until 3-4am. Sometimes even until the sun rises. The idea for this blog post came on one of those nights. Thinking of everything wrong with myself, things I’ve done or said wrong in the past, the what if’s, the list goes on.

As much as I try to keep it at bay, this anxiety can creep its way into my practices. There will be days where, for absolutely no reason, I have this anxiety that consumes me. I’m incredibly tense, I have a hard time focusing on my cues, my hands feel shaky like I can’t grip the pole well, I second guess everything, and one “bad” jump turns me into a ball of tears.

My coach is pretty good at recognizing these days even before I say anything specific about it. He is able to channel my focus back to the things that are real, like the cues. Yes, fear and anxiety are real, because I make it that way and it feels real. It’s not real, however, in that the moment I change my mindset then it’s no longer an issue. Mind over matter at its finest. This is of course SO much easier said than done. These days it is much fewer and farther between, but it does still happen. Over the years I’ve noticed some things that have helped me, and the things that have made it worse.

What is NOT helpful is using my phone to try and keep my mind distracted from the things that keep me up at night. I try to stay mentally busy until I’m so exhausted I pass out, and the insecurities can’t creep in. This of course doesn’t do me any favors. By forcing my mind to stay busy, I’m forcing it to stay “on” all the time. When I can’t find something new to stimulate it (like at night when no one is posting anything) I feel myself getting more anxious flipping through the different apps looking for more.

Of course social media itself can add anxiety. I do appreciate the good of social media, don’t get me wrong. It is awesome to share what I do, and hopefully bring some awareness to this incredible sport called pole vaulting. But more often than not, the negative side of it can overpower the good.

It makes it appear people have perfect, happy lives all the time. Often what I’ve found is that it’s people convincing themselves more than anyone else that everything is great. You use “likes” to drive the insecurities away, when in reality it’s just making it worse. When you don’t get as many likes, it affects you. You question yourself and why people didn’t like it as much as the last. I’ve 100% been guilty of this. I would find myself trying to “keep up with the Jones’s” too often.

This is one of the reasons that when my friend, and fellow vaulter, Kelsie Ahbe started the “I am enough” challenge. it meant so much to me as it went deeper than body image. Just saying that phrase out loud has such a greater impact than I ever thought it could. It doesn’t fix all problems, but just that simple phrase, and saying it with conviction, can really help to calm on a deeper level.

Other things I have found to help are:

-Surrounding yourself with good people who appreciate you for who you are, not what you do or look like. Surround yourself with people who will love you, even if all you had to give them was your love back. There will always be people who are not a fan of yours, talk badly about you, and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, some people just don’t mix. Instead of wasting your time wondering why not, use that energy towards appreciating the ones that do.

-I really like writing down a couple things I was thankful for that day. Just saying “I’m grateful that I talked to my friend today,” or “I’m grateful that I can afford the food I had for dinner,” or, “I’m grateful I’m alive.” Literally anything I’m grateful for, big or small, by writing it down and reminding myself of the good, I’m reinforcing positive thoughts.

-I try to acknowledge what’s wrong or what’s stressing me out. Sometimes it’s not super obvious why I’m feeling this way, but figuring out why I’m stressed, and being honest with myself about why it’s stressing me out is a huge help. When I bottle things up trying to ignore them, it eventually comes out in the worst way at the worst times towards people I care about. If I just say to myself, “Okay, this is bothering me right now,” it allows me to either deal with it head on, or understand there’s nothing I can do about it and just try to relax. By confronting it saying, “This makes me anxious” helps to make it more manageable.

For example, in the pole vault, 6 left approach (12 step) has always given me anxiety. I know many vaulters love it, but it’s a weird one for me. I grew up doing either 5 or full approach, and 6 to me feels like this odd in-between. It’s too short but too long, and every time I have a 6L session I feel nervous. I understand that it’s necessary. It allows me to work on things closer to full approach without the intensity of full approach, but I am still anxious every time I’m about to take a 6L jump.

So before 6L sessions I’ll say to myself, “Okay it’s a 6L day, you don’t love it and that’s okay. It’s important to getting better.” I make sure I’m focusing on my cues extra that day. Things to execute in the jump that keep my mind from wandering to “I need to take this up”. I like to do a lot of counting in my head of the rhythm of the run. I count exactly the way I would if I were running down the runway, even if I’m just laying on my couch or making dinner. Going over that run mentally helps to keep the run consistent, minimizing that anxiousness.

By acknowledging “I don’t like 6, so be it” I can move past that part of it and onto the things that help me stay in control and get a little more comfortable each time.

-One thing I notice is that when I start going back and forth between apps looking for more, I feel myself getting restless and irritated. When I feel this coming on, or if I’ve just been on my phone for a while, I try to set my phone down. Taking breaks from it is crucial. I like to read, build puzzles, paint my nails among other things to get me off my phone. If I’m in bed, to help me sleep I’ll use pillow sprays and deep long breathing techniques.

-Reading the Bible, helps to keep me grounded and understand God’s message, and that I am here with a purpose. For years I wasn’t sure what I believed. Losing a parent at a young age, I was faced with questions that I didn’t know if I wanted the answer to. Will I actually see him again? Is there a heaven? Things like this. In the past year I’ve really found my faith, but I’m still learning and growing, and reading the Bible helps immensely.

-Talking about my anxiety with someone helps as well. I’ve had a few honest conversations with my coach. It’s helped him to understand where I’m coming from, and he’ll give me tips on how to minimize it. On top of the execution cues he’s given me, he told me to trust my “good”.

I take a good jump, and it’s as if I view that as a fluke. Like every session I have to prove to myself I can have good jumps and it resets when the session ends. I then have to prove to myself again the next session I can have good jumps. One bad jump just confirms to me that the doubt was correct, and I think that’s why I’m so hard on myself with bad jumps. It’s as if it’s proving I’m “bad”.

It should be the other way around. Every good jump should instill this confidence, and the bad are the flukes. It’s like when someone gives you a compliment and we’re quick to not believe what they say, but one bad comment from someone and it consumes us. This should be the other way around. It’s definitely a work in progress for me, but realizing this is a step in the right direction.

I’m not a psychiatrist, and by no means do I want this to sound like I’m telling you exactly how to get rid of anxiety. The point of this post is just to say that even elite athletes deal with self doubt and that there are ways to combat it. Those ways are unique to everyone, and instead of letting it consume you, be proactive. Experiment with what calms you down. It’s taken me years to figure out the best ways, and it’s still not perfect. Everyday I’m learning something new about it, and while it’s a journey, it makes what I do that much more fun. Everyday I have a good session, it’s as if I conquered it. I think that’s why I smile so much when I compete because every bar cleared is a small victory over the anxiety. I’m proving to myself everyday that I can be successful even when dealing with the stress.

I try to remind myself that I don’t need to have it all figured out yet. That the things in the past are just that-in the past. Worrying about them cannot change anything. Those situations have made me who I am today and despite the frustration at times, I’m proud of who I’ve become. If you’re reading this and struggle with any of what I’ve described, I hope this post can help you navigate it a little easier, and not be so hard on yourself. Life’s a crazy journey with ups and downs, and putting more emphasis on the ups makes it a whole lot more fun.