Sherianna Boyle - The Four Gifts of Anxiety: Embrace the Power of Your Anxiety and Transform Your Life

Avon, Massachusetts

This book brings perspective and understanding to what makes us human. The journey of this book moves one from feeling broken to being whole.

Cindy Horgan, Cohost of the Television Show Thriving from Anxiety

This book is a gift to those living with anxiety. Through practical strategies and powerful insights, youll learn how to embrace the wisdom that lies underneath the symptoms and focus on the true messages of healing your body is trying to convey.

Jill Hope, Founder and Empowerment Coach at ishinekids.com

If you or someone you know experience anxiety, you might have seen the title of this book and said to yourself, Anxiety, a gift?! I dont think so. Anxiety can cause you to feel misunderstood, underappreciated, and overextended. As a result, you might give up your dreams, develop an I cant or not now attitude, dissolve businesses, burn out in your job, face financial hardship, live in pain, and end relationships. Anxiety is tied to emotions of guilt and shame, high expectations, daily demands, and pressure. A gift?

Yes, it is true. Anxiety and its symptoms are not inherently the problemthe problem is seeing and interpreting those symptoms in a negative way. If you see them as a problem, then that is what they will be. If you see them as guidance, as a road map to gifts already present within you, then that is what they will be. The symptoms of anxietysuch as all-consuming thoughts, negativity, and withdrawalcan actually help you unearth positive attributes inside you, waiting to be discovered. This book shows you how to see your anxiety symptoms not as a burden but as an opportunity to discover four extraordinary gifts. Instead of feeling ashamed, weak, stressed out, or held back, youll now feel purposeful, resilient, hopeful, and empathetic. These four gifts will change your life.

Imagining yourself with those gifts is difficult if youre alone in the throes of anxiety. After all, anxiety is a lonely journey. Yet if you experience the effects of anxiety in your daily life, youre far from alone. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric illnesses impacting adults and children. An estimated 40 million American adults suffer from an anxiety disorder and only about one-third receive treatment. Where you fall within those statistics does not matterwhat matters is that youre now open to seeing your life in a new light.

The gifts Ill explain in The Four Gifts of Anxiety are free, abundant, and accessible to everyone. To access them, however, you must know how to look beyond the surface of your emotions and your life. Ill coach you through the process, showing you different ways to truly get in touch with your sensations, thoughts, beliefs, memories, and emotions. The magnificent gifts of your mind, body, and spiritpurpose, resilience, hope, and empathyare both your incentive and reward.

The first step on our journey is to learn more about anxiety. When is anxiety normal and even helpful? What messages are the common symptoms of anxiety trying to convey to you? Next, youll learn techniques for using your own energy to transform the symptoms of anxiety. When you know how to quiet your mind and listen to your body, youll be able to receive the gifts awaiting you. Finally, Ill delve into each of the four giftspurpose, resilience, hope, and empathyin more detail.

Sprinkled within each chapter are Gift Tags. Each tag offers a skill, exercise, meditation, or reflection that will help you strengthen your ability to see your life in a new light. Practice them daily, and you will begin to perceive the symptoms of anxiety as potential opportunities to open up to the experience of converting symptoms into gifts.

Within each chapter, youll also hear stories of other individuals who have transformed their view. Like you, they thought their anxiety was a part of who they were, beyond their controla weakness they would rather not deal with. Like you, they also knew their life needed to change to some degree to create the life they truly wanted. Their stories will let you know that youre not alonethey made it through, and so will you.

A life with your gifts does not mean a life without challenges, vulnerability, or pain. Instead, a life with your gifts allows you to become empowered by the very same symptoms you once believed disempowered you. Unearthing your gifts comes with great insight into how memories and unpleasant feelings have played a role in how you handle life today. You will always have a choice to focus either on your symptoms or the gifts that reside within them. Your symptoms, when honored and experienced, are always worth something.

Your symptoms are actually your ticket to freedom. However, like a show, if you do not bother to attend, you are likely to miss what the event had to offer. By noticing and allowing yourself to experience these symptoms, you are opening yourself up to the gifts within them.

These gifts exist in each and every one of us. Yours (and mine) were delivered through the symptoms of anxiety. I assure you, by the end of this book, how your gifts surfaced will not matter to you. What will matter is your ability and willingness to receive them.

Anxiety is an emotion of unease, uncertainty, and worry about the future. For many it is a way to cope with the demands of life. Anxiety is not your truth, nor is it a way to control or prevent what is happening. It is a limited part of your experience, a fraction of what you are capable of. There is so much more to understand, know, and learn.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

COMMONLY ATTRIBUTED TO ANAS NIN, AUTHOR

True anxiety is a natural human emotion that alerts you to danger or a perceived threat. Without anxiety, you would not be able to handle true emergencies. Anxiety sends your body in a fight or flight mode, ensuring your survival on a very basic level. This is not the kind of anxiety most people deal with every day, however.

The Four Gifts of Anxiety covers symptoms of anxiety that run on autopilot in your body. These symptoms are psychological and physiological in nature. Most of us have experienced this type of anxiety in some form or another many times in our lives. Anxiety is when you cant find your keys and you are rushing around frantically trying to find them thinking you are going to be late and snapping at anyone and anything that gets in the way. You then drive white-knuckled down the road, determining the quality of your day by the number of green lights you pass through. You think about all the things you have to do, what youd prefer not to do, and the things you really want to be doing.

For many, it isnt until the symptoms of anxiety come on strong that it is even truly noticed. A string of restless nights, disgruntled relationships, weight gain, illness, depression, and poor work performance are some of the ways anxiety can make itself known.