Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / The Competence Trap: Healing High-Functioning Anxiety
Transcript
- Voiceover: [00:00:00] Rise Up Live Joy Your Way from emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness. Coach Kamini Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit. Through these small bites of self visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live, Rise Up Live Joy Your Way. Kamini Wood: Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening. Thank you for taking some time to spend here with me. Now, some of the most anxious people I work with. I will say are also the most capable people. They're my people that show up early. They follow through. They think ahead. They think about all the possibilities that can happen. They keep things moving, and so often they are described as dependable, impressive. [00:01:00] Somewhat grounded. Uh, they actually can be described as calm under pressure 'cause they've got all the things mapped out. Uh, but privately they are a bit exhausted and depleted, not because they can't do what's being asked of them, but because they're always bracing while they do it. I'm gonna hold myself accountable here. I know this really well 'cause I have been there and there are times that I still get trapped in those moments of the, the anxious, and I've gotta work myself out of it because high functioning anxiety doesn't look the way most people expect it to. It doesn't always come with panic attacks. It doesn't always involve visible distress, and it rarely actually stops productivity. High functioning anxiety actually looks super productive. Instead, what we see it show up as is, um, overexplaining over preparing. Definitely we see it as over-functioning, staying two step ahead, two steps ahead at all times. [00:02:00] And from the outside. This actually gets categorized as a strength oftentimes, but from the inside it, it feels like vigilance, but it also feels like things are churning. I mean. I know for me, I usually feel it in my gut. Uh, you're not just doing the work. You're scanning for what might go wrong at all times, and you're managing tone. You're managing timing, you're managing reactions, and you're anticipating needs before they're voiced. And because you're so good at it. No one is actually questioning the cost. No one's actually looking at you and really thinking, you know, is he or she really doing okay? Competence is one of the most rewarded traits in our culture. When we think about it like we do, we praise people who, you know, they don't fall apart. They handle pressure, they stay logical. They're the people that keep functioning no matter what. So if you learned early that being capable, earned approval, earned affirmation, earned safety, earned stability. That lesson probably stuck. You became the, the [00:03:00] person who didn't really need much. You know, the person who didn't create waves, the person who didn't need support, you were the one who gave support, and over time, competence stopped being something you did, and it became something you actually used. Now most high functioning people really, truly don't see it as anxiety. They see it as personality. They see it as their work ethic. They see it as, uh, their responsibility, and they, they see it as the standards that they're living up to. They'll even say things like, well, I just like being prepared, or, I function, I function best when I stay busy. Or, I, I don't like relying on other people. I've got this. And all of that may actually be true. And again, I've said those things myself and they were true, but it doesn't explain why rest feels uncomfortable or why slowing down actually creates a sense of unease or why letting go of control. Starts to feel unsafe and feels really un, like not just uncomfortable, [00:04:00] but discombobulating. So here's the reframe that I think starts to change things. So for many people, competence wasn't just encouraged. It was actually protective. Staying sharp meant staying safe, being useful, meant being valued. Being low maintenance meant avoiding conflict. So your nervous system learned from an earlier age that if I perform well, I'll be okay and then everything else will be okay. And that doesn't mean your skills aren't real. I'm not saying that at all. They absolutely are. You're extraordinarily skillful, extraordinarily intelligent. But it means the reason they it it, this is about the reason that they developed and why it matters. Because this pattern often forms in environments where. Maybe emotions are unpredictable or expectations are high. Maybe support was somewhat inconsistent or mistakes carried. Some consequences in those environments, being capable actually reduced [00:05:00] the risk, right? You learned to scan and to read rooms and to anticipate moods and to solve problems. Maybe before they escalate, um, you became efficient, you became effective, and internally. Always stayed on alert. Again, this is not a weakness. This is an adaptation, so I really want to make sure that we're not. Creating shame here. This is not about saying something's wrong with you. This is just recognizing patterns and recognizing adaptation. Your nervous system learned that staying activated created a sense of safety. So even when there was no immediate threat, your body was in that place of constant mobilization, right? That can look like really having a hard time just resting. Like actually, um, an example of this is. I know for me, I couldn't just sit and watch tv. I had to be doing something at the same time. Or maybe it may look like constant mental rehearsal or, uh, just discomfort with uncertainty. Just feeling really on edge when things aren't certain, or retention during success, [00:06:00] you might not feel anxious in the classic sense, but your system, your nervous system really struggles to have that feeling of being settled. So if this is hitting home at all, I just want you to consider, when was the first time being good at things made life easier for you? Not more impressive. Just made it safer. Because here's what a lot of people, or a lot of high functioning people, this is where they get stuck, right? They understand the pattern and they can trace it back and they can explain why it exists, and yet they continue to live it. And it's because this pattern isn't held logically. It's held in the nervous system, it's held somatically. You can't think your way out of a strategy that has kept you safe. This is nervous system work, right? You can be productive and you can be dysregulated at the same time. You can be really successful and be super tense at the same time. You can be.[00:07:00] Very competent and also exhausted. Concurrently. Performance doesn't tell whether your system feels safe. Performance is performance, and your system itself can still feel super dysregulated at the same time. So the goal here isn't to stop being capable. It's not to stop being productive. It's not any of that. It's not to stop, you know, shifting from a place of being. Being a high, a high achiever, it's not that at all. It's about shifting out of the old pattern and to stop using capability as the armor. And so this is where people worry they, they start to question it and they say, well, okay, if I stop operating like this, then will everything fall apart? Or if I relax, then will I lose my edge? Or if I let go, will I then become the unreliable one? And I'm just here to say, yes. Absolutely. Those fears make sense. Because competence has been your protection. It's cre, it's been part of your identity, but healing doesn't mean becoming careless or not working hard anymore. It just become, it means becoming less guarded. And so [00:08:00] certain shifts can help, right? Letting support exist without earning it. You don't have to be impressive to deserve help or to ask for help, allowing mistakes without immediate self-correction. Not every misstep requires fixing, right? It doesn't. Every misstep doesn't suddenly make you unworthy. Practice being capable without being hypervigilant, you know, doing the work without constantly bracing for impact. Those, these are like little subtle nervous system skills. They're not mindset hacks. They're actually working with your nervous system, and this is where the work. It is tender. It's more difficult because for many people, competence really has become their identity. It's how you know who you are. It's how others know what to expect. So loosening the pattern can feel like you're, you are losing part of yourself, but what's actually happening is you are inviting yourself to expand, right? Inviting yourself to step outside of that, those patterns [00:09:00] as your identity. You're learning that you can be. Capable and rested. You can be skilled and and supported at the same time. You can be reliable and still be human and make mistakes. So ask yourself, what would I still value about myself if I didn't have to prove my competence every step of the way? Because long term, this old pattern that we're in takes a toll. And it may not be immediate and it may not be dramatic, but it shows up subtly. You know, it shows up when we are under that chronic tension, you know, it shows up when we feel emotionally flat and disconnected. It feels, um, it shows up when we have difficulty receiving care from others. It shows up when our relationships. Are always dependent on us being the strong one. And eventually what that leads to is quiet resentment, because when we're constantly holding it together, it can actually feel really lonely and really isolating, and you can't really ask your nervous system to surrender [00:10:00] control before it feels safe. So that's why this work starts small, not with this. You know, suddenly becoming super vulnerable. You know, we're not asking you to go pendulum swing here. We're not saying go to a total, total rest state or sudden dependence. But with moments, moments of, of shifting and softness, right? Moments where you don't always try to fix something, moments where you let things actually be good enough and then calm your nervous system by saying like, everything's still okay. We're still safe here. So you don't need to give up your skills. You don't need to become less capable. You don't need to abandon what you're good at. It's about shifting away from using your competence and your skills as protection because you are allowed to be capable and at ease at the same time. You are allowed to be reliable and a human being at the same time. If you'd like to discuss how coaching could help support you, whether professionally or personally, feel free to book a time with me [00:11:00] anytime at coachwithkamini.com and until next time, stay well. Voiceover: Thank you for listening to Rise Up Live Joy Your Way. For more information, Book a chat with Kamini at www.chatwithKamini.com, or visit her website at www.kaminiwood.com. You can also find Kamini on Facebook or Instagram username, it's authentic me. Thank you for listening!