#050 How to Stop Morning Anxiety

In this article we’re talking about what happens when you wake up feeling on edge, feeling anxious maybe. That uneasy feeling.

It’s almost like you wake up, you open your eyes, and you walk straight into that feeling and it disrupts your day immediately. 

Many of you, my clients in the Nafs Transformation programme, have this problem. 

This is so recurring, but due to the lack of understanding of why it’s happening and all the rest of it, we’re unable to deal with it. 

Because we don’t understand what’s going on you can’t see it.

If you can’t see a thing, you can’t grab it and if you can’t grab it, you can’t change it. 

But in this article, we’re going to look into it and figure out exactly what’s going on. 

WHY YOU’RE FEELING ANXIOUS 

What creates the ideal life? What are the obstacles?

Why are you feeling anxious?

Why are you struggling with your emotional well-being?

Because many of us struggle with our emotional well-being,it impacts our relationships. 

So immediately, you’re having relationship problems. The consequences of morning anxiety are far-reaching.

It impacts the way we raise our kids. You’re always snapping or trying to avoid them, and all sorts of things. Relationships all around are affected by this. 

This isn’t just restricted to parenting and husbands and wives, but across the board, many of my clients are struggling with their colleagues or with their siblings, or struggling with people in general.

I have some clients who’ve come to me in circumstances where they’re actually struggling to connect to anyone.

They’ve always been social, but then all of a sudden, something happens and it all goes pear-shaped. 

Many times, you wake up to this feeling and it actually has a domino effect on your whole day and the sequence of events that happens throughout the day. 

It impacts everything and it sets off a chain reaction.

So I suggest that you take a step back,  to see what’s happening. 

Because if you can see it, you can grab it.

If you can grab it, you can start changing it, you can start manipulating it, so that’s in your favour and it doesn’t ruin your day.

There was a time when I’d wake up with this feeling and it would ruin my morning. 

I’d be so upset that I ruined my morning, but then I would be upset for the whole morning. 

And being upset for the whole of the morning impacts your productivity and how you work. You’ve got all this stuff scheduled, but when you’re not in that state of mind, you can’t show up on form. 

If you’re like me, and you like to get things done and you’re into achievements and goals in your life, then when you have these days, and it has a domino effect, it ultimately takes you out the whole day.

I used to have periods where it would impact me and take me out for a day or two or three.

Because of the impact, it just wouldn’t stop. 

I’ll explain why and it’s super important that you understand because when you can understand it, you can do something about it.

Here’s the thing. There’s nothing that cannot be solved.

The Science of the Nafs, as you know, is a Quran and Sunnah based science. It’s a therapeutic coaching model.

And sometimes we need a bit of therapeutic counselling. 

Sometimes we need a bit of mentoring. Sometimes we need a bit of coaching and leadership.

Allah (swt) has given us everything that we need within the Quran and Sunnah.

So whatever you need, whether it’s therapy, mentoring, whatever it may be, we have it all, it’s there. 

And the most important thing is, you can actually use it. 

For me, it stopped me from having those days.

It’s not stopped me from having the feeling but I’ve actually learned how to completely change the feeling. I’ve learned how to change my entire day. 

And by changing my day, I changed my week, by changing my week, I changed my month. 

By changing my month, I changed my year and the trajectory of my life. And this isn’t something that I’ve just applied in my life. 

All my clients, my coaches, therapists, my students who are going through the Nafs  Transformation programme, as they go through that, helping themselves, they’re able to overcome their anxieties.

The don’t just manage it, but actually get rid of it.

Of course, it requires effort because nothing good in life comes without effort. 

EFFORT IS EVERYTHING 

If you want to create a life that you love, it requires effort, but it doesn’t require so much effort that you hate your life. 

In fact, the whole purpose of this is that it shouldn’t be so draining that you hate the process of it and everything about it. 

HIGH PERFORMERS – THEIR HIGHS AND LOWS 

Many of my clients are high performers.

They’re people who are exceptionally successful in different areas of their lives, maybe in their families, or maybe in their careers, in their businesses, whatever they’ve put their focus on. 

But regardless of that, they still have this problem. So I find that what we tend to do to escape this anxiety that we’re feeling, is we throw ourselves into our work.

For many years, I didn’t even realise that’s what it was.

In order to try and escape that anxiety, that feeling of discomfort, that unease, feeling like you’re on edge constantly, we throw ourselves into our work.

Especially if you’re a type A personality, and you really like to get things done. You like to be organised and super productive, and you throw yourself into work.

That’s what we do. We throw ourselves into so much work.

We jump into the daily to-dos and try to escape this feeling by distracting ourselves and we’re actually pretty successful in it.

We’re exceptionally good at escaping the feeling and keeping ourselves occupied. 

And we keep ourselves occupied with things that we love to do. 

One of the things is we love to achieve. 

We love to achieve goals, we love to create things. 

So, especially with high performers, you become so addicted to this emotional high, this peak state of achievement, that you’re constantly chasing that feeling.

You stay in the state of going from one achievement to the next.

You might look at people and think they’re so accomplished.

How is it possible that they could have one of these problems? 

How is it possible that they could feel like this?

The reality is that we keep ourselves in a state of chasing achievements just to distract ourselves from our feeling. And we feel this for years. 

So many people, especially those who are highly accomplished in different areas of their lives, be it raising your family, be it in your business, be it in your career, or your health.

You keep yourself so preoccupied that it’s like a mental crutch. It’s like a mental support. 

And you keep yourself in this state, going from one achievement to the next and what tends to happen is it comes to a halt.

Usually, one of two things happens.

Either you have this breakthrough moment when things become super clear. 

That’s usually when the pain is enough to make you stop and actually become introspective, where you’re willing to look at yourself and look at your life.

So you have this breakthrough moment, and you have this, 

Oh my God, look at what’s happening in my life realisation.

Why am I feeling like this? And you stop and look at yourself. 

That’s one way that people come to realise.

The other way they come to realise is that they have a crisis, which hits them so hard, it stops them in their tracks. 

Usually when this happens, you become super conscious of your life.

You start to look really closely at yourself and everything in your life.

And all of a sudden, you’re feeling sad, low, you’re feeling anger, and regret, and then you fall into this negative spiral. 

In this state, we go into crisis mode.

And in crisis mode, a couple of things happen.

BECAUSE OF THEM 

Some people turn to blame. They start to blame others. This is actually very common. 

We don’t want to take responsibility for our lives and then we blame others around us. 

The blame may go to your relationships, your spouse, your kids, your colleagues, your boss, and your parents. 

That’s what happens. 

I don’t want to trigger you, I don’t want you to go back into all of that stuff. I want you to stay present and look at what’s happening. 

In order to try and make ourselves feel better, we turn to blaming.

The thing about blaming is it keeps us stuck. Because it takes the power and the ability to do something away from you.

What you’ve done is shifted the power of change to someone else because now that it’s on them, they’re obviously in control because they’ve created it. 

And it means that we can’t change it. 

So blaming never works and it’s very destructive to relationships.

As soon as that happens, we start to feel resentment and anger, and we have a flurry of feelings. 

That blame game never works. Never!

WHY DO I FAIL?

One of the other things that we do is go into self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage, and blaming ourselves. We take the disdain that we feel for our lives and we look at all the areas of our lives with that.

Through the lens of that anger, blame, sadness, or whatever emotion you’re feeling.

We get into this feeling that we don’t like, and the problem is the feeling.

So we take that feeling, and then we start to look at every area of our lives through that feeling. 

Imagine you have a problem in your relationship with your child, and you’re feeling bad because of something that’s happened. 

Then you take that feeling and you start to look at your life and your job and your career and your business and your health, and everything through that feeling.

You’re not going to see it clearly. 

Because you’ve got this cloud of emotions blocking your clear sight.

If you see it through that lens, you’re actually going to do what most people do. You’re going to start sabotaging yourself. You’re going to try and change everything.

And then it becomes overwhelming. 

One thing leads to another, and becomes overwhelming, because then you’re thinking, how can I possibly change everything? 

But just so you know, none of that is actually real. I know that sounds crazy.

But bear with me for a second.

Take a step back and go to the beginning of this. 

You think that your whole life is being created through all of the things that have happened to you.

But actually, if you could stop yourself and not look at your life through that feeling of yours, whatever you’re feeling in the moment, then you will take back control. 

Because we wake up in a state of horrible feeling. And then it spirals out of control.

That’s often how it happens. And if you can resonate with that, then you’ve been there and you know that it can take out an entire day, sometimes an entire week, because you’re in this constant state.

But you can just stop it right there.

Here’s how to do it.

Just for a moment stop looking at your life because it’s like you’ve got the lens of misery. And you’re looking at your life through that lens of misery.

What do you think you’re going to see?

If you use the misery lens to look at your relationships and you’re going to see miserable relationships. 

You’re going to look at your career and see lots of reasons to be miserable about your career.

You’re going to  look at your life and your spirituality and your parenting and lots of things through the lens of misery. 

Now, if you want to help yourself, you just need to stop and not look at your whole life through that emotion.

The easiest thing to do is catch yourself and just be okay with feeling the emotion.

Allah (swt)  says: 

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا

Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity.

He wouldn’t burden you with something you can’t bear.

So that feeling of being overwhelmed and all of those horrible feelings that you’re experiencing does not indicate that your whole life is a big, fat mess. 

Many of us feel that way at that moment. 

But you have to question the very thoughts you’re having. And I want you to purposely reject them.

Just tell yourself, No, actually, this is not true. 

Allah is taking care of me. He is the Most Merciful, He does answer my Dua. 

Your mind is going to tell you, no your Duas aren’t being answered, and your life is a mess, and look what you’ve done to it. 

But I want you to tell yourself that He is answering it. And the answer that He’s giving me; Azzawajal, is the best thing. 

The feeling that I’m feeling now doesn’t indicate that my life is one big fat mess. It just indicates that I’m not feeling too good right now. 

But that feeling is just a feeling. 

You must understand this. 

If you’ve not read any of my other blogs or heard any of my other podcasts, then you’re going to find this a little bit difficult.

So, read some of the other blogs or listen to some of the podcasts.

And if you’re on the Nafs Transformation programme, the life coaching programme, and we’re going through working on your relationships and on your mind, then you know what I’m talking about already. 

If you’re struggling with that, I want you to go back to the very foundation of managing your mind classes and go over them.

SEEING THROUGH THE LIE 

Do one thing, right now. When you have a feeling,  that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.

That feeling doesn’t mean that your life is a mess. That feeling is not telling you the truth about your life. 

Think about when you’re not having that feeling. Those moments when you’re feeling good. 

Just think about the last time you felt good. Maybe it was last night, maybe it was yesterday afternoon, whenever it was, how did your life look then?

My guess is, it didn’t look that bad. 

But when you’re not feeling good, your life’s looking like a mess. 

Everything’s looking like a mess, your relationship is a mess, and you’re a bad parent or you’re a bad child, or whatever it is.

So, when you’re feeling that, it’s okay. Just be compassionate with yourself. 

Understand that it’s okay to feel that and you can just let it go. You’re feeling that because you’re having some dodgy moments in your mind.

Just let it go. Don’t try and figure it out. 

Because when you try to figure it out, that’s when you go into thoughts like my life’s a mess and everything’s a mess. 

GRATITUDE – THE GAME CHANGER AND WINNER

The number one thing I want you to take away is this. 

When you wake up and you have that feeling, just stop. Take a breather, say Alhamdulillah, and do as the Messenger of Allah(saw) advised us to do. 

Begin your day with the Tasbeeh, remembering Allah, being grateful, and with the Tahmeed, saying Alhamdulillah.

If you change your focus to gratitude, and you begin your day with gratitude, it becomes the primer of your life.

It becomes the primer of your day.

If you begin your day with gratitude, it will change your life. 

There’s a reason why this is a Sunnah. Because beginning your day with gratitude will change your life. 

But you’ve got to begin with that and you have to do it intentionally.

It’s not just going to happen by itself.

So, think about this for a second.

You wake up in the morning and you’re feeling this horrible feeling. 

Did you go to sleep the night before having a horrible feeling, thinking about specific stuff?

Maybe you controlled it, you didn’t have the feeling, but you were thinking about specific stuff that you don’t like. 

If you did that, then don’t do that going forward. And instead, you begin your day with Tasbeeh and you finish with Tasbeeh. 

That’s going to let your mind marinate in gratitude throughout the night. Insha’Allah.

Give it a try. Trying it once, twice, or thrice is not sufficient. 

You’ve got to make it a habit. And the habit is something that you just do over and over again. 

Don’t make it complicated. It’s simple. 

Make a decision that you’re going to do this and just do it.