Harness the Power of Your Anxiety with Dr. Chloe Carmichael

If you have days or moments (or years) during which you feel like your anxiety is in charge, or you’re stuck in patterns of self-criticism, double and triple-checking yourself, worrying about the future… then today’s interview is for you. 

 

I talked to Dr. Chloe Carmichael, author of the new book Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety. With her doctorate in clinical psychology from Long Island University and her years of private practice in New York City focusing on issues including stress management and self-esteem, Dr. Chloe delivers a great piece of news: anxiety and nervous energy can be your superpowers when you learn to harness them for good.

 

In this interview, we discuss what our anxiety may be trying to tell us, and what strategies we might use in the moment to harness its power for good.

 

Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, your favorite podcast platform, or just click the audio player above.

So, what is anxiety?

“I really think anxiety gets kind of a bad rap sometimes,” Dr. Chloe began. “People will often come and say, ‘Hey, Dr. Chloe, how do I get rid of my anxiety?’ And I want to explain that the goal is not to get rid of it. It's a gift from mother nature. We get it for a reason… It's actually a big source of energy. We just have to learn how to point [our anxiety] in the right direction. So, I think of it as that kind of heightened sense of awareness that we have when we realize that there's some kind of a challenge or a situation that we don't yet have fully resolved. And it's that little tickle from mother nature saying, ‘Hey, let's see how we can figure this out.”

 

In other words, anxiety isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s offering us insight and information that’s ours to pay attention to and make sense of. 

How might a mental shortlist soothe an overactive mind?

Dr. Chloe describes the “mental shortlist” as a great strategy for calming the mind.

 

“Having an active and tenacious mind can be a great thing until it starts to get in our own way,” she explains. She goes on to describe a case from her book in which a man was trying to prepare for an important meeting at work.

 

Once he had done all he could to prepare, he couldn’t seem to quiet his mind.

 

“He reached a point where he was just spinning his...

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