Key Takeaways
• Anxiety often arises in stable, calm environments. ||| • Anxiety may signal unresolved matters finding expression. ||| • Stability can lead to hypervigilance and discomfort.
When Calm Begets Threats of Chaos
At first it can seem perplexing that anxiety arises even during times when life seems stable: external conditions improve and stressors lessen but nevertheless unease increases. From a Gestalt perspective this response makes perfect sense: some individuals adapt best in chaotic environments while calm environments bring uncertainty; tension drops while awareness rises and material previously concealed under urgency begins to surface.
Anxiety Isn’t Always an Issue
Anxiety during these stressful moments is often misunderstood as either gratitude or self-sabotage, when in reality it serves a much more powerful function: signalling. Once survival no longer requires constant action, your nervous system finally has time to notice things it had put off processing in previous environments; feelings you couldn’t access previously can now emerge into consciousness more readily – leading to feelings that had previously been unprocessed due to being constantly under strain being finally felt more freely by you; anxiety arises not because something wrong now exists but because an unresolved matter finally has room to express itself fully within us – it serves an invaluable signal that something unresolved has finally found release! Anxiety manifests as something unresolved finally having space in which to express itself properly before.
Encouraged Losses Due to Stability
Periods of struggle tend to create structure: roles are clearly established and focus is narrow. But as life improves, that structure dissipates leaving an identity built around coping no longer serving an effective function; from a Gestalt perspective this change represents a figure-ground shift: as background conditions shift and require the self to adapt in response, anxiety frequently follows along as this transition unfolds.
Hypervigilence Without A Target
People learn to remain vigilant as a means of maintaining safety, but when life becomes routine and predictable, our bodies remain on high alert, ready for threats that aren’t present yet – leading them to search for reasons and worry over imagined future scenarios. When life returns to routine and predictability, vigilance has no outlet and anxiety begins its search for its source; our sense of readiness becomes discomfort; as yet untrusting of any lasting peace.
Guilt and the Fear of Enjoyment
Feeling good may bring up feelings of guilt when enjoyment was once associated with danger, loss, or punishment. Enjoyment may feel undeserved or risky and there may be an unconscious expectation that calm will soon turn chaotic again – in such an instance anxiety becomes protective anticipation, keeping disappointment away unannounced so worry becomes an attempt at remaining prepared.
Body Remembers What the Mind Forgets
Even in times of relative peace and prosperity, our bodies often still respond according to past situations – muscles may remain tightened up while breathing shallow – even though these patterns don’t cause physical distress or distress; Gestalt work emphasizes paying attention rather than trying to correct these bodily cues directly; anxiety during peaceful times often stems from this lack of body awareness allowing regulation mechanisms to develop naturally over time.
Space to Feel Comforted in
Improved circumstances tend to create emotional space. Without constant distractions, inner experiences become louder. Sadness, grief or unmet needs may surface alongside anxiety; this doesn’t indicate progress has stopped; rather it indicates contact has increased and Gestalt psychology views this phase as necessary so the background figures become visible so the work can be completed successfully.
Control as an Approach for Addressing Uncertainty
Good periods introduce their own kind of uncertainty. Without crises to manage, control becomes internalized – thoughts monitored, feelings evaluated; anxiety escalates when attempts at maintaining equilibrium with mental effort become futile – paradoxically increasing tension, when simply leaving things as is seems riskier.
Allowing Calm to Be Experienced
Anxiety relief comes not from eliminating it but from acknowledging and staying present with it. Being mindful about when and how anxiety arises in the body helps regain choice when confronted by it; when calmness gradually emerges over time without forcing its way in quickly – Gestalt-oriented awareness supports this by prioritising contact over resolution.
Once Safety Is Familiar
Over time, repeated experiences of stability allow our nervous systems to adjust. Anxiety recedes as calm no longer feels like a warning signal and life stops being an alarm bell and becomes inhabitable; this shift does not occur through assurance, but through lived experience: safety becomes real only when allowed to be felt rather than explained away.
