To understand fear and anxiety in Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville (IL) in the 2020s is to understand how such feelings have evolved over time.
Fear and anxiety served early humans as protective alarms by triggering the fight, flight or freeze response in the face of real or imminent physical danger. Stress in this context served as a survival mechanism.
In many cases, our environs in Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville have become safer and more civilized through millennia. Yet at the same time, consider these modern survey statistics concerning U.S. adults:
Around 34% of adults reported feeling that stress is completely overwhelming for them on most days.
21% reported experiencing forgetfulness, 20% reported an inability to concentrate and 17% reported difficulty making decisions in the last month because of stress.
37% reported being unable to do anything when they are stressed.
Around 27% reported feeling so stressed they couldn't function on most days.
Younger U.S. women were more likely to report feeling overwhelmed by stress than older women, with 62% of ages 18 to 34 reporting feeling completely overwhelmed by stress most days.
Younger U.S. men were more likely to report feeling overwhelmed by stress than older men, with 51% of ages 18 to 34 reporting feeling completely overwhelmed by stress most days. (Source)
Though perhaps stating less duress than younger people are, middle-aged adults are still feeling more uneasy than they did in the 1990s. Rapid changes in technology, costs of living, family dynamics and working arrangements are but a few factors that have contributed to increasing stress for adults between 45 and 65.
Many of us are likely aware of these trends and may even be managing them in our own lives; statistics and living examples are easy to find. What we might be less aware of is the steady, driving catalyst that keeps the stress button pressed down, often rendering us unable to achieve our peace among so many external variables: the inner critic.
Many of us in Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville might be confronting fewer physical dangers than our distant ancestors (e.g. hostile beasts in the wild, Napoleonic invasions), but we are also deeply immersed in an increasing modern mental warfare in which we are struggling to adapt.
We have access to immediate, infinite information favoring whatever point we might want to validate, an ability that affirms without always necessarily informing. We can view and follow all that is wrong with the world, as well as what appears to be right – although we're not always sure.
Beauty, success and acceptance can be easily manufactured and even manipulated through technological platforms and tools such as social media, influencer channels, media filters and AI capabilities.
All of this can lead to a growing belief that to achieve and survive is to be perfect. With that standard, we become less able to accept ourselves. We are not smart, fast, strong, popular, beautiful, productive or upwardly mobile enough. No matter what we do or how hard we try, we will always fall short and be stuck with who we are.
Of course that is a false narrative, but it's also a convincing one that our inner critic spins for us. The inner critic is the voice that judges or reprimands us within, often harshly. Its condemnations can cause great feelings of inadequacy that drain us of our hope and joy. It is our built-in saboteur feeding us a steady diet of negative thoughts and self-talk.
The inner critic can tend to form particularly during painful early life experiences such as neglect, abuse, chronic illness or witnessing something traumatic or harmful. If left without proper treatment, the inner critic can commandeer a difficult life.
At Empowered Life Therapy, we've seen how self-criticism can be among the most commonly destructive afflictions causing psychological suffering. It is a frequent factor behind conditions such as social anxiety, perfectionism and eating disorders.
While the inner critic can be easily seen as malevolent, it is born of our human desire to be physically and emotionally safe. By berating us, in its own way the inner critic is trying to spare us from rejection, failure and embarrassment. In doing so, however, it keeps us stuck in a mental quarantine that bars us from healthy personal growth.
The more we are able to recognize the inner critic's function and nature, the better equipped we are to identify it as either harmful or helpful.
At Empowered Life Therapy, we agree with Dr. Robert Firestone, author of The Self Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for Differentiation, when he asserts that for us to live in fulfillment as we're destined to, we must be able to differentiate ourselves from environmental influences that distract or misguide us from that path.
In other words, if family or social influences have been painful or damaging in our personal development, especially when we were young, we must be able to identify and isolate them as distinct from our true identity. We need to ask ourselves whose life we're really living – is it the original one based on our core beliefs, desires and values or is it an altered one lived at the mercy of outer influences?
Dr. Firestone defines four key steps to psychological differentiation that let us start to separate from the past and reconnect with who we are and were meant to be:
1 Break from destructive self-thoughts and -attitudes that we internalized from painful early life experiences. With more awareness of them, we can gain greater insight into how they formed. This increasing recognition allows us to be more adept at responding to distorted perspectives with a clear and even viewpoint.
2 Recognize and change personality traits that may be maintaining negative aspects of influential figures in our lives, such as parents, teachers or caregivers. Many of our clients find that, often unbeknownst to them, they are repeating toxic or negative patterns they picked up early on. Altering these tendencies in a healthy, proactive way is a great source of personal healing and growth.
3 Look into the defenses we may have developed to adapt to the pain and distress we might have experienced while growing up. When honestly examined, many of those remaining defenses might still have a childish quality. The responses may have helped to protect us when were young, but they often limit and trap us as adults.
4 Define our own values, beliefs and ideals instead of accept only the beliefs we grew up with or those of our culture. As healthy, balanced adults, we should focus on a life of integrity based on what we believe is honest, caring, loving and fair.
Once we identify and understand the inner critic, we can shift from relentless self-evaluation to greater self-compassion and a seeking curiosity. We can become the objective, inquisitive editors of the negative narrative with the power to change it.
At Empowered Life Therapy, we adapt different approaches to the inner critic according to the individual. For example, we might support a client through practices such as:
inspiring self-compassion through affirmations and positive self-talk
focusing on greater mindfulness and acceptance by differentiating the true self from the inner critic, such as through meditation or dance
reframing the inner dialogue by replacing negative thoughts with more-balanced ones
setting realistic expectations that prevent the pitfalls of perfectionism
Together, we discover we are so much more than our shifting thoughts. We ourselves become able to objectively evaluate and, if needed, refute the inner critic. We can even develop the voice into one of kindness and encouragement, which frees us to love ourselves as the beautifully messy, complex and vulnerable people we are.
Empowered Life Therapy believes in living as the authentic self. If you or someone you care about contends with the inner critic, we can help restore emotional clarity, peace and strength. Simply contact us at (630) 842-6585 to further discuss our therapeutic support for Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville (IL).
Kasey Huff