Aspire Magazine: Inspiration for a Woman's Soul.(TM) Dec19/Jan20 Aspire Mag FINAL | Page 58
hopped up to follow me. When she did, her
mom grabbed her arm and said the dreaded
question, “Are you comfortable with that?”
She was…until her mom asked. In that
moment, her face fell and the anxiety crept
over it. Her mom proceeded to follow us on
our entire tour and sat in the chair across
from my office (rather than downstairs where
most parents wait) the entire time I was with
her. Before they left, she asked the same
“comfortable” question four more times. She
also told me that she, herself, had struggled
with anxiety when she was a child.
Therein lies what I believe is a big part of the
problem. Children with a parent who suffers
from anxiety are seven times more likely
to experience anxiety themselves. “Why,”
you may ask? Yes, anxiety can definitely
be genetic. We see it run in families often.
But there is a purely genetic component of
that as well as an environmental one. And I
believe those two often come together in the
following traps:
1 Overidentifying
I walked down the stairs to the lobby and
saw her sitting across the room immediately.
I smiled at her. She smiled back. I walked
over and said, like I do for every assessment,
“Hey _______. I’m so glad to meet you.
My name’s Sissy. I’m excited you’re here. I
want to show you around the Daystar house
and then we’re going to go talk for a minute.
And I’ve got a dog named Lucy in my office
who is going to be especially excited to
meet you, too.” She smiled even bigger and
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Years ago, a mom I worked with kept telling
me her daughter had anxiety “just like her.”
The daughter didn’t. She was just introverted.
But the mom interpreted her daughter’s
introversion as social anxiety. They’re
different—one is more of a temperament
issue and the other is more fear-based. But
when her child would prefer to be with one
friend rather than a group, or didn’t want to
go to two birthday parties in one weekend,
this well-intentioned mom placed her own
emotions on her daughter’s actions. It’s easy
to do. It’s especially easy to do if you’ve
struggled with anxiety in the past.
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