
Free Floating Anxiety Exists, Because Anxiety Has Become A Default State For Most Of Us
by Boom Shikha
Looking at the world right now, I feel like anxiety has become one of those permanent states for a lot of us. We don't know what we are anxious about, but we know that we are anxious, and it is definitely affecting our quality of life.
Transcript
Hey guys!
I hope that you guys are doing amazing wherever you are in the world.
My name is Boomshakam and I welcome you to my channel.
I'm so grateful as always that you guys are listening,
Subscribing and commenting on my channel.
I really appreciate the support.
In this video I want to speak to you guys about anxiety and how obviously a lot of INFJs have a lot of anxiety and a lot of times it's anxiety that's not founded in anything specific.
It's not like we're going through something in our life that says that okay you need to be anxious about this specific item.
For example,
It's not like we're going through a breakup and we need to be anxious about that or it's not like our exams are going badly or our job isn't going that well.
It's not a specific source of anxiety that's really causing us anxiety.
It's not something specific.
It's just a free-floating anxiety that's not attached to anything and it makes us feel anxious all of a sudden.
We'll just be sitting there,
Everything's going perfectly fine,
We're relaxing,
Watching a movie or relaxing and staring off into space,
Imagining our different awesome worlds and all of a sudden this anxiety just kind of pops up and rears its head and says hey I'm here let's chat,
Let's have some fun together and you think to yourself but everything is fine why do I need to feel anxious all of a sudden?
Why is this necessary in this moment in time?
From what I've observed and what I've read I have a couple of things to say about this that I wanted to share with you guys.
Hopefully this will be helpful for all of you who are feeling these sorts of free-floating anxiety moments.
The first thing I would say is that as an INFJ we have this default mechanism that we're always constantly feeling anxious.
It's our default mode.
Sometimes if we're not feeling anxious and if everything is going fine and we think oh everything's perfect,
Everything seems to be set up perfectly,
I've done all my chores,
I've paid all my bills and my job is going well or my work is going well,
My school is going well,
My relationships are all set so I don't have to feel anxiety about anything.
All of a sudden when that happens because we're so used to feeling anxious about everything,
We're so used to feeling anxious in every moment of every day,
All of a sudden if we have nothing to feel anxious about then we get this sort of free-floating anxiety that's not attached to anything and doesn't necessarily have to do with real anxiety.
It's just anxiety about not having anxiety.
I know it sounds really dumb and you actually put it out loud like that or say it out loud but it literally is that a lot of times.
I'll be sitting there and I'm sitting on my couch,
Everything's perfect,
The aircon is on so it's nice and cool in my apartment,
It's hot outside,
It's nice and cool inside and I've had my meals,
I'm full,
My belly is full,
I did all my work,
I'm just chilling watching anime or reading a manga that I really like or you know rereading something that I really like.
I'm just sitting there and nothing to worry about it and this anxiety will pop up and be like oh hey I'm here and at those moments when I know that I've taken care of everything,
I know that I've taken care of everything,
I know as to the best of my ability that I've taken care of everything and there's nothing to feel anxious about,
Then I know that this is just one of those free-floating anxieties that's related to that sense that we have that we should always be feeling anxious.
We have this sense,
This default mode that if we're not feeling anxious we think why aren't we feeling anxious?
We should be feeling anxious,
There should be something to feel anxious about.
I'm sure there's something,
I'm sure I can find something if I look hard enough and then so we go looking for anxiety or sources of anxiety and we're like alright and if you find or if you're looking for a source of anxiety you will find something in your life that's not going perfectly well and so you're like yes that's the reason I'm anxious.
Alright good now I know now I can go back to being anxious to my normal default mode of being and not in this mode where I feel good about myself right and it sounds as I said really dumb and I should put it out loud like that but it literally is what's going on in a lot of cases.
It's just anxiety about not having anxiety or not having anything to be anxious about because we're so used to feeling anxious right we're so used to feeling this emotion that if we don't have that anymore we just we don't know what to do with ourselves all of a sudden we're like okay fine I guess I don't have any anxiety anymore so what am I supposed to feel good about myself?
Am I supposed to feel happiness?
Am I supposed to feel contentment?
But that's not an emotion that I'm very used to.
Contentment,
What does it even look like?
And so as soon as we are going into that mode of contentment and we're like no no no no no this doesn't feel right.
It doesn't feel comfortable.
It's not like an old sweater that I can just put on.
Anxiety is like that old sweater.
It's comfortable you know we know what it's all about we know what it's like we know what we feel like what our body feels like we know exactly how we're supposed to be dealing with it which is just wallowing in it and so it's like a full a comfortable favorite sweater we just don't want to get rid of it right and so even we're going into contentment or not feeling anxious or feeling joy for some reason those are like new clothes you know those are new clothes that we've worn maybe once or twice and we really don't know how they fit and we don't really like them they're they might be a little itchy or scratchy because we haven't gotten used to them yet and so we just like you know you put it on you have some clothes in your closet right now like that where you put it on you're like no and you take it off and you put on your favorite stuff again right and that's exactly like anxiety anxiety is that favorite item in your closet that no matter what you always put that back on again you might try other things from your closet you might put it on and be like yeah it doesn't feel right and that's contentment or that's joy or that's happiness you know that anything that's not feeling anxious is like those new clothes or other clothes and you take it off every single time and you put on your favorite clothes you're like oh yeah yeah that this feels right this feels good and that's anxiety it feels good it feels right because we're so used to feeling it right and so I really want you guys to start paying attention to this because this is a really important point for all anyone who feels anxiety in general obviously this is INFJ based channel so I'm speaking specifically to you guys but anyone who feels any kind of any kind of anxiety social anxiety or just a random anxiety for whatever reason any kind of anxiety based disorders or anything related to anxiety if you are feeling that this might be one of the reasons why you're feeling it especially if everything in your life has been set up correctly and you've been doing things right again you really shouldn't have nothing to worry about especially if you're living in the first world country you know you have internet you have a nice home you have enough to eat you have good relationships or one or two good relationships if all of that is taken care of really there are very few things you should really be worrying about right oh that's what I believe not that we're living in a war to one country or anything right I mean I'm sure none of you guys are so I hope well I hope that you're not so there is very few things that really will bring up this anxiety right and if you're just feeling this sort of free-floating anxiety then that is what it is related to it's the fact that we are so used to feeling anxious that we when we don't feel it we want to feel it and we bring it up by poking and prodding it everything that's going on in our life the second thing I wanted to say about anxiety that I've noticed for myself is that a lot of times the anxiety that I'm feeling is not my anxiety right and it is an empathic nature I have I am an empath all INFJs are empaths and I'm sure there's a lot of empaths listening to this video as well highly sensitive people empaths,
Heioka empaths,
Whatever kind of empath you are you take on the qualities and the characteristics and personalities and emotions of the people around you right I'll give you a quick example there is this restaurant I used to go to it's a vegan restaurant it's right next door to my house I mean right next door I can walk to it and I would say three minutes flat so I used to love to go to it because it's good it's a convenient food was great lady that cooked it was happy joyful amazing and she always tried all these interesting new recipes vegan recipes and she made food taste good and so I wanted to go to her every single day and I did for the longest time and then as time went on I started noticing that as soon as I would go there I'd start feeling anxiety and then after that I noticed that as soon as I started thinking about going there I started feeling anxiety and that's when I knew that going to that place was causing me anxiety now I was wondering about why why is that the case and I started analyzing and I realized that the lady herself who was who owned the restaurant who cooks every single day she is the one who's feeling anxious and out of sorts she used to smile every single time people came in she was happy and upbeat and all of a sudden I don't know what happened in her life and I'm not close enough to her to ask her you know are you alright what's going on with you I'm just a customer I just feel it'd be too intrusive I want to ask you know what is going on with you you were so happy did someone did you break up with your boyfriend or I mean what happened right I think she's in her 40s or 50s I'm not like you can never tell with Asian people and so but she's a little bit older and so she has lost that joy I don't know if she's lost a joy for cooking or she's lost that joy of living or if something terrible is happening in her life right now something is going on that's causing her anxiety or causing her to be different right and as soon as I started noticing that subconsciously my subconscious was like no I feel anxious going to that place right because that hurt her anxiety her emotions are being transferred over to me and so I would imagine I'm like I don't know if I want to go to that place to eat anymore right not only that but I do believe that anxiety can be transferred over to from people to from person to person through food or drinks or anything that you're consuming right so if someone is cooking a meal for you and they're feeling anxious and they're slamming everything around and and they're chopping things with a lot of rigor and and anxiety then that all of that anxiety all that emotion anger or whatever might be it's gonna be transmitted to that food item and then to you through that food item that's one of the reasons why a lot of people who eat animal products meat or anything like that will notice that their anxiety levels will go up after eating a particular item because of the way that that that cow or that pig or whatever might be was slaughtered right if it was done in a way that was very negative and there was a lot of negative emotions associated with that animal right before he or she was killed then that emotion is going to be associated it's going to be attached to that piece of food whatever you're consuming and it's gonna be transmitted over to you right so a lot of times our anxiety is not related to anything that we are going through but of course the things that are going through around us right so the people that are feeling anxious around us if you live in apartment building maybe there's something going on in the apartment next door to you where that person is feeling anxious and they're transmitting over to you you know you have no idea again also with food items sometimes you might be going to a restaurant and you're going to it regularly and that person who's cooking it is doing it with a source or with some sort of anxiety or anger or negative emotion and that gets transmitted over to you or you're just traveling around you're walking around and someone's having a fight next door or you know someone is yelling at each other around the corner and that anxiety or anger or emotion is transmitted over to you now as I said INFJs are really used to feeling anxiety but most people who feel anxiety anxiety is a really easy emotion to feel because it doesn't really require a lot of energy not instant energy that anger requires a lot of energy right you need to be really angry you need to have a lot of energy to feel anger that's why I have a very hard time feeling anger because I really don't have that much energy to devote to anger right my anxiety it's easy to feel it doesn't require a lot of energy and you can just feel anxiety over a long period of time all day long without a lot of energy usage real energy usage but obviously a lot of mental and spiritual energy is used in that absolutely is used in that right and so it's easy to feel anxiety so I think the default mode as I said is just feel anxious if something's not going on are going on it's easy to feel anxious you don't have to feel any other emotion right even if someone around you is feeling angry you just take on the emotion of anxiety because anxiety is easy to feel okay again I hope this makes sense I just wanted to share a couple of things that I've noticed about my own anxiety and how again as I said free-floating anxiety is not related to anything or sometimes it's related to the people or the food that I'm eating so as I said we really have to be careful as empaths I've said this in the past be careful about the energies the people and environments the situations you put yourself into the food that you eat because all of that is transmitting emotions to you and if you're if you're feeling all these emotions that are not your own it's gonna be confusing it's extremely confusing and that is the reason why a lot INFJs a lot of anxious people in general spend time in confusion because they have no idea what they're doing right it's not my emotion that I'm feeling but I feel angry all of a sudden it's not my emotion that I'm feeling but I feel anxious all of a sudden you know can you imagine how confusing that would be as you go through about in your daily life right it just it's absolutely frustrating because it's not your emotion you're feeling so you don't know how to deal with it okay so as I said be careful about what you let into your life in any shape or form again if you guys have any questions about this topic or any other topic that I've done please message me anytime all my contact information is in the description below and I shall see you guys in the next video bye for now
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Recent Reviews
Lola
April 24, 2023
Interesting talk. I wonder if I have a residual from having anxiety for so long. It’s what my body knows.
