Managing Anxiety: A Gentle Guide for Highly Sensitive Women Working with Anxious Feelings
Managing anxiety—or as I prefer to call it, working with anxious feelings—is something many of us navigate at different points in life. For women recovering from “Good Girl” conditioning, this can feel especially intense.
When you’ve spent years shaping yourself around others’ expectations, beginning to choose yourself can bring up fear. And sometimes, those anxious feelings can feel overwhelming.
Here are some gentle, grounded ways to begin working with them.
1. Shift How You Relate to Anxiety
The first step is subtle, but powerful.
Instead of saying:
“I am anxious” or “I have anxiety”
Try noticing:
“I’m experiencing anxious feelings right now.”
This small shift helps separate your identity from the feeling.
You are not anxiety.
You are someone experiencing a feeling.
This can also reduce what’s often called fear of the fear—that extra layer of anxiety about the feeling itself.
2. Stop Fighting the Feeling
When we fear anxious feelings, our instinct is often to push them away.
But resistance tends to make them stronger.
Instead, the invitation is to gently begin welcoming the feeling in—within your capacity.
This doesn’t mean overwhelming yourself.
It means learning how to stay with the feeling safely.
3. Build Safety in Your Nervous System
This is the foundation.
In my work (both in my group programme and 1:1 sessions), the first focus is always on helping women create a sense of safety within their own nervous system.
When you feel safe internally, anxious feelings become much more manageable.
Over time, as your capacity to hold these feelings grows:
They move through you more easily
They feel less intense
You return to a calm, steady state more quickly
4. Befriend the Feeling
This is the real shift.
Instead of seeing anxiety as something to get rid of, you begin to relate to it differently.
From a place of nervous system safety, you can allow the feeling to move through you—rather than getting stuck.
There are many ways to support this, including:
Body-based grounding practices
Breathwork
Rhythmic or present-moment awareness techniques
Gentle self-touch or self-soothing
Different tools work for different people—and in different moments—so it’s helpful to build a range of options that feel right for you.
A Real-Life Example
I experienced a period of strong anxious feelings during the COVID lockdowns.
I would wake in the night with a wave of anxiety.
Instead of fighting it, I began to welcome it—knowing it would pass.
Because I had already developed tools to create safety within myself, I could stay with the feeling without becoming overwhelmed.
Sometimes I would:
Use gentle self-touch
Hold myself for comfort
Allow tears to come
And each time, the same thing happened:
The less I resisted, the more quickly the feeling moved through.
Eventually, it would settle—and I would return to sleep.
Final Thoughts
Anxious feelings are part of being human.
They’re not something to eliminate—but something to learn to move with.
When you:
Shift your relationship to the feeling
Stop fighting it
Build safety within your body
You begin to experience anxiety in a completely different way.
✨ Not as something that controls you
✨ But as something that moves through you
💛 A Gentle Next Step
If you’re noticing anxious patterns in yourself—and want support understanding what’s underneath them—Inner Compass is a gentle place to begin.
It’s a personalised reflection experience designed to help you explore your unique emotional patterns and what your nervous system might be needing.
Through a guided process and a personalised video response, you’ll begin to find clarity and a steadier way forward.
✨ You can explore Inner Compass here.