Why ‘Pushing Through’ Anxiety Isn’t Helping (And What to Do Differently) | Ep. 518

In this episode, I’m sharing why pushing through anxiety and facing your fears might not be helping as much as you’d hoped, and one simple shift that can make a big difference in your anxiety recovery.

In this episode, I’ll explore:

• Why facing your fears isn’t always enough to help you overcome anxiety.
• What “white-knuckling” is and how it might be keeping you stuck.
• The surprising ways your body can reinforce fear without you realizing it.
• Simple ways to release physical tension while facing anxiety-provoking situations.
• Why the goal isn’t to feel calm, but to change how you respond to fear.
• How to practice these skills without putting pressure on yourself to get them right every time.

Why Pushing Through Anxiety Isn’t Helping (And What to Do Instead)

If you’ve been working hard to face your fears, push through anxiety, and do all the things you’re supposed to do in anxiety recovery, but you’re STILL feeling anxious, I want you to hear this.

You might be facing your fears in a way that’s actually keeping your anxiety going.

Now, before you panic, I want you to know that this is incredibly common. And the good news? There’s something you can do differently.

As an anxiety and OCD specialist, I often tell my clients that one of the most important parts of anxiety recovery is learning to stop avoiding and start facing our fears.

But almost every time I explain this, someone says to me:

“But Kimberley, I AM facing my fears! I push through anxiety every single day. I leave the house, I do the scary things, and I keep going even when I’m terrified. So why am I not getting better?”

It’s a fantastic question, and today I want to help you understand something that could completely change the way you approach anxiety recovery.

Because facing your fears is important, but HOW you face them matters, too.

Are You White-Knuckling Your Way Through Anxiety?

Let’s start with an example.

Imagine you’re walking with a three-year-old child when suddenly, you see a dog.

The child looks up at you and says, “Look! A dog!”

Now, imagine your response is to immediately tighten your grip on their hand, pull them away, tense your shoulders, and make a fearful face.

What do you think that child is going to learn?

They’re going to learn that dogs are dangerous!

Even if you never actually SAY the dog is dangerous, your body language is communicating that message loud and clear.

And if you react that way every time you encounter a dog, that child is going to become increasingly convinced that dogs are something to fear.

Here’s the interesting part: Your brain learns from your body in a similar way.

When you encounter something that triggers your anxiety, you might be doing exactly what we encourage in exposure therapy. You’re showing up. You’re facing the fear. You’re not avoiding.

But if you’re clenching every muscle, holding your breath, tightening your jaw, and gripping your way through the experience, you may also be reinforcing the message that the situation is dangerous.

This is what I call white-knuckling.

And it’s one of the things I want you to start paying attention to.

The Two Types of White-Knuckling

There are actually two ways we tend to white-knuckle our way through anxiety.

1. Mental White-Knuckling

This happens when you’re fighting anxiety inside your mind.

Maybe you’re constantly trying to figure things out, seeking certainty, mentally reviewing situations, catastrophizing, or trying to convince yourself that everything is going to be okay.

You’re technically facing the situation, but mentally, you’re still fighting to make the discomfort disappear.

If this sounds familiar, I encourage you to explore my Rumination Reset course, where I teach skills for stepping out of those repetitive mental battles.

2. Physical White-Knuckling

This is what we’re focusing on today.

Physical white-knuckling happens when your body responds to anxiety by tightening, gripping, contracting, or bracing against the experience.

And sometimes, we don’t even realize we’re doing it!

You might notice:

• Your shoulders creeping up toward your ears.
• Your jaw clenching or your forehead tightening.
• Your stomach muscles contracting.
• Your hands gripping or forming fists.
• Your legs, glutes, or hips becoming tense.
• Your face wincing whenever anxiety appears.

Now, I want to be very clear about something.

Your body’s initial reaction to anxiety is completely normal.

When your brain perceives a threat, your body naturally prepares to respond. You might tense up before you’ve even had a chance to think about it.

That initial reaction isn’t something you need to criticize or eliminate.

What we’re working on is what happens NEXT.

You Can’t Always Control Anxiety, But You Can Practice Changing Your Response

One of the most important things I teach my clients is that we don’t necessarily get to choose when anxiety shows up.

We don’t get to decide whether something triggers us.

And we certainly don’t need to spend our entire day trying to prevent uncomfortable feelings.

But we CAN practice changing how we respond once we notice anxiety.

Think about driving a car.

Imagine you’re running late, feeling stressed, and gripping the steering wheel so tightly that your knuckles are practically white.

Your shoulders are raised, your forehead is furrowed, and your entire body is bracing.

Now, unless you’re a race car driver navigating a dangerous turn, all that tension probably isn’t helping you drive.

It’s just adding more stress to an already stressful situation.

Anxiety can work the same way.

You might be giving a presentation, stepping into an elevator, going to a doctor’s appointment, or doing an exposure exercise.

Your brain is shouting, “DANGER!”

But if the situation is actually safe, you can begin practicing a different physical response.

Instead of continuing to brace, you can practice softening.

And that brings us to one of my favorite skills.

The Skill of Softening Your Body While Facing Fear

The next time you notice anxiety showing up, I want you to try something.

Rather than immediately trying to think your way out of anxiety, pay attention to what your body is doing.

Ask yourself:

Where am I gripping right now?

Maybe your shoulders are tense. Maybe your stomach is tight. Maybe your jaw is clenched.

Whatever you notice, see if you can gently soften that area.

Here are some simple ways to practice:

Drop Your Shoulders

Notice if your shoulders have crept up toward your ears.

Gently lower them.

You don’t need to force yourself into a perfectly relaxed posture. Just allow a little less tension.

Soften Your Face and Jaw

Unclench your teeth. Relax your forehead. Release that tight expression around your eyes.

You might even experiment with a very gentle smile.

Release Your Grip

Notice what your hands are doing.

Are your fingers tightly curled? Are you gripping your phone, your steering wheel, or the arms of your chair?

See if you can loosen your hold.

Relax Your Stomach and Legs

Sometimes we hold anxiety in places we don’t immediately recognize.

Check your stomach, hips, thighs, and glutes.

Are those muscles contracting unnecessarily?

Practice letting them soften.

Experiment With a Longer Exhale

You might also try allowing your exhale to be slightly longer than your inhale.

Not because you HAVE to breathe a certain way, but because it can be another opportunity to practice releasing that physical grip.

And here’s the most important part of this entire exercise.

We’re not doing any of this to make anxiety go away.

The Goal Isn’t to Calm Down

I really want to emphasize this because it’s where anxiety recovery can get tricky.

When I encourage you to soften your body, I’m not suggesting that you use relaxation as another strategy to get rid of anxiety.

We’re not trying to trick your nervous system into calming down.

We’re not trying to guarantee that your heart rate will slow or that your uncomfortable feelings will disappear.

That’s not the goal.

The goal is to practice responding to a safe situation without treating it like an emergency.

Remember the example of the child and the dog?

When my own children were afraid of dogs, I worked on showing them through my body language that we didn’t need to respond with panic.

I could smile, keep my body relaxed, and calmly acknowledge the dog.

I was modeling a different response.

And that’s what I want you to practice doing for your own brain.

Even when your brain is telling you something is scary, you can practice responding with less physical alarm.

You’re teaching your brain, through repeated experiences, that anxiety doesn’t always require a full-body emergency response.

What If Your Body Keeps Tensing Up?

Now, I know what some of you are thinking.

“Okay, Kimberley, I can relax my shoulders. But what happens when they tense up again five seconds later?”

Great question!

Here’s my answer.

You soften them again.

And again.

And again.

Maybe you lower your shoulders, and 13 seconds later they’re right back up around your ears like you’re wearing them as earrings!

That’s okay!

I don’t want you turning this skill into another thing you have to do perfectly.

Anxiety is repetitive. Your body’s responses can be repetitive, too.

You might notice yourself clenching your jaw 20 times throughout the day.

That doesn’t mean the skill isn’t working.

It means you’re getting 20 opportunities to practice responding differently.

The work isn’t about achieving permanent relaxation.

It’s about building awareness and repeatedly choosing a different response.

And please, please don’t beat yourself up when you catch yourself white-knuckling.

Self-criticism is not going to make this process easier.

Anxiety Coming Back Doesn’t Mean You’re Failing

Something I hear from clients all the time is:

“But Kimberley, I did the skill, and then my anxiety came back!”

And I understand why that feels frustrating.

You’ve been working so hard. You’ve been practicing your tools. You want to see progress.

But I want to offer you a different way of looking at this.

The fact that anxiety came back isn’t necessarily the problem. What matters is how you respond when it returns.

Are you immediately bracing against it?

Are you gripping, clenching, and treating the feeling like an emergency?

Or can you notice it and respond with a little more willingness?

You might say something like:

“Oh, hello, anxiety. I see you’re here again. I understand why you might be concerned, but I’m going to keep doing what matters to me without gripping my way through this.”

You don’t have to love anxiety.

You don’t have to convince yourself that everything is wonderful.

And you certainly don’t have to feel calm.

You can simply practice making a little more room for the experience.

This is an important part of changing your relationship with anxiety.

How to Practice This During Exposure Therapy

If you’re doing exposure and response prevention (ERP) or working on facing your fears, this is a skill I really want you to experiment with.

Let’s say you’re afraid of elevators.

You’ve been practicing riding elevators, but every time you step inside, your body immediately contracts.

Your shoulders rise. Your hands tighten. Your stomach clenches.

And you spend the entire ride counting down the seconds until you can escape.

Yes, you’re facing your fear.

But you’re also spending the experience physically bracing against it.

So, the next time you practice an appropriate, safe exposure, try adding this skill.

Notice your body’s initial response.

Then gently lower your shoulders.

Release your jaw.

Soften your hands.

Allow your stomach to relax.

And continue riding the elevator.

You’re still doing the scary thing. You’re just practicing not fighting it with your entire body.

This doesn’t mean anxiety will instantly disappear.

In fact, anxiety might remain high throughout the exposure.

That’s okay.

The important thing is that you’re giving yourself an opportunity to learn something different.

Instead of repeatedly practicing fear AND physical resistance, you’re practicing fear with a little less resistance.

And over time, that can support the learning we’re working toward in exposure therapy.

Don’t Forget About Mental White-Knuckling

As you practice softening your body, I also want you to pay attention to what’s happening in your mind.

Because physical and mental white-knuckling often happen together.

You might relax your shoulders while continuing to mentally review every possible worst-case scenario.

Or you might successfully redirect your attention away from rumination while keeping your entire body clenched.

This is why I encourage you to work on both pieces.

With mental white-knuckling, we’re practicing skills such as noticing rumination, stepping away from attempts to gain certainty, and redirecting our attention toward what’s actually happening.

With physical white-knuckling, we’re practicing noticing tension and releasing unnecessary gripping.

Together, these skills can help you approach anxiety with less resistance.

And remember, neither skill requires you to eliminate anxiety first.

A Simple Practice You Can Start Today

Here’s what I’d love for you to experiment with today.

The next time anxiety shows up, don’t immediately focus on getting rid of it.

Instead, ask yourself three questions:

1. What is my body doing right now?

Notice where you’re gripping, clenching, or bracing.

2. Can I soften just a little?

Lower your shoulders, loosen your jaw, release your hands, or relax another area of tension.

3. Can I continue doing what matters without waiting to feel calm?

Return your attention to the activity, exposure, or meaningful task in front of you.

That’s it.

And if you find yourself tensing up again?

Repeat the practice.

You can do this as many times as you need.

Remember, this is a skill you’re developing, not a test you have to pass.

You Can Face Fear Without Fighting It

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from today’s conversation, it’s this:

You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through anxiety to make progress.

Yes, facing your fears is important.

Yes, doing hard things while feeling anxious is a valuable part of recovery.

But I also want you to practice HOW you’re showing up for those experiences.

Can you face fear with softer shoulders?

Can you allow uncertainty without clenching every muscle?

Can you keep moving toward what matters while making a little more room for discomfort?

That’s the work.

And you don’t have to get it right every time.

Every time you notice yourself gripping and choose to soften, you’re practicing a different relationship with anxiety.

Keep practicing. Keep showing up. And remember, progress isn’t measured by how quickly anxiety disappears.

It’s a beautiful day to do hard things.

Please note: This article and the resources at CBTschool.com are educational and are not a substitute for professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit from additional support, please reach out to a qualified mental health provider in your area.

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Transcription:Why ‘Pushing Through’ Anxiety Isn’t Helping

 

Nearly every single time I start with a new patient or a new client or a new student, we talk about how all of the research shows that our main agenda when it comes to managing anxiety is to stop avoiding and start facing your fear. And in nearly all circumstances where I explain this, the person looks at me and says, “But Kimberly, I have been facing my fear.

 

I have to be facing my fear every day. Every time I walk out of the house, I’m facing my fear. I’m pushing through my anxiety, and it’s not helping.” And I am here to say, yes, that could be exactly what is keeping you stuck with your anxiety. And so my goal today is to help you understand this My name is Kimberly Quinlan.

 

I’m an anxiety and OCD specialist. I’m on a mission to help you suffer less from anxiety so that anxiety doesn’t make your decisions and anxiety doesn’t rule your day, and that is 100% possible. So let’s talk about it today on why pushing through anxiety isn’t helping and what you can do differently.

 

Okay. So like I said, you’re sitting in front of me, and you’re, you’re pleading with me, “Kimberly, I am facing my fear. What is it that I’m doing wrong? Why am I not feeling better? Why does anxiety still feel like it has such a hold over me?” Well, I want you to slow down here with me and really start to look at how you’re pushing through or how you’re facing anxiety because I want you to imagine something.

 

And just come with me, and I’m gonna explain this to you so it makes a ton of sense. Let’s say I am with a three-year-old child, and this three-year-old child, let’s say they see a dog, right? And so when they see this dog, they look up to me, and they say to me, “Look, it’s a dog.” And if my response to that dog is to pull on their hand and tighten and sort of, like, yank at them and sort of pull away or my face is looking fearful or tense or gripped, that three-year-old child is going to learn that this dog could be dangerous.

 

Now, if I do that repetitively every time the child sees a dog, they are going to learn that dogs are dangerous and that they should run away and be afraid of dogs. Now, that example is exactly what’s happening for you while you’re facing your fear or you’re pushing through your anxiety. If your response in your physical body is to tense up and white-knuckle your way through it, you, yes, are practicing facing your fear, but there is a very good chance you’re just training your brain to keep being afraid of that thing, and I want you to change that.

 

That’s one thing I think you have absolute control over changing. We can’t control the fact that you have anxiety about the thing that makes you anxious, but we can change our physical expression, our physical reaction to the thing that triggered us. Now, there are two different ways in which we can white knuckle.

 

One is physical. And one is mental. And as you know, if you’re someone who mentally is fighting all the time, trying to get certainty, trying to figure things out, trying to avoid scary feelings, like you’re wincing inside and you’re trying to control your mind, I’m gonna strongly encourage you to head over to the Rumination Reset.

 

This is an online course, a very short course that helps people manage the internal white-knuckling. But today in this episode, we’re gonna talk about the physical white-knuckling, and you want to be working on both. You want to be able to manage that mind piece, and then we can manage that physical piece as well.

 

So head over to the Rumination Reset. You can go to cbtschool.com/reset to learn more about that. Okay, so let’s talk about the physical white-knuckling. When you observe the anxiety, the onset of anxiety, or the onset of something that has triggered you, something uncomfortable, it might be, again, uncertainty, anxiety, panic.

 

It might be an- another uncomfortable feeling, like guilt or disgust or shame. When you have that experience, I want you to really take note of what’s going on in your body. How does your body react? How does your body contract? Because that’s where the real question is. If while you’re facing your fears, you notice a wince on your face, maybe you can see, like even if you’re watching here on YouTube, you can see my shoulders raise up, my fingers tense up, my hips tense up, my stomach tenses.

 

I’ve had clients say they clench their butt muscles when they’re anxious, or their, their quadricep or their hamstring muscles around their legs. Their body actually contracts. And I understand some of this may be completely out of control. It might be a complete, like unconscious reaction, and it’s normal.

 

I wanna normalize that. I- it’s a very human response to a perceived threat to contract. That’s our body going, “Oh, do I need to be able to get ready to run a long distance?” Like, “Do I need to be on guard for this?” And so that initial contraction, again, nothing to do with you. It’s not your fault. There’s nothing you’re doing wrong.

 

But then immediately following that initial contraction, that next step is in your control. And what I want for you today is to practice the skill, the tool of not white-knuckling. Imagine you are driving a car, and you are rushed, and you’re stressed. You know what that looks like. Your hands are gripped on the steering wheel, and your face is all squinted up.

 

Your forehead is all furrowed, and you’re like leaning to the left, and you’re leaning to the right, and you’re really white-knuckling this. And sometimes if you were, yes, a race car driver, then that would be appropriate. But if you’re just driving along the 101 highway, or you’re driving along your suburban street, and you’re clenching, you’re actually generating stress in your body.

 

Now, the same goes for anxiety. If you are doing something that scares you, let’s say you are getting on an elevator, if elevators scare you, or let’s say you’re, um, again, seeing a dog, if you’re afraid of dogs, you’re going to the doctor, you’re presenting a, a presentation at work, what we wanna really identify in that moment is those moments are not dangerous.

 

And so we want to get into the practice that even if our mind is telling us this is dangerous and scary, we instead wanna practice s- dropping those shoulders, relaxing the grip of our fingers, maybe putting on a very gentle smile, a, a softening of the forehead, um, a softening of the jaw, uh, pull your shoulders back and down, relax your stomach, maybe do a strong- longer out breath than an in breath.

 

You wanna work at not white-knuckling. Now, this is different to deep breathing and relaxed breathing. That’s not necessary for facing fears. We’re not doing this to try and calm down. We’re not playing any trickery here or sorcery. We’re ultimately just showing our brain that we want to learn that this thing, this trigger, isn’t dangerous.

 

Just like, as I’ve told this story many times on Your Anxiety Toolkit, my two children were afraid of dogs. So when we went and practiced being around dogs, I had to show them, as the parent, that I was relaxed. I would smile and say, “Look at the dog,” and I would be… My whole body language was relaxed I was doing that to model to them that dogs aren’t dangerous.

 

Now, for you, if you’re doing an exposure and you’re facing your fear, you are going to need to model to your brain like it’s a little child. You’re gonna need to model to it that we aren’t afraid, that we’re not going to treat it like it’s s- serious, severe, catastrophic danger, imminent threat. And so you’re going to model to your brain, like your brain is a little child, that this is not dangerous, even if your brain is telling you it’s dangerous.

 

Remember at the beginning of this episode, I talked about, like, there’s an internal and an external white-knuckling, and a lot of that internal piece we… You know, we talk about with the rumination reset, of learning how to manage your mind and learning how to not catastrophize, learning how to put your attention on what’s happening and not on, you know, all of the worst-case scenarios and all of your anxiety.

 

So that is the internal piece, but there is that external piece that you will have to be c- marrying with those, because doesn’t matter. You could all day long be redirecting your attention, but if you’re all tense and, “Oh,” your, your jaw is clenched and you’re starting to notice even you’re getting headaches because of the tension, that is a sign that you’ve got a lot of that physical white-knuckling going on.

 

Now, what I don’t want you to do is to beat yourself up if you catch yourself white-knuckling again. The truth of the matter here is that you might catch yourself white-knuckling physically or mentally. You might go, “Okay,” and drop your shoulders again, and within 13 seconds, your shoulders are back around your ears again, like you’re wearing their…

 

your shoulders like earrings. That is completely normal. I don’t want you to feel like that’s a failure. It’s… Really, this is about building your awareness and noticing, “Oh, my shoulders are back up around my ears again.” Drop them back down, take a breath, and then again, go back into the practices. It doesn’t matter how many times you have to do this.

 

It’s not about it being a one and done. If it was a one and done, you wouldn’t need this episode. You wouldn’t need this podcast. You wouldn’t need me. You wouldn’t need skills, because i- if it was a one and done, you would be done by now. If you’re here listening to this, it’s because you’re like millions of people around the world, where your anxiety is just really persistent and really very repetitive, and even if you talk it down, it still talks it up.

 

Okay? Like remember, logical thinking is not super effective for folks with anxiety because their anxiety is just gonna hear their logical response or the one fix, and then it’s gonna come back again. That’s the nature of an anxiety disorder. So we don’t wanna beat yourself up. There’s nothing you’re doing wrong.

 

It’s not that you need to do this perfectly. I even have my clients say, “Kimberley, I must be doing something wrong here. This is just not landing. It’s not staying. I do it, and then the anxiety comes back.” And I don’t wanna dismiss that. Yeah, that’s painful, but the truth of the matter is the fact that it came back isn’t the problem.

 

The real work here is what is your relationship with anxiety? When it shows up, do you contract and really te- continue to teach your brain that this is dangerous and we need to stay on alert, or do we practice going, “Oh yeah, I see you, anxiety. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Cool story. Love it” Right? Like, “I can see where you’re coming from.

 

I can see that that might be a concern for us right now, but I’m actually gonna practice not white-knuckling. I’m gonna practice not gripping. I’m gonna practice not furrowing my brow. I’m gonna practice not wincing with my eyes. I’m going to practice not ruminating. I’m gonna practice softening my jaw and my stomach and my quads and my glutes and my chest, and I’m gonna do that all day long if I need to.”

 

You are going to have an initial reaction to something that has triggered you. That is completely normal and healthy. It is healthy. But what we wanna do is teach our brain that we’re not going to hold anxiety in that body, in that tense, contracted body throughout the day. We’re gonna, as fast as we can, learn to not white-knuckle our way through fear.

 

We’re going to go and do the scary things. We’re gonna go and face the fears, but we’re not going to grip the entire way because that gripping actually slows the learning process down. It slows your brain’s way of learning and understanding that the situation isn’t dangerous. If you are telling it it’s dangerous by white-knuckling it, it’s gonna keep perceiving it as dangerous.

 

Thank you so much for listening. If you found this helpful, I want you to head over to episode 515, where we talk about how to actually create physical safety in your body. It is a concept I call the four corners, and I would love to teach that as an extension of what we learned today. Have a wonderful day, and as always, it’s a beautiful day to do hard things.

 

Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbtschool.com should not replace professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting cbtschool.com.