COVID Vaccine Anxiety

You’ve probably heard about the covid vaccine. And you’ve probably heard that it’s stirring up a lot of intense emotions from both sides of the argument.

There are people out there that have come to a screeching halt at a red stoplight, and some that are hitting the accelerator to their green lights and getting in line for the poke. But maybe you’re somewhere in between? Maybe you are in the yellow. That unsure space. Or maybe you’re red and you’re terrified.

Is the COVID vaccine giving you anxiety?

When it comes to COVID Vaccine Anxiety, there are many aspects that may be troubling to people:

• Some are anxious about how fast it came out
• There’s fear of unknown long-term side effects
• Stress about a foreign substance being injected into your body
• Fear of needles
• Fear-based on a lack of information, education or even from MIS information.

There’s a lot of information out there, and some of it is true, and some of it is not true. But here’s the thing:

You’re not going to find the ultimate truth by digging deeper and deeper in Reddit threads or the rabbit hole of vaccine debates on google. Sometimes research creates a good objective end of the sentence conclusion that says YES or NO absolutely.

But when it comes to the COVID vaccine we just don’t know everything. A lot of it boils down to personal choice.

When people make absolute declarative statements about the vaccine from either side, you must take the vaccine, or the vaccine is a hoax, each side of the aisle are taking a position of faith based on their education on the topic, and with respect to their cast of characters that form a foundation for understanding and interpretation of what they are hearing and learning.

Fundamentally, what it comes down to is each person’s individual choice. But how can you do that when there is so much differing information, so much controversy and turmoil?

The ACT method has an answer. Today you’re going to learn how to overcome COVID Vaccine anxiety by following a simple, and reliable three-step method.

So let’s get started.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Sit with the feeling: Draw the feeling, write down your feelings, acknowledge your feelings. Talk with your trusted friends who are level headed. Process what comes up.

Notice your CAST OF CHARACTERS

What is coming up that may be clouding your ability to objectively assess how you feel about the vaccine. For example:

• Psychological Characters: Parts of yourself that have health anxiety, needle anxiety. Interestingly a lot of phobias about shots, or medicines or treatments come from childhood trauma. Let me tell you a story about me getting tested for asthma. So, if we look at the research informing the top EMDR and Ego State Therapies, we know that memories like these can get locked into the non-conscious and non-processing parts of the brain. Continuing to have these traumas stored in the brain will impact you like you are wearing purple-polka dot sunglasses and looking at the sky. Your perception changes and you will believe the sky has polka dots. Doing the deeper work will help to clear the traumas, so you can take the sunglasses off and see the sky for how it truly is. Similarly, doing the deeper work on your psychological characters will help you to see the vaccine debate for what it truly is so you can make a decision from your best, and most whole self.
• Social Characters: Not trusting big companies or big government to protect you, hearing misinformation, feeling isolated, hearing horror stories from people and overgeneralizing that to yourself.
• Physical Characters: Your nervous system is already wound up about lots of other things and adding a vaccine sounds scary and overwhelming, past aversive reactions to vaccines or medications.

TRANSFORM Anxiety into Empowerment

• Knowledge is power:
  • Educate yourself from reputable sources about how the vaccine works. The more you understand the research behind the vaccine the better able you will be to make a decision for yourself and your family.
  • Talk with actual people who have gotten the vaccine and see how they are doing.
• Know your boundaries:
  • No matter what you decide about the vaccine, someone is going to disagree with you and be upset. Whether or not you get a vaccine is a decision only you can make, and this choice is personal. Be sure that you are protecting yourself with your decision. One of my favorite strategies for knowing your boundaries is to create what I call The House of Boundaries. We talk a LOT about this in the Cast of Characters section of the Act Method, and I’ve also written a ton of content and published videos that you can watch right now for free – https://drnicolecain.com/house-of-boundaries/
• Honor your parts
  • Anxiety, anger and sadness are all signs that something is out of balance and that we have an unmet need. Think about it this way. Trying to make a decision without first addressing your signs of imbalance is like trying to mail a letter without an address, or like driving to the grand canyon without a map. When our parts are expressing distress by giving us symptoms whether or emotional, honoring these parts first, will give you a strong foundation to make decisions that you will feel good about in the long run. In order to avoid feelings of regret and doubt, involve all of the parts of yourself in the process.

Are you interested in doing some parts work? I actually teach you how to do this in THREE MINUTES FLAT in the 3-Minute Hack. Doing deep and powerful work does not have to take months on a clinician’s couch or cost you thousands of dollars.

For a limited time, I am offering my 3-Minute Hack Webinar FREE of charge. You can do it from the comfort of your own home, on your own terms. And there’s no risk, no obligation, it’s a gift from me to you.

Here’s to your next chapter,

Dr. Nicole