“The Anxiety” vs “My Anxiety”: How Your Words Shape What You Carry
The Sentence That Changes Everything
"My anxiety." "My low self-esteem." "My neuroticism." Say any of these enough times and notice what happens — they stop describing a passing state and start describing a person. You.
This is one of the ideas I come back to most often in my work, and I first encountered it through Marisa Peer's teaching. It's simple enough to use immediately, and the research on language and self-perception backs up exactly why it works.
Marisa Peer's Teaching: The Moment You Say "My," You Own It
Marisa Peer, the therapist behind Rapid Transformational Therapy, has spent decades pointing out something most of us never think to question: the possessive pronoun. The instant you attach "my" to a feeling, you've claimed it as part of your identity rather than something passing through you.
Compare the two ways of speaking about the same experience:
"My anxiety is bad today" versus "The anxiety is loud today"
"My confidence issue" versus "I don't feel confident in this specific area"
"I'm just not a confident person" versus "Public speaking is where I feel less sure of myself"
The first version in each pair folds the feeling into who you are. The second keeps it exactly where it belongs — as something happening, not something you are. This is often the first shift I work through with clients, because it changes the emotional weight of everything that follows.
It Sounds Small. The Research Says It Isn't.
It would be easy to dismiss this as a semantic trick, so it's worth knowing this isn't just a therapy-room observation — it's been tested.
"I don't" versus "I can't"
Consumer psychologists Vanessa Patrick and Henrik Hagtvedt ran a series of studies on exactly this kind of language shift. Across four separate studies, they found that framing a refusal as "I don't" rather than "I can't" made people significantly more likely to follow through on a goal — because "I don't" carries a sense of personal authority, while "I can't" carries a sense of restriction imposed from outside. The effect held in a longer real-world field study, and it worked because of the same mechanism Marisa Peer describes: ownership and identity shift depending on the words you choose.
Self-distancing and the "chatter" in your head
Psychologist Ethan Kross's research on what he calls internal "chatter" points in the same direction from a different angle. Shifting from first-person language ("I") to more distanced language when talking to yourself about a difficult feeling — even just using your own name — has been shown to help people regulate emotion and think more clearly under stress. Distance in language creates distance in experience.
A few examples of what that shift sounds like:
Instead of "I can't believe I said that, I'm so embarrassed" — "Sarah, that comment isn't going to matter to anyone by tomorrow"
Instead of "I'm panicking about this presentation" — "Okay, you've prepared for this. Walk through the opening line once more"
Instead of "I'm furious and I don't know what to do" — "What would you tell a friend to do right now, if she were this angry?"
In each case, stepping outside the first-person "I" — even just briefly, even just in your own head — creates a small gap between you and the feeling. That gap is where clearer thinking tends to show up.
The trap of fusing thought and identity
This also lines up with a concept from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy called cognitive defusion, developed by psychologist Steven Hayes. The idea is that we get into difficulty not from having a hard thought or feeling, but from fusing with it — treating "I am anxious" as a fact about who we are, rather than "I'm having the thought that I feel anxious right now," which is simply a fact about a passing mental event.
One of the Rules of the Mind
There's a principle in RTT known as one of the Rules of the Mind: the mind responds to the words we use and the pictures we make in our mind. Say "my anxiety," and your mind doesn't just hear a sentence — it builds a picture, and that picture has you standing inside the anxiety, wearing it. Say "the anxiety is here right now," and the picture changes. The anxiety becomes a thing in the room with you, not the room itself.
This is why the language shift isn't just a nicer way of phrasing a feeling. Your subconscious mind takes the words literally and builds accordingly — which means changing the sentence genuinely changes what gets built.
Why This Matters More Than It Seems To
Language isn't just a description of what's happening internally — it actively shapes it. When you say "I'm not a confident person," your subconscious mind treats that as a global, permanent instruction. It doesn't have room to ask, "confident in what, exactly?" It just files the whole of you under "not confident" and starts looking for evidence to back that up.
Say instead, "I don't feel confident presenting to senior leadership," and something different happens. The feeling stays specific. It stays true to the actual moment rather than becoming a verdict on your whole character — and specific problems are always easier to work with than global ones, because there's an obvious boundary around where the work needs to happen.
How to Actually Use This
This isn't about forcing positivity or pretending a hard feeling isn't there. The anxiety is still there. The point is where you place it.
Swap "my" for "the" — "the anxiety," "the doubt," "the tension," rather than "my anxiety," "my doubt," "my tension"
Swap sweeping statements for specific ones — "I don't feel confident in this particular area" rather than "I'm not a confident person"
Notice the difference between having a thought and being defined by it — "I'm having an anxious thought" rather than "I am anxious"
Say it out loud once and notice the shift — the words alone create a small, immediate sense of distance
Where RTT Fits Into This
Rapid Transformational Therapy works with exactly this kind of pattern at the subconscious level. Where a language shift changes how a feeling is framed in the moment, RTT works to find and loosen the original belief that turned a passing feeling into a fixed sense of identity in the first place — the moment somewhere in the past when "I felt anxious" first became "I am an anxious person." The two approaches work well together: one changes how you speak about the pattern today, the other addresses where the pattern took root.
The Feeling Was Never the Problem. The Ownership Was.
You can feel anxious without being an anxious person. You can lack confidence in one room and walk into the next one entirely differently. The feeling is real and deserves to be taken seriously — but it was only ever meant to visit. The words you use decide whether it moves through, or moves in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn't this just a language trick — does it really change anything?
The feeling itself doesn't vanish because you changed a pronoun. What changes is how global and permanent the feeling appears to your mind, which research on self-talk and self-distancing shows has a measurable effect on how well people regulate emotion and follow through on goals.
Where does this idea come from?
It's a teaching closely associated with Marisa Peer and Rapid Transformational Therapy, and it overlaps with established research in psychology, including work on self-distancing and cognitive defusion.
How long does it take to notice a difference?
Some people notice a shift in how a feeling sits with them the first time they consciously reframe it. Lasting change, especially with long-standing patterns, tends to come through consistent practice or deeper subconscious work such as RTT.
Does this replace therapy or professional support?
No. It's a tool to use alongside professional support, not instead of it, particularly if what you're experiencing is significantly affecting daily life. That said, many of my clients come to RTT without having had therapy before, and it works well for them too — this is ultimately a personal decision. During our first conversation, I'll always be honest if I feel therapy might be worth exploring first, so you can make the choice that's right for you.
Maria x
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I’m Maria — a Clinical RTT Hypnotherapist and Confidence Coach working online with professional women worldwide. I combine Rapid Transformational Therapy with trauma-informed coaching and nervous system regulation, going directly to the subconscious root of self-doubt, anxiety and the patterns that keep brilliant women stuck.
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