Transcription
I'm a clinical psychologist trained as an anxiety specialist, and I've helped thousands of people overcome their anxiety over the last 20 years, both through my sessions and also through my book. So, there's a lot I've learned that I want you to know. So, here are 21 truths about anxiety that'll change how you think and how you live. Let's go.
One, if you need anxiety to leave, it is in charge. You're not. Think of anxiety like an annoying house guest. If your day depends on them leaving, then they're calling the shots. But if you can say, "Yep, I feel it. It's uncomfortable, but I can live my life anyway." Then you're back in control. You're allowed to prefer feeling calm, sure, but don't operate like you must feel calm.
Two, practice being that good coach and saying supportive things to yourself. Imagine you're a kid and every time you mess up, the coach yells at you. Well, you're going to be anxious all the time, right? Well, that's what harsh self-talk does. We think it helps to motivate ourselves, but mostly it just keeps us on edge. So, the bad coaches, they dominate through fear and shame. The good coaches, they still challenge us to improve, but they do it with support, with kindness, and a belief in our ability to grow. They let you know, yeah, mistakes are part of learning, and you're still worthwhile. Anxiety eases when you treat yourself like someone worth supporting.
Three, anxiety and excitement are siblings. Anxiety and calm, they sit on opposite ends of the nervous system. One says act, the other one says rest. So trying to jump from one to the other, it rarely works. It's too far. But anxiety as a sibling, excitement, they feel almost the same in the body, right? The same sort of heart rate, the same energy. But whereas one focuses on the risks, the other focuses on rewards. So when anxiety shows up, don't try to clamp it down. Transform it. Ask, "What can I gain from facing this situation? What can I learn? How could going through this make me stronger?" You don't need to slow down and calm down. You need to aim that energy you have in a better direction.
Number four, micro dose discomfort. Anxiety does its real damage by making you avoid what feels uncomfortable. But pulling back again and again only makes your world smaller. So the antidote, well, you have to move towards what scares you, but not all at once. So a common problem that I see people make is they try to take a big leap towards their fear and it overwhelms them. They freeze up and then they think, well, I guess I can't do it. But the problem wasn't them. It was the size of the step. So start small, like really small. Micro dose the discomfort. Feel a little of it and then get used to it. Then repeat. It feels minimal, right? But you are building tolerance. And I've seen it again and again. If you keep going, you'll be amazed when you turn and look back and see how far you've come.
Five. You're not anxious. You're a person currently experiencing anxiety. That difference matters because when you identify with the anxiety, when you only see the world through its eyes, it gains power. But when you say, "I'm having anxious thoughts pop in or I'm feeling the sensations of fear through my body," you create distance and space, and you take your power back. You aren't anxious. You are the person observing the anxiety.
Six, emotions or waves. Surf them. Picture me out in the ocean. I like calm water, so when a wave comes, I start punching it and then it just takes me and dumps me under. But what if instead I get on a surfboard and I ride that wave? Well, everything shifts. Emotions are waves also. They rise, they peak, and then they fall if you don't fight them and you just observe. When anxiety comes, feel the sensations as they move through your body. Watch them as they change. They always change. Life gets a lot easier when you stop resisting and you start riding the wave.
Seven, stop waiting for the risk to disappear. Act without guarantees. Life is unpredictable. The things that actually go wrong are rarely the ones you are bracing for. You can't erase all risk before you act. And trying to will just keep your world small. Instead, you learn how to keep going even with uncertainty and how to sit with the emotion that comes when things don't go your way. Right? You can spend your whole life waiting until things feel safe. But life never gives full guarantees. Even when you plan perfectly, most of what actually goes wrong is stuff that you never saw coming. You can't wait until the risk is gone or you will never take the steps that matter. The work is learning to act anyway, even when things feel shaky. That is how you make progress. So, show up anyway. Show up before you're ready.
Eight, stop putting out fires that aren't burning. Picture this. You're stomping through the woods, dumping buckets of water everywhere, afraid of the damage that a fire might do, but you don't actually know where the fire will be or if there'll even be one today. That is a lot of wasted time, energy, and stress. And that is what worry does. Most of what we fear never happens and the real problems, well, we can trust our future selves to handle them when they come. So save your water for real fires.
Nine, you don't know what will happen, and that's okay. So much anxiety comes from trying to be sure, to eliminate all doubt, all risk, all unknowns. But certainty isn't something we get to have. What we can have is a mindset that says, "Yes, I don't know what will happen. I prefer X would happen, but if Y happens, I will find a way to cope, and that will make me stronger." That's not giving up control. That's building confidence where it really matters.
10. You're anxious because you learned how to survive. If you have a sensitive nervous system like me, it's not your fault. It likely learned to stay alert because it had to in order to keep you safe in the world you grew up in. That hyper awareness probably helped you survive. But the problem now is that it hasn't caught up to present day. It still thinks that you're in that same old environment. So instead of getting mad at it, help it update. Show it gently that life is different now. And so are you. You're more mature. You have more tools. You got more experience and more knowledge than you used to. You're not a kid anymore.
11. Let anxiety be or befriend it. Just don't fight it. When anxiety shows up, there are three possible ways you could respond. Two are good, one is bad. You can let it just be there. Neutral, no big deal. Just let it hang out in the background while you go about living your life. It'll fade when it's ready. Or you can go one step further. Turn towards it. Get curious. Ask what it needs. That kind of kindness actually quiets it down over time. So the only bad option, fighting it. Trying to shut it down only makes it louder. So for most people I work with, the real healing starts when we stop treating anxiety like an enemy and we start seeing it as a part of ourselves that we don't have to fear and we don't have to fight.
12. Don't wait till you feel good. Just take anxiety with you. A lot of people wait until the anxiety goes away before they do the things that matter to them. But that moment often never comes. The truth is, you can feel all of those sensations, the tension, the racing thoughts, and still take the step forward. Anxiety is only a problem when it makes you choose to stop. So don't stop, just bring it with you.
13. You don't need to avoid it. You need to survive it. Anxiety always exaggerates the risks. So you might end up feeling a bit safer if you were to take a chance and then nothing goes wrong. But your brain still says, "Yeah, but what if it goes wrong next time?" But if instead, when you face the fear, it does go wrong, and yet you get through it, something shifts. You stop needing things to go perfectly because you've shown yourself you can handle it. So confidence doesn't come from avoiding the feared outcome. It comes from surviving it. So don't avoid the hard stuff. Train for it. That's how anxiety starts to lose its power.
14. Be careful what you feed your brain. If you ate poison every day, you would not be shocked when your body gets sick. But a lot of us do the same thing with our minds, right? We're constantly feeding it anxious, fear-based content. Anxiety is a lot easier to create than it is to extinguish and calm down. Once we get it running, it wants to just keep on running, right? So, let's stop feeding it. I've had clients who've come in telling me they're terrified of home invasions all of a sudden, and it turns out they've been binge-watching crime shows all week. Your brain learns what's dangerous and how to react by what you show it. So, let's be deliberate about what you feed it. And, you know, maybe try a cleanse.
15. Give your worry a time slot. Most of us stress about things the second that they pop into our heads just because, like, that's when it showed up. But we know that the more total time you spend spinning on worries, the more anxious you'll get. So, here's a fix. Set a daily worry time. Like, literally a slot in your schedule. When worry hits, don't just dive into it. Say, "Ah, cool. I will think about this during worry time." You can write it down if you need to. Like, you're not ignoring it. You're just rescheduling it. And often, when that time rolls around, a lot of the time it won't actually feel that important anymore. You'll be asking yourself, "Wait, why did I care so much about this when it popped up?"
16. Don't meditate. Just count to 50. You've probably heard meditation helps with anxiety. But for a lot of people, it can feel too complicated or overwhelming to actually follow through on. So, let's make it simple and actually useful. Here's what you do. Count your breaths. One on the inhale, two on the exhale, three on the inhale, four on the exhale, and go all the way to 50. If you lose count, then you know that you were lost in thought. And catching that is the whole point. So start again at one, go to 50. The counting itself makes it hard to think and ruminate. And monitoring the breath forces your attention back to your body. So you will breathe better. You'll also think less and you'll feel more in control.
17. The wrong people keep you on edge. If you have to stay small to avoid criticism, if one wrong move can set somebody off, then your threat system will always stay on. Like, it doesn't matter how calm things are right now in the moment, your brain is still bracing for that next hit. And yes, we'll accept you probably get something out of that relationship or those relationships. Maybe they're fun or exciting or like really kind when they're in a good mood. But despite that, you're paying for it emotionally. It's not worth trading your worth for their approval. The right people don't make you shrink. They help you expand. They help you settle and become more like yourself.
18. Fire your insecurity guards. So, you know how security guards are supposed to keep the troublemakers out and let the right people in? Well, I find a lot of us have hired insecurity guards instead. They deny the positive things that happen. "Ah, it was just luck," or "they were just being polite," or "they don't know my flaws yet." But when criticism or anything negative shows up, they're like, "Oh, hey, VIP access, come right in front row. Can I get you some bottle service and some sparklers?" These guards aren't protecting you. They're keeping you insecure. You don't need tougher guards. You need fair ones. The kind that treat you like someone worth protecting. Let the good stuff in. You need that to grow.
19. Thank them for opting out. You can't be liked by everyone. And honestly, we don't have time for everyone. So own who you are and show people that. Let them filter themselves in or out. And when someone filters themselves out, just say silently to yourself, "Thank you for showing me you're not one of my people. All the best." That frees up your time, your energy, and your attention for the people who do get you and who actually deserve it.
20. Real strength is letting people in. We often think staying silent is strong, but most of the time I find that it's driven by fear. It's a fear of judgment or fear of rejection. But hiding how we feel doesn't help. Research shows that suppressing emotions actually raises our blood pressure and it keeps us from getting the support we need. The key, of course, is choosing the right people, the ones who've earned your trust, and then giving them a chance to show up for you. When we open up, something shifts. People feel closer to us. They like us more. We like them more. And they often start opening up, too. Support helps regulate your nervous system. So find people who get you and talk to them.
21. Own the rights to your life story. Most people don't notice they've already written a story about their life. They just assume it's the truth. But in reality, the same combination of all these different experiences can be seen as entirely different stories depending on how you frame it or where you place the camera. Like, are you behind in life? Or are you actually a rebel who is bravely exploring a new and difficult path? Like, did you fail? Or is this the point in your story arc where the hero faces an obstacle they have to learn to overcome? You don't have to force optimism here. Just recognize that how you organize the pieces of the story of your life shapes how it feels to live it.
This video covers 21 insights, but it's only part of the full list that I wrote. If you want the complete set to keep, click the link below. Okay, that is one piece of the puzzle. To keep going, watch this video next.