Anxiety is my second most persistent lifelong companion. (Depression is first.)
Last year - feeling secure in other aspects of my life - I made a conscious effort to try to understand my anxiety.
That journey took me many places, which I'll share with you this year.
I'll start with a practical tip.
Often, we have to do tasks that give us anxiety. For example:
- We have to return a friend's call from last week, but it's gotten too late now;
- We have to read an email from a colleague that we saw a notification for; or
- We signed up for a friend's event that we know we're going to flake on.
I realized a few months ago, that what gave me anxiety was NOT these tasks themselves - but NOT DOING them!
It's not the tasks that give us anxiety; it's not doing them, avoiding them, that gives us anxiety!
Last night, I finally caught up on all my emails and messages from the holidays -- Not because I was so busy until then, but more because my anxiety kept pushing me to postpone some tasks until later.
All the while though, those tasks were on my mind, and so was anxiety.
When I was done, I felt amazing. Free!
When in doubt, DO anxiety away!
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