Category: Anxiety

In the West, we separate the mind and the body. This is counterproductive. There’s not a strict line between “psychological” problems and “physical” problems.

We’re taught that anxiety is a problem because anxiety feels bad. I want you to question that.

Does anxiety really feel bad? If you say “of course”, then tell me: what specifically feels bad about it?

Here are some symptoms of anxiety (according to the Mayo Clinic):

• Having an increased heart rate.

• Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation).

• Sweating.

• Feeling weak or tired.

Are you going to tell me you can’t think of any “good” feelings that involve these same symptoms? Of course not.

The feelings are neutral.

So, if you want to fix your anxiety problem by trying to eliminate anxiety, you’re already barking up the wrong tree.

What, then, is your actual problem?

—Michael

Do you identify as “having anxiety”?

If so, you’re probably in the habit of telling long, convoluted stories about why things are the way they are, and about why you’re afraid to do things, and about why other people are wrong for having done what they’ve done.

I hate reading those stories.

They’re too long.

Stories don’t need to be long to make a point. Usually, the point is pointless anyway.

Don’t take your stories so seriously.

Learn to meditate.

(it will help you see stories as stories, so you can stop defining yourself by the story and get on with your life and do the thing you were trying to do before your ex-boyfriend became a jerk and started calling you in the middle of the night and you got anxiety and had to write 10 paragraphs about it on facebook when you could have just shut your phone off and gone back to sleep.)

You can do it here.

—Michael