Swerve

I used to have huge anxiety problems. It peaked when I was in grade 5 after I spent a week throwing up in an outhouse at camp. It triggered in me this irrational fear of puke. I spent a year eating toast and honey, convinced that it was humanly impossible to throw that up. I didn't exactly Carpe the Diem in grade five, but I also didn't throw up toast and honey. Mission accomplished.

My anxiety seemed to disappear for a while and then pop back up like hammer pants and acid wash. Equally unpredictable and frustrating. 

Everyone obviously deals with anxiety in some capacity or another, and most times it's manageable. We get cut off in traffic, we panic, and then self-regulate back to normal once the coast is clear. Sometimes, though, we need to adapt to a "new normal." Say we blow a tire, and instead of driving away in the same condition as we entered, we need to self-regulate while we balance on three wheels long enough to come to a safe stop. We then figure out how to fix the problem and before too long we're back up and running on all four wheels.

For me, the key to managing anxiety is self-regulation. It's like a head-check. Fear is just an emotion--it's not a truth. Just because we feel something doesn't make it true. Right now, I can make a list of a hundred things I'm afraid of, no problem. But my list of truths exceed this list by a million.

Focusing on the truths in my life make them grow. Acknowledging my fears and then balancing on three wheels to drive through them makes them disappear into the distance. And once I come to a safe stop, I can only hope I'm not caught on the side of the road needing a tire change, wearing hammer pants.