Dealing with anxiety
Some ways to deal with anxiety, in order of increasing effectiveness
- seeking reassurance that bad things will not happen
- The immediate response is well, what if they do? then I’m fucked
- acknowledgement that your feelings are related to a pathology, and dismissing them
- this just invalidates the feelings which continue to exist regardless
- confidence (even ifs, no matter whats)
- The way to obtain confidence is through 1) experience with both success and failure 2) money 3) power
- you can’t just decide to have 2 & 3, but you can easily gain experience by interacting with the world
- but even “I can deal with it and make things OK” is not good enough- what if you can’t?
- The way to obtain confidence is through 1) experience with both success and failure 2) money 3) power
- another to counter anxiety is a combination of confidence, surrender, and trust- I will try my best, and if that’s not good enough, then I will accept whatever happens; I trust that it will not be that bad and that people will try to help me out.
- this doesn’t work if you don’t trust other people to treat you well, or if you really fear certain outcomes and can’t reconcile yourself to them
- the best way that I’ve found is to just ignore it. anxiety feeds on attention. stop thinking
Anxiety is insidious. It will silently encourage you to find a small, safe box to spend your life inside. Eventually, you’ll be somewhat safe, and totally isolated. Don’t let this happen to you.