We all experience anxiety from time to time. Some more than others, and some more severe than others. Times Magazine published an issue on March (2020) entitled – The Age of Anxiety. We’re literally living in an age where most of us experience some form of anxiety or another. No wonder self-help books are selling like crazy.
Speaking of books, I’m reading an incredible one about what our anxiety can teach us, appropriately called The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry and Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal by Sheryl Paul.
What I love about this book is how the author encourages us to unpack our anxiety and understand the root cause of it. She’ll say that it’s an invitation to “become curious about our inner world.” I love this invitation to inquiry because it’s so important. It’s how we learn about ourselves. It’s how we heal. It’s how we grow.
We can’t just suppress our anxieties, because they’ll manifest or “pop up” in other places, like a game of Whac-A-Mole. “If you whack down one mole (symptom) without addressing it from the root, another mole (symptom) will quickly appear in its place.”
She says there are 4 key elements to dealing with anxiety: Curiosity, Compassion, Stillness, and Gratitude. I couldn’t agree more.
Chapter two has a brilliant heading: Two cultural messages that create anxiety: The Myth of Normal, and The Expectation of Happiness. Can you relate?
“One of the fastest ways to recognize that you’re outsourcing your self-trust is to listen when the word should populates your thoughts and vocabulary.” As soon as there is a should statement, we are suffering from an externally imposed expectation and are inevitably comparing ourselves to a cultural ideal of “good” or “right” behavior, which then creates anxiety.
If you suffer from anxiety and found these little tidbits interesting – please don’t hesitate to pick up this book to gain a better understanding of what you could do to help understand and ease your anxiety.