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Anxiety isn’t the problem. Anxiety is just the alarm system letting people know things are off the rails.
We’ve created a world our bodies cannot exist in.
believe people are just trying to find ways to hurt less, be heard and seen, find safety, connect with others, and survive.
You leave your town when it’s time for a new thing, even though it’s all you’ve known.
Oof
grumpy, stay-away-from-me, Sunday-Dad vibes.
Anxiety is generally your body’s way of trying to take care of you and get your attention.
Anxiety is just trying to keep you alive, and safe, and out of harm’s way.
“reward-based learning system”
The imaginary fight where you say just the right thing, the whole room believes you just won the argument, your boss comes to his senses, begs your forgiveness, and offers you a 20 percent raise and a promotion on the spot—and your colleagues break into wild applause. Then you get soap in your eyes and snap back to reality.
It is here that you are honest with yourself about the chasm between what you wanted your life to look like and what it truly looks like in reality.
When your body detects the gap, it feels your world is not as it should be, so it sounds the alarms.
“Whatever you go looking for, you are sure to find.”
Sure, people were desperately worried and chronically stressed. But they chose to lie or steal or cheat on their spouse.
Ultimately, I am responsible for the choices I make about my body. But I am honest about what I don’t know.
Discipline is critical. Hard work is a must. And personal growth is very important.
But personal growth makes a terrible god.
I was able to just be really sad. Exactly as I should have been.
A peaceful life isn’t drama-free or pain-free. A peaceful life refers to how you’re able to handle things when they do indeed fall apart.
Peace is telling the truth. Always. And being fully known and loved anyway.
Building a non-anxious life is about being focused on controlling what I can control—and nothing more. And all I can control are my thoughts and my actions.
The Six Daily Choices are: Choose Reality Choose Connection Choose Freedom Choose Mindfulness Choose Health and Healing Choose Belief
You have to choose to live in truth, however painful and ugly it might
Many folks I walk alongside speak only of the darkness. They refuse to acknowledge the good and the beautiful things.
When we’re not honest about the light, we internalize and identify with the awful things that have been done to us:
people are not rational beings. We act in ways that don’t make sense.
because of the extraordinary technological and societal advancements made in the past 200 years, we often don’t have to face reality for long stretches of time.
If we don’t have friends and we don’t have the skills to have a hard, loving conversation, we’re playing make-believe.
You chose to act like a child. You made a choice.
There is no non-anxious life without sadness. Without pain. Without discomfort.
We get busy, we get married, we move. Then the first divorce happens in your friend group, the first kid, and we transition from hanging out every day to once a month to long running text threads.
From by-my-side best friend to person-I-send-memes-to.
To build a non-anxious life, you have to choose to invite other people into your life.
82 percent of people say that those they spend the most time with don’t know them deeply.
Hardships and emergencies will come knocking at your door. And when you have no one to call, your brain will never let you rest. It will constantly be sounding the alarms.
You ever wonder why your friends and colleagues who are military veterans or former first responders always get together and share war stories or near-misses? Because that was the last time they were a part of something bigger than themselves. It was the last time any of us belonged. After that, we set off to do life alone.
Have you ever grabbed your phone for the hundredth time and realized still no one has texted you? Or you have 29 text messages all asking you for something . . . but nobody is checking in on you?
When our brain recognizes we’re alone, it divides up the world into us and them.
Choosing to do life alone is choosing to die early. Choosing to do life alone is choosing to have an anxious life. And choosing to do life alone is a choice to take everyone around you down with you.
We are robbing our neighbors and friends from having a purpose or feeling needed or wanted, all because we don’t want to bother or burden anyone.
You are not a burden.
saying yes to invitations and adventures, getting out of your house to be where people are, and finding people to serve.
Yes, we have to make friends. Yes, we have to invite people over, say yes, and take risks.
You are fully seen, heard, and known, and you are still loved. And you fully know others and choose to love them too.
Without love, friends are buddies. Spouses are roommates. Neighbors are in the way. Co-workers are trying to take what’s rightfully yours.
remember one time my friend Kevin and I were talking on the phone. He’s super-wise, a tech executive with a deep heart for people on the margins of his community. Somebody I consider a close, brotherlike friend. As we were getting off the phone, he said, “I love you.” And I was like, Uh . . . nope. No. To me, that L-word was reserved for my dog, my wife, and my kids . . . and occasionally my parents if one of them said it first. And Dorito tacos. And Gibson guitars. I was most certainly not down with one of my friends telling me he loved me. Now fast-forward 10 years, and rarely do my friends
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Show up. Lend a hand. Ask how someone’s doing and actually pay attention to their answer. Be on time. Remember and honor the things that are important to the ones you love (birthdays, types of flowers, hobbies). Give generously of your most precious resource: your time.
My strong-but-kindhearted friend, a rancher and children’s author, was crying tears for me that I was not yet able to cry.
I said yes to everything because saying no felt like failing. Failing myself and everyone I was trying to please. I carried so much guilt and shame around having boundaries, I didn’t have any. I convinced myself the world needed me.
Imagine laughing when your abusive, crooked boss tells you to stay late one too many times. Imagine saying, “No, thank you,” and just gathering your things and walking out the door.
As a culture, we’ve learned how to amass. But we have not learned the skills of removal. Of letting things go. We have no psychological construct for enough.
