Pushing Past Your Comfort Zone When You Live With Anxiety
There is no greater purgatory than the space between “I want to do this” and “I’m really anxious.” You don’t choose to be there. There’s no action you can single out as the reason why you’re in this in-between. You just are. Maybe you’ve always been there. I know I have.
I remember being 7 years old and waiting by the elevator bank at our apartment building when I looked up at my mom and said, “I don’t think we should go to the mall anymore. I have a feeling something bad is going to happen.”
And because my mom was a God-fearing Catholic who believed in premonitions, she took me at my word. We never took the elevator. Instead, we walked right back into our apartment. That’s my earliest memory of my anxiety making my decisions for me and others.
I wish I could tell you that since 1999, I progressively got better from letting my anxiety lead me and that by the time I made it into adulthood, I was cured. No more anxiety. No more gut feelings before a big change. No more intangibles holding me back from exploring the world before me.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that. I’m still a messy human who lives with some degree of anxiety and spiraling thoughts. I just stay in that purgatory for shorter amounts of time. I have gotten better at moving away from anxiety , and I credit that mostly to therapy and my commitment to putting myself in (safe) but uncomfortable (read: new-to-me) situations.
If I had to describe therapy to someone who has never heard of the concept before, I would say, “It is where my resistance and clarity go to strength train once a week.” Together, they are my perfect tag team against anxiety. The more I can hold onto clarity, the easier it is to know where I want to direct my resistance. In the seasons when I’ve wavered in my training, I direct all my strength toward helping my anxiety prove all of its points.
My anxiety says I suck at work? Let’s find 5 different reasons that is true.
My anxiety says that my stomach ache is really a sign of a bigger illness? Let’s google until we can’t google anymore.
The list can go on and on and on. I know that. I’ve written it to be pages long at other times, which is why I work really hard, day after day, to choose differently.
You may be reading this at the beginning of your journey with anxiety or decades in. No matter how long you’ve lived alongside it, we can all agree that it isn’t fun if you let it go unattended. I used to get frustrated that it took me more intentional energy to push past my comfort zone than I imagined someone else would.
All of these are normal feelings and so is doing your best to decide that you want to live a fuller life and are okay embracing different techniques to get there.
