Epiphany about Anxiety and Choices

A few weeks ago my husband let slip the secret to inner peace.

I've always been a bit anxious.  And when things aren't going right in life, or there are huge injustices going on that I must endure, the anxiety goes through the roof.  I associate anxiety with stuff being wrong.

Ryan, on the other hand, is pretty darn easy-going.  His own description of how he deals with it is this:  Do what you can to fix the problem, then put it in a mental box, stick that box on a mental shelf, and don't take it out again until there's a point where you can do more to fix the problem.  As someone who constantly thinks about everything simultaneously, this is really hard for me to understand... how do people put things in boxes and just ignore them?



Ryan explained that in a leadership class, they said to just make a decision and stick with it.  Even if it looks like it might start becoming the wrong decision, ignore that gut feeling because it is just your mind second-guessing itself.  If you are feeling insecure or anxiety-ridden, it is because you haven't truly committed to your decision, and you are postponing the inevitable because eventually a decision will be made for you, out of your control.  Anxiety isn't caused by a wrong situation, it's caused by not making and committing to choices.

Obviously, my employment situation is wrong for me, for many reasons that I cannot explain in detail at the moment... but it is a combination of no upward mobility, low pay, long hours, high stress.  I've been wrestling with quitting for the past 2 years, but stayed on after I was offered a "better" job when I tried to leave a year and a half ago.  It is time for me to quit in January, and I have known this for months, and I thought I had been committed to the decision... but after listening to that little voice in my head, it turns out I was second-guessing myself constantly!  I sat myself down and committed, completely.

Every time the anxiety over this situation welled up (which was every 5 minutes at first, and then a few days later was only every hour or three), I reminded myself of the decision, and the anxiety evaporated.  I've even been sleeping quite well.

It is like I found something magical.  I've been looking for it for decades.  I can't recall the last time I've been this zen for so long a stretch.

It seems like this method applies to a lot of different situations... I shall test it out.  The first test was the surgery... and I did not experience a measurable amount of anxiety over being put under for the first time.

Thanks Ryan!

What method helps you with anxiety the most?