Befriending Anxiety

A Different Way of Thinking

Photo by Katharina Gloth on Unsplash

The children's book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, pretty much describes how I felt earlier this year. Nothing major happened, just a series of annoying events like smoke detectors going off in the middle of the night and no one to fix them, a jury duty summons and getting caught in an email phishing expedition, having to renew the apartment lease, learning new computer programs, doing my taxes, and losing a credit card in addition to world unrest, body changes, and new writing challenges. Those events created anxiety, which led to mistakes, which added more stress. I resolved the issues, but was less effective at managing my emotions.

A couple of weeks ago, I had what my non-medical mind thought was an anxiety attack. Needless to say, it scared me. After researching, I found numerous articles that confirmed my thinking. So, I continued as suggested, settled myself down, and was fine. However, it was a clear signal to rethink my approach.

Emotional wellness is characterized by self-care, stress reduction, relaxation, and the development of inner strength. It’s about being attentive to positive and negative feelings and having the tools to understand and manage them. It also fosters strong empathy and compassion for the self and others.

I was a pretty confident woman until my husband, Dan, struggled with dementia and died of COVID, and I began the next chapter of my life as an 82-year-old widow. We did everything together - he was my rock for over 60 years, and then I was alone with less-than-perfect eyes, reduced hearing, and a bucket of doubts. Initially, I was afraid to cross the street, go shopping alone, or make simple decisions, much less the bigger ones.

My short-term solutions were avoiding, keeping busy, and staying home: not the best ideas.

I’d begun doing more positive things to manage anxiety, like journaling, writing, saying yes when people invited me over, and exercising begrudgingly. I was also experimenting with the mind-body connection, mindfulness, more visualizing, and qigong, all of which helped, but they weren’t enough.

The book Making Friends with Anxiety offered a different approach. After reading the first chapter, which described my anxious feelings, I relaxed—the symptoms were more common than I thought. Maybe worrying had become a habit—either way, it was getting in the way of enjoying life.

The author used the acronym ANXIETY to explain.

• A - Adrenaline lies behind the symptoms.

• N - Negative thoughts hinder anxiety management.

• X - Refers to our personalities, coping mechanisms, and knowledge.

• I - Imagining the future and everything that could go wrong won’t help.

• E - Suggests that avoidance may make anxiety escalate.

• T - The present is the only time that matters.

• Y - Suggests that the way anxiety is managed needs to change.

I also found ideas for building inner strength, which allows someone to maintain a positive mindset, adapt to change, and persevere when facing obstacles.

Those ideas included training the mental, emotional, and physical body, embracing what is scary, and not letting fear determine my decisions. I’m working on it because part of aging well is having a quality life; there's less quality when worrying.

The idea of being friends with anxiety suggests that I accept it as a good thing because it gives me vital information regarding my current situation. Maybe!

I don’t know about being friends with it, but I am listening.

My advice to myself would be

• Don’t let anxiety take charge of your life; it’s gonna be there.

• Do what you can about the worries and do what you plan to do despite them.

• If this is a habit, ask what it needs from you.

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Janice Walton is a psychologist, a widow, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, and a writer. Her book Aging Well: 30 Lessons for Making the Most of Your Later Years is available on Amazon, and she has written articles for Substack