Perspectives

As I prepare for Florida and Iceland, anxiety insists on coming along. So I pack it first, zip it into its own neatly compressed cube, and make room for excitement, homesickness, family, wonder, and everything else the journey may hold.

Introversion, Sensitivity, Trauma, and the Need to Recharge Some people need more time alone than others. Not because they dislike people. Not because they are antisocial. And not because they are, as I occasionally remind myself, lazy ass slackers. For some of us, being around people simply requires a great deal of energy. I know what it feels like to need time to recharge my battery after talking all day or socializing with people who are not in my innermost circle. I need

Your brain is constantly predicting what will happen next, drawing on old experiences to make sense of the present. But anxiety, trauma, and depression can color those predictions, making thoughts feel like facts when they may be little more than an old file pulled forward.

Begin With the Body When the Mind Won’t Sit Still For many people, meditation sounds perfectly reasonable until they are asked to sit still and do it. Within thirty seconds, the mind has reorganized your closet, considered next week’s meal plan, and begun investigating whether the refrigerator is making a new noise. Some of us do not find stillness by beginning with stillness. Sounds a bit like a Japanese koan, doesn’t it? Yoga offers another doorway. When movement follows th

The hidden anxiety of people who appear to have everything under control Image is AI-generated Some people wear anxiety like Lady Gaga wore a meat dress. You cannot miss it, and you cannot look away. Sometimes their anxiety seems to spray outward like a sneeze. Before long, everyone in the room is anxious, too. Others organize their anxiety into alphabetized, color-coded folders with an accompanying resource list. They arrive twenty minutes early to set up the AV system and l

Anxiety often comes with a very busy mind. It may sound like planning. Or problem-solving. Or preparing. Or reviewing every possible thing that could go wrong and then reviewing the review, just in case the first review missed something important. Anxious thoughts can be incredibly convincing. They tend to arrive with urgency, as if the mind has just discovered an emergency meeting and everyone is required to attend immediately. Preferably at 2:00 a.m. The trouble is that anx

Anxiety often arrives as if it has taken over the whole room. One minute you may be going through your day, answering emails, driving to an appointment, making dinner, or trying to fall asleep. The next minute your body is tense, your chest feels tight, your thoughts are racing, and everything feels urgent. Even when part of you knows, “I am not actually in danger right now,” your nervous system may be sending a very different message. This is one of the hardest parts of an