When a big wave of anxiety rolls in, your feelings start talking very loudly. “This is bad.” “Something terrible is about to happen.” “I can’t cope.”
Here’s something I learned as a counsellor, and as someone who’s ridden plenty of those waves: our feelings are not the best guide to reality.
Why feelings can lie
Feelings are real, and they matter. But they’re made of a mix of things: echoes from the past, our body chemistry, thoughts we’ve practised for years, and even the moods of the people around us. So sometimes they tell us something is far more dangerous than it is.
That’s where the right truth comes in. A true sentence, aimed at your particular fear, can cut through the feeling like an antidote and stop the fall into panic.
Grounding truths to borrow
Try these on. Keep the ones that land for you:
- My feelings can lie to me.
- This feels worse than it actually is.
- I’m okay and safe right now, even though my feelings are strong.
- They’re okay and safe right now.
- That was then, this is now.
- This is a powerful echo from the past.
- I’ve survived this before, and I’ll survive it again.
- Right now, I’ll trust a good friend’s view over my own.
And one of my own favourites: “It’s not as bad as it feels. It’s not as crucial as it feels. It’s not as important as it feels.”
You can choose your focus
If we stay fixed on the thoughts and feelings that set us off, they can trap us. When we turn our attention to thoughts that ground us, and to memories that feel calm or good, we start to feel better. The thoughts we choose really do shift how our body feels.
The catch: in the middle of a panic, you won’t be able to come up with these. So practise them when you’re calm, the way a surfer practises paddling on a flat day. Then they’re ready when the big set rolls in.
Give fear less room
Fear is a bit like a gas: it takes up as much space as we give it. Every time you side with the truth over a lying feeling, you give fear a little less room, and your life gets a little bigger.
Try this
Pick three sentences from the list above, or write your own, and put them somewhere you’ll see them: your phone’s lock screen, a sticky note, your wallet. Read them once a day for a week.
To find the thoughts that need a truth aimed at them, use my free Thought Tracker. And my Find Your Calm anxiety course helps you build your own set of truths, one wave at a time.
Be kind to yourself.
Joel