I appreciate you popping in to check on me. My response: “Hey Nance, welcome back! I see you noticed I messed up on that work assignment today. Situation: I made a mistake on an important deliverable at work.Īnxious thought: “I’m going to get fired.” This process can mean the difference between being subject to our unhelpful negative thoughts and having agency in the face of them.Īn imaginary conversation with Nancy can go something like this. When this happens, the once-helpful survival response can become an impediment to living life with ease and joy.įor me, it’s vitally important that I differentiate between the helpful thoughts and the unhelpful thoughts that belong in the garbage bin. In the absence of tigers, this ancient evolutionary response can still get triggered by less-than-tiger-sized events in the modern world. On the other hand, anxiety can get in the way of day-to-day living. If we were, say, being chased by a tiger, we’d really want that anxiety to kick in, so we’d have the good sense to hightail it out of there. More than that, it’s actually a hardwired survival response, also known as the fight-flight-or-freeze response. Let me explain.įor many of us, anxiety is simply a part of life. It may not be original, but it’s effective.
The truth is, Nancy is the name with which I’ve christened my anxiety.
To be honest, she’s not that much fun to be around. She’s always second guessing and “what-iffing.” At times, she’s downright annoying. I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. Share on Pinterest Westend61/Getty Images
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