Anxiety is worse than wasted time. Wasted time is just lost time, but anxiety is suffering time. Much worse.

Yesterday I was talking to a four year old about her worries. Four year old worries are very interesting if you know what I mean. Her worries just began a month ago. And while many children who grow up in unsafe situations often get worries; her worries were introduced to her in a way worries are often introduced to safe little girls–purely by accident.

Driven yourself nuts lately? What drives me the most nuts is when something happens that bugs me. I feel sad, scared, or worse, angry. Then, I judge myself: That was stupid. It is not as good as I wanted. It's my fault. No it is theirs.

When you have anxiety, having control can be very important to you. You either feel like you have it or you don't. And when you don't, it feels very scary so you do whatever you have to do to get it back.  Avoid, scream, clean, freeze, isolate, carry out a pattern, research, or control someone else, for example. Feeling Loss of Control Provokes Anxiety

Sometimes people can feel lonely in a crowded room and others can feel totally comfortable home alone all day. Being alone is not inherently an issue. Many ancient sages or meditation masters can be alone and content. But this might be after they have gone beyond individual ego, and no longer feel separation from Oneness of the universe. But for most of us humans, biologically and emotionally, we are social beings. We live in a communities because we need to. We can't do everything alone. We need help. Collaboration is our biggest survival skill. Our species would die off without it. It's natural to feel loneliness when you feel apart from your community (Loneliness and What To Do About Loneliness).

Getting from anxiety to adventure is not a very far leap, even though it may seem to be. Looking at things from different angles give us different meanings of the same event. The meanings we give these events make all of the difference in how we feel and think about ourselves and the world.

The very first assistant I hired never made a mistake on my schedule, and my clients loved her because she was so kind with them on the phone. She had great ideas and an ability to find the answer to a problem no matter how long it took. The problem was that it took forever. Everything took forever. Nothing was ever done because she did it over and over to get it just right.  At the same time, she had trouble showing up. Yes, I mean she often didn't come to work. If she couldn't come on time and perfectly ready to work, she didn't come. And anything and everything was an excuse. Her perfectionism made her unable to function. Let go of perfectionism: it is grossly inefficient and could get you fired.

When we have a past trauma, so many things can trigger an old memory to rise up and take over our emotions. A smell, a shape, a sound, a touch, a person. Anything our senses take in can send us emotionally back to a threatening past trauma. The suffering of this is intense. It may be a nightmare, a flashback, or an anxiety attack. It can also be incredibly frustrating and disappointing that even though you are presently safe--that you feel the persistent panic as though you are still in constant danger.

High expectations of yourself and others (and situations!) can keep you anxious by telling you you are inadequate, that things are out of control, and that you cannot handle them. This will start the spin cycle of anxiety. You will get anxious, anxiety will say "See I told you you couldn't do this!" and then more anxiety ensues feeding even more negative self talk. Your confidence goes in the toilet and which gives you more evidence you are a failure at life. Do you want to stop this spin cycle?

Anxiety has many tricks and tactics it relies on to confuses us into submission. It always gives me a run for my money. When I have conquered one tactic, it tries something new, always keeping me confused so I am not sure which way is up. Anxiety can be very convincing! In the heat of the moment, it leaves me wondering which thoughts in my head are my skills and knowledges and which are lies Anxiety tells me to get me under its spell. Has this ever happened to you?