The Simple Trick I Learned To Calm My Anxiety Without The Help Of Pills

One woman's solution to coping with overwhelming worry.

By Zoe Schaeffer June 2, 2016

  

 

Anxiety is the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting more than 40 million adults. I’m one of them. I tried prescription drugs for several years after struggling as a teenager, but I didn’t feel good relying on pharmaceuticals, and I tapered off throughout college. Years later, when my anxiety came flooding back with tenfold intensity, I knew I had two options: get back on the pills or change my relationship with the beast.
I doubled down on therapy and added a meditation practice to my daily routine, which already included lots of exercise and a veggie-heavy, organic-to-the-best-of-my-ability diet. I got to bed earlier. I kept gratitude lists. Then I started reading cheesy self-help titles. And you know what? All of my efforts made a difference—especially reading Embracing Uncertainty by the late Susan Jeffers.

In her book, Jeffers suggests one simple method to squash rising worries, which are often the onset of a full-on panic attack for me. It goes something like this: The next time you find yourself thinking “I hope,” flip the script to “I wonder.” A hope, according to Jeffers, is really a disguised expectation, a wish for a particular outcome. “Hoping can lead to a state of unhappiness if those very hopes are dashed,” she writes. “It can blind us to valuable opportunities for growth.” Wondering, on the other hand, leaves you open to possibility and “doesn’t result in unhappiness as there are no hopes to be shattered… Fear of the uncertain is replaced by curiosity.”

For me, my fears of the uncertain revolved around taking on more responsibility at work, as well as the supportive, loving relationship I was in. But according to Jeffers' theory, these worries are really opportunities for me to investigate false beliefs I hold about love and self-worth. So I put her suggestion of replacing "worry" with "curiosity" to the test. Work anxiety became a chance to observe my fear of failure and judgment. And in my relationship, fears of failure, loss, and rejection proved to be what I most needed to acknowledge, rather than crossing my fingers that they'd magically go away. Given kind attention and curiosity, my fears lost their power. I still feel scared at times, but I've learned those thoughts come from a wounded place rather than one of logic or truth. And I can forge on despite it.