Anyone who has experienced anxiety knows that it is an attention-seeking little pain in the butt, that wiggles its way into your life, rearranges the thoughts in your brain and likes to tell you lies.
To put it quite bluntly – anxiety sucks!
If you happen across this blog post on a day when anxiety is sitting pretty heavily for no apparent reason. Or maybe the thoughts are becoming so overwhelming that your body is refusing to cooperate; I want you to know something; you are not broken. You are not failing at life, and you are definitely not alone.
Sometimes what we need isn’t another list of coping strategies handed to us with good intentions. It’s not an overly cheerful reminder to “not worry about it” (honestly, groundbreaking advice right there, that we definitely had not thought of until that well-meaning person gave it to us!).
No, sometimes what we truly need is permission to stop trying to fix ourselves. Instead, we just need to give ourselves five quiet minutes to breathe and re-ground ourselves.
That is where the Letter for Anxiety comes in.
Not Advice. Not Homework. Just Company.
The Letter for Anxiety was a letter that I wrote to myself and my own anxiety. I wasn’t trying to solve anxiety, because I know that my words are never going to cure it. But rather, I wrote it as something that I could sit beside; as if I were sitting with someone who truly understands and who isn’t expecting anything of me.
The letter won’t ask you to write in a journal, breathe a certain way, or suddenly make you fearless. It won’t demand productivity or even positivity, because sometimes those things are helpful and sometimes they’re not what you need.
This letter simply says: I see you and I understand.
It acknowledges how exhausted you are feeling, both mentally and physically from carrying so much weight on your shoulders. It reminds you that surviving is enough. That simply existing is a huge achievement, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Most importantly, this letter calls out the bullshit that our brain likes to tell us. Anxiety is very convincing, but if anxiety were a character, it would definitely be Holden Caulfield (definitely the most unreliable narrator we’ve ever encountered).
For the days you feel “behind”
Anxiety combined with social media and sometimes even other people can make it feel like we are somehow falling behind, and that catching up is something we need to do right away. I’ve heard this described as feeling like everyone else was handed a Map on Adulting, but we somehow missed the meeting about it.
This letter is here to behind you:
- There is no map, and absolutely no one has any clue what they are doing – they’re just very good at faking it
- You are not a failure – you are just doing things differently, and that’s okay
- You do not need fixing – there is nothing wrong with you
- You are allowed to move at your own pace. Everything will happen when it is supposed to, because let’s be honest, it always does
A Gentle Thing You Can Return To
The magical part of this letter is that it doesn’t have to be a one-time thing (unless you want it to be, of course). You can read it back whenever you want to, and as many times as you need to.
It is there for the moments when you need it; when your thoughts are screaming so loudly in your brain that you no longer have the strength to fight back. Or maybe when you need a kinder voice.
It doesn’t come with any pressure or expectations. It just offers reassurance and care.
If that sounds like something that you – or someone you care about – might need, this letter is the perfect option for you.