I need the capacity to experience worry, anxiety, and fear just like I need air to breathe, water to drink, and food to eat.

people with anxiety disorders struggle with, avoid, and run away from their fear and anxiety.

The most critical element that separates normal from problematic anxiety and fear is this: avoidance, avoidance, and more avoidance. It’s the common tie that binds all anxiety disorders together. Avoidance of fear and anxiety feeds anxiety and fear, and it shrinks lives.

People know anxiety by having anxious apprehension or a sense of foreboding, worry, and muscle tension.

“I have reclaimed what was always mine: a full life—not without worry—but one where worry and fear occupy a safe place that feels okay.”

You commit to doing what you care about with whatever your mind or old history dishes out.

It involves active skills that’ll help you to respond differently—with kindness, compassion, gentleness, less engagement—when anxieties, fears, worries, panic, and other sources of emotional and psychological pain show up.

anxiety tends to be fueled more by what your mind says than by real sources of danger or threat.

Maybe, just maybe, your thoughts and feelings are not barriers at all. Maybe they’re just part of you. Perhaps you can bring them along with you as you do what you care about.