By Dina Aldabbagh

Maybe anxiety doesn’t need an explanation for you to be safe. Maybe the safest thing you can do with anxiety is nothing. Anxiety says “Fix me so that I’ll feel safe,” but I think that the thing that’s going to make you feel the safest is…nothing. Trying to explain anxiety won’t show you that you’re safe; feeling the anxiety and doing nothing will. That says, “This emotion is okay. I don’t have to do anything with it or about it. I don’t have to understand it. I don’t have to explain it. It’s here. And that’s okay. I’m still safe.”

Acceptance and zero action from feeling the anxiety says “I’m so safe that I don’t have to do anything about this. This isn’t a threat to me.” If it’s not a threat…you don’t have to do anything about it. 

I realized this lesson in two prongs by the events of the same day. First, I went to get gas and while waiting for the gas to pump into my car, I realized there was something that I simply wasn’t worrying about. The realization that I wasn’t thinking about it at all — or registering it as a threat — made me feel anxiety. How funny? I wasn’t worried, for no good reason. I wasn’t worried, not because everything was resolved, but rather just…because. And to not have any logical reason as to why you’re so calm can actually induce anxiety when you’re not used to peace in a certain arena of life. 

Interestingly enough, in the face of that anxiety, I didn’t feel the need to do anything. The truth was that I was calm because I knew I would be okay, my nervous system just didn’t have that evidence yet. So, I let the anxiety be felt, and I didn’t try to intellectualize it. 

Later that day, I was speaking with a friend of mine about attachment styles. We were discussing the anxious-attachment style and she said, “It’s like [anxious-attachment] needs an explanation to feel secure.” And so I realized…yes, that’s exactly what anxiety does. The need to explain an unpleasant emotion, especially anxiety, is at the center of many coping mechanisms. Action helps dissipate the intensity of anxiety in the moment — it feels like you’re doing something. The attempt to mitigate negative effects can help us feel safer because even if it doesn’t work, it says, “I’m working towards improving this feeling.” But actually, nothing says “you’re safer” than feeling anxiety and not doing anything about it. 

To not need an explanation is to say “I don’t have to do anything here to be safe. I’m already safe. Even if I don’t understand this, I’m okay.” You don’t have to analyze your current situation to understand why it looks the way it does. It just does and that’s okay. You’re safe anyways. You don’t have to understand others’ behavior or the “why” of it all. It’s your job to understand only your behavior. 

All you have to know is “I may be feeling a bit anxious in the face of this thing going on, but I don’t have to do anything about it. The anxiety can pass through me. There’s nothing for me to do.” You don’t need to understand the cause of your anxiety and pathologize it to be safe. You’re safe now, and that’s just not your job — people do things that you don’t need to understand. The best thing you can do is let it be here, and let it feel safe having its moment.

That’s what I did when I felt anxiety at that gas station. I didn’t try to stop it. I didn’t try to explain it. I said “I’m feeling this. I understand why it’s here. It makes sense. And that’s okay.” So…I did still understand why I was having anxiety. It’s not like I didn’t process how I felt. 

I understood, “I’m feeling anxious because this is the first time in my life, in this specific area, that I am not bothered by how things look, but just have that calm trust that it’ll all turn out alright. So my nervous system doesn’t yet know if it’s safe, but I know. I know I’ll be greater than good. My nervous system will just learn with time, and that’s okay that she’s feeling like this now.” 

The key is: I didn’t try to find an explanation of why I’m safe. I just knew “I’m safe.” I just understood why I was having the emotion — that it made sense in the context of where I’ve been and where I’m at now — and that anxiety wasn’t something I had to make go away. That it was okay to be here because me feeling anxiety didn’t threaten me. It made sense why I was having anxiety. Therefore I understood: this isn’t a sign that I’m unsafe.

I still processed it, but processing didn’t mean “Get down to the root of anxiety to understand it so deeply in order to no longer feel it.” It meant: recognize why you’re having the emotion, that you’re safe even though you’re having the emotion, and accept it and let it be felt. So I felt the anxiety. And guess what? It was so brief. It passed like nothing — because I didn’t harp on it.

It’s okay to understand why you’re feeling the way you are; I think it’s another to try to use understanding to bypass the actual experience of the emotion. Which is funny because when you won’t just feel the emotion and let it pass — when you try to get to the bottom of it or when you try to seek safety in understanding and meaning-making — that’s actually what prolongs the experience of the emotion in your life. The more you circle your center of gravity around it, the more you feel it. You try to avoid feeling it, but you actually just prolong the feeling by centering your entire experience and attention on it. 

Trying to “solve” it just makes it last longer. Understanding why you’re feeling it, and allowing yourself to feel it, lets it come to an end. Knowing that it’s not a threat, but rather makes sense in the context of your existence, — and that its presence isn’t a bad thing — allows you to just take the emotion lightly. You don’t have to understand why it’s safe. You can just process why it’s here — and maybe not even that. Maybe you just have to acknowledge that it is here. “I feel this. I don’t know why, but I know I’m okay.” 

Something was bothering me some time ago. I was still living a great life, but it was like this buzzing hum of unhappiness underneath the music of my life. For numerous months I tried to get to the bottom of my sadness. I tried to find the key of “why I’m feeling this” so I could finally unlock the treasure to make it pass. And amidst all that thinking about it, the one thing that finally helped was…to stop thinking about it. I wanted to know I was safe to feel these emotions, so I circled on my experience of them. I perpetuated them. All I really needed to know was that I was secure — all along, that I was going to be alright. Great, actually. 

I didn’t need anything to happen. I didn’t need to come to some understanding. I just needed to know “It’s okay that I feel this. I’m safe anyways.” That’s what changes everything. Every time, that’s what does it. Because then I’m secure enough to live in the reality of everything I want because I don’t act out or avoid every second that things don’t “perform security.” I just know “I’m secure here,” and that’s it. Sometimes things take time to develop, and life is not some scripted movie — you have to become okay with waiting or dealing with confusing circumstances. 

The funny thing is that…even amidst that underlying sadness I felt every day, I was building a life. Brick by brick, I was creating the current foundation to support my joy. I had a lot of joy at the same time as the sadness, and when all is said and done, the sadness is gone, and yet I have a life. I have a life I am so incredibly proud of and happy to live. Life didn’t stop because I was feeling sad. Even if my mind was circling on it, life kept going. The sadness eventually faded into the morning, where joy resides. And here I am, so much better for all that I went through. So much more secure, certain, happy. It wasn’t a bad thing; it was just a sad thing for some time. But it taught me how to let go, to accept, to keep living. 

It also gave me living proof that joy does come in the morning. That a new day begins and the sadness is forgotten. That life didn’t stop until I stopped feeling sad. That life went on, and all that I was sowing — even while feeling that sadness — did reap beautiful fruit. Life didn’t require my perfect feeling state to turn into something incredible. 

“Bad” emotions aren’t a danger to your life. They don’t ruin anything for you, but remind you to come back closer to yourself. They don’t pause your story. There’s nothing to fear. Those emotions don’t stop any goodness for you, so…you don’t have to try to avoid feeling them. Those bad emotions don’t stop you from living a life. They don’t touch you…unless you let them. 

I decided to keep building my life, despite always thinking about the thing that made me sad. And even though it was always on my mind, I kept building my home. The emotions can’t stop your life, they can only stop you from living it. The choice is yours at the end of the day. “I will wait to get back into the swing of things until I feel better,” or “I will continue living and building, even though I feel this way.” I’d guess that’s what God wants us to understand. No one can take what’s yours to receive unless you move from your spot. Are you in your spot or have you retired to your bed until you feel better?

We often take our negative emotions as signs. “This is a threat,” “this is bad,” “I shouldn’t feel like this.” We try to make the feeling stop, but a feeling is temporary. It’ll stop anyways. It is a sensation. Nothing else. Not a sign. Not a warning. Not a prophecy. We cannot let it convince us that it has any effect on our lives. The truth is, it can only have an effect on us…if we let it — and that will affect our lives. But if you choose to keep living, keep doing the right things, keep taking whatever energy you’ve got to make movement, life will not stop. Our feelings are not that powerful. Our decisions are.

I think God just wants us to understand that the feelings are just feelings. They have no control over our lives. It is what you decide to be that will affect your life. You can feel anger and be kind. You can feel sadness and not pressure anyone else to save you. You can feel joy and still cry, in fact. And you can feel anxiety and fear and still move forward. 

“Do not be afraid,” the Bible tells us. Maybe on a wiser note, we can interpret: Do not let fear stop you. Feel the fear and do it anyways. “The fear has gripped me, but here I go” — those are lyrics from a song I love, ‘Breezeblocks’ by alt-J. Here you go, despite the fear — because the fear can only stop you if you let it. 

It’s just a feeling. It can’t control your behavior. If you can be stronger than your feelings — which doesn’t mean “don’t feel them,” but rather don’t let your feelings decide your actions — then you can have everything you want out of life. For life doesn’t reward the perfect, it rewards the consistent. That is to say: it doesn’t reward you for what you do or do not feel, it rewards you for what you do and do not do. It has nothing to do with feelings. 

You can feel betrayed and still choose to be honest. You can feel wronged and still choose the honorable thing. You can feel forgotten and still choose to think yourself valuable. It’s a choice to do something, not to feel something. Let the feelings come, accept them, and let them go. They are not your enemy. They cannot stop you. 

Manifestation people talk about this. They talk about how “You can decide that even if you feel anxiety or whatever, you’re still getting what you want.” In a sense I think that means: you can decide to remain secure and unmoved in behavior regardless of what emotion comes up…fear, worry, what be it. If you remain secure, you don’t try to explain a feeling. You don’t beg people to save you from your emotions. You’re not seeking salvation; you know you’re already safe. There’s no saving that needs to be done for someone who’s not in danger. 

“I know no matter what, this will end up the way I want. I will feel good” — which is all we ever want right? That sentiment? That’s security. It’s not lying to yourself, pretending like you’re not feeling an emotion or experiencing a circumstance. It’s saying, “It doesn’t matter how this looks, it can’t take away from the certainty that at the end of it all, I am good.” You know with absolute certainty that your safety and wellbeing is secure — not at all in jeopardy. That’s security: to know. 

If you haven’t experienced God taking care of it all once again, this may be your first experience. I think God lets us go through things so we know they don’t threaten our wellbeing. If we never go through adversity, we simply never know we can make it through. But once you’ve gone through even a little bit, then when next time comes — which it will — you will say, “That’s okay, I can make it through this too.” 

“Why doesn’t God just make sure we don’t go through adversity?” — the question may be posed. Because we all have free will and we also have imperfect nervous systems. The fact of the matter is that something may not even be a problem, but if your nervous system can’t recognize that — if it doesn’t know you’re safe…ie: secure — then to you it will be a problem. I think most of life is spent with God teaching us that things are just not problems. We need to learn that. If we don’t know that, then we make things a problem. We can be our own worst enemies — not because we’re bad, but because we don’t know. We’re meant to learn. Mistakes are made in earnest. 

No one does something thinking that it’s not ultimately the best thing for them. So even catastrophizing things is an honest mistake, not a personality flaw. The reason I say “We can be our own worst enemies” is because at the end of the day, nothing can touch you…but you. Yes, you are that powerful. You get to decide how things affect you. So when things are destroying you, realize that it’s not because of the thing itself, but rather your perception of how it must affect you. 

There are no rules that say something has to destroy you. So this anxiety I felt? No, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing. And it’s allowed to be here. And I’m not going to be affected by it either way. Which doesn’t mean I won’t feel it — as in: suddenly the anxiety doesn’t exist — but rather that it is an unmeaningful part of my experience. Anxiety can just be anxiety. It doesn’t have to be something that scares you — that you avoid, that makes you act out towards others. It can just be a feeling. 

Therefore, it can be here, but it doesn’t have to affect you. Because it doesn’t actually affect you. Your life will still be built, despite the anxiety. Your community will still form, despite the sadness. The foundation of your joy will be built, as long as you put the brick there. It doesn’t require a smile on your face while you do it. If you lay down the bricks — even riddled with fear, anxiety, and sadness — you are still building a home. Those things are just feelings.