I often have people come up to me and become genuinely confused when they find out I have anxiety but that I still do things like climb literal mountains. It sounds so contradictory. How can someone have anxiety and still find the space to do seemingly crazy things?
There are no guarantees of safety outside. The wild can feel unregulated and unpredictable at first, but like most things in life, there’s a pattern, and preparing for what you know, anticipating, and adjusting around what you don’t can take you places.
Still, when I tell other people with anxiety this, they tell me that it’s difficult because the anxiety doesn’t go away. I tell them I never said I made it all go away but that I used it to strengthen my problem-solving skills and achieve my own goals.
What I also want these people to know is that I am oftentimes doing things scared. It’s as calculated as it can be with the flexibility that comes from an altered mindset. I’ll be pretty nervous while on sketchy sections of new trails because I haven’t traversed it yet. However, they may have realized that fear comes from the unknown, but they don’t realize fear can be alleviated with knowledge and practically eradicated with practice and experience. It just takes a bit of convincing yourself that you’re capable of doing some pretty cool things.`
There was a time when I actually had a lot of road rage. I would get angry at all the LA traffic driving to and from one of my many interesting internships in the city and end up ruining my day by simply driving home. Then, it dawned on me that there was absolutely nothing I could do about 5:00 traffic. I could sit there mad or turn my music up and just vibe for the hour-long drive back to the valley. Keep moving forward. The past is in the past, so you might as well be present and plan for the future.
In the Avengers (2012) movie, the character Bruce Banner is asked by his fellow superhero, Captain America, about how he controls his Hulk rage. The character seems to have figured out a way to control when he turns into a giant green city-destroying monster, and he miraculously has discovered where to find stretchy enough pants for his human and Hulk bodies. He says his secret is that he’s “always angry.” I have conceptualized this with my anxiety. I am usually always anxious, but I channel my anxiety in a way that’s beneficial to me, and I can quiet uncomfortable feelings through years of practiced thought. I have planned and prepared for things you have never thought of, and I can navigate new landscapes more easily because of my strategic thinking.
My advice for all of the anxious people who come up to me and ask how I do it is that I’m mostly just doing it anxious, but not wanting to miss out on life or achieving my goals weighs heavier on my thought processes and motivates me to just do the thing scared. Feeling scared is just a natural human response to keep us safe, but we do not have to allow it to destroy our lives completely.