Somehow, when people are able to see that they didn’t run their own lives into the ground on their own, something shifts. They start to believe in themselves again. They start to reject the pieces of culture that don’t bring them life. Things start to get just a tad easier. When we stop thinking that we are the problem, we gain the power to become the solution.

In my first post on anxiety, I painted a picture of anxiety as a potentially helpful signal that something is wrong. I suggested that anxiety is a critical part of daily functioning that we don’t want to get rid of. The goal is to keep it in balance and to pay attention to what it has to say to us. This post is a full confession that sometimes there’s more to it than that.

Anxiety is unsettling by definition. It changes everything from how you digest food, the quality of your sleep, your ability to think clearly and freely, and how you relate to others. It strongly influences the decisions you make and can so easily shut down whole areas of your life.

Have you had an injury that just doesn’t seem to be healing? Sometimes there’s more going on than just tissue damage or things out of place. Here’s what can happen.

This is a big question, and a loaded one. For some people, it’s meaningful to finally recognize that yes, I fall into this category. Others hold tight to the idea that everything in their lives has been just fine. They don’t want the label.