anxiety spikes certainly are exhausting. chronic anxiety is even more so. still, i don't wish my anxiety would go away. it is a vital piece of my survival instinct. i wish to survive even more than i wish anxiety would disappear.

i don't want to cure my anxiety. i want to train it. when i first started training my anxiety i used visualizations of lion tamers and carried a bull whip to remind me to keep training. a decade or three later, the lions have reduced to house cats in my lap. i need only stroke their heads to calm them.

I kind of feel like the more I wish it away the more it takes hold.

Practicing radical acceptance has been a game changer for me in terms of making peace with my anxious brain.

I feel like I can walk along side the anxiety vs carrying it on my shoulders if that makes sense. I can still feel overcome with the hyper vigilance and over thinking at times but over the years through developing strategies to manage it, I don’t feel quite as “owned” by it as I once did.

I read something recently that said if you have anxiety, you should really make it a goal to just try to do fun things. That seems impossible because some things are just not fun but I got the gist I think which is to do joyful things, laugh, make it a point to focus on fun because it can help bring you into the present, lower stress chemicals etc.