On anxiety, self-compassion, and why your brain keeps looking for problems to solve
The mind, when it’s anxious, will find a problem to solve. It doesn’t matter if the problem is real or imagined, or already over. It just needs something to work on. I was reminded of this the other night, lying awake and anxious after working on my last post too close to bedtime.
There were thoughts about whether I was sharing too much of my personal story in my posts, whether they were overlapping too much in terms of the themes I discussed, and also how people might respond to what I shared about how my first marriage ended. I wondered whether anyone really wanted to hear any of it. I was comparing myself to other writers on Substack who I felt were much more capable writers than I am, and wondering why I had committed to writing a Substack newsletter.
I realized that I was trying to “problem solve” the uncomfortable sensations I was feeling, so I focused my attention just on the bodily sensations and let the thoughts go for now.