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Happy fall!
In the midst of the hustle and bustle, I hope you have had time to step outside and enjoy the color of the leaves and the extended warmth we’ve had this October. I’ve loved it!!
Ok - let me talk about the irony of the picture above. About a decade ago, I leased my own private practice office with its very own waiting room and I got to decorate! I picked out this sign from Pottery Barn Teen to hang on the wall that says “be fearless.” I liked the message of not letting anxiety stop you. I’ve stared at this sign a lot and over time have realized this is actually not the goal at all!
When I’m starting anxiety treatment with a new client, we often talk about how we don’t want to get rid of anxiety completely. Without any anxiety, we’d lie on the couch instead of getting motivated to study for a test. And if we accidentally stepped in front of a moving car, we’d need our fight-or-flight system to kick in. So it’s not actually a good goal to “be fearless”. When we are doing something new, something we haven’t practiced a lot, or are pushing ourselves to grow, often there is anxiety. And that’s ok, it doesn’t mean we are on the wrong path, we shouldn’t do it, or we’re doing it wrong. Often it means we’re doing something that matters.
Instead, I would encourage you to be brave. I recently read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert which is about the bravery required in being a creative person. In it she describes a mentor of hers that taught: “He asked his students to be brave. Without bravery they would never be able to realize the vaulting scope of their own capacities. Without bravery, they would never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery, their lives would remain small – far smaller than they probably wanted their lives to be.” This resonated with me because anxiety often keeps us small, holding us back from trying new things or going outside of our comfort zone. We want to build our bravery muscles by doing small reps frequently so that we live in a way that allows us to grow.
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