A year ago, in a post referencing his journey with anxiety, Ryan Reynolds posted on Instagram, “To all those like me who overschedule, overthink, overwork, over-worry and over-everything, please know you’re not alone.” I heard about this post while listening to an episode of the Smartless podcast.
In this life and this world, we’ve created an anxiety-inducing culture. FOMO, the 24-hour news cycle, rampant consumerism, and more….they all play into anxiety. And that’s not even including childhood trauma, which almost always results in some measure of anxiety.
Anxiety has a way of making you think you have to do ALL THE THINGS and they all have to be done RIGHT NOW. We often overschedule ourselves thinking that will solve our problems. We overthink things, believing that if we can see all the angles and potential problems. we’ll avoid any pitfalls.
On the plus side, anxiety acts as a high-alert detection system that can ferret out trouble faster.
On the downside, anxiety can be exhausting.
There’s a Taoist principle called “wu wei” that talks about taking no action except that which is in flow with the universe. The best way to find action that’s in flow is to slow down. Take some time to breathe. Meditate. Wait for the answers to come. You don’t have to force anything. Let it come to you.
You may feel like you have to do all the things right now. But you don’t. Take a moment. Breathe. Triage and do only what is necessary, then let the answers for what’s next come to you.
