Befriending Anxiety

Anxiety can be a friend. God created humanity and called it “very good.” Humans, as also with other animals, are warned of a potentially threatening or distressing situation by means of the amygdala. This small gland sits atop our spinal cord at the base of the brain, and it was divinely created as a warning system. I’ve a friend who called it the “check engine light.” It warns us of potentially threatening situations, and our prefrontal cortex or rational thinking part of our brain takes notice and decides whether the situation is really threatening or just inconvenient. If it is threatening, our brain and nervous system gets ourselves prepared to fight, flight/run or freeze. Our task is to learn from our anxiety but not let it overwhelm us. We can learn to befriend anxiety. Unfortunately, there are those among us who seem to worry all the time. If they are not worried about something, they are worried because they aren’t worried. We can befriend our anxiety, learn from it and be grateful that we have been created with such a warning system.