How to Overcome Anxiety

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

Irises by Vincent Van Gogh

“Wild animals run from the dangers they actually see, and once they have escaped them worry no more. We however are tormented alike by what is past and what is to come. A number of our blessings do us harm, for memory brings back the agony of fear while foresight brings it on prematurely. No one confines his unhappiness to the present.” — Seneca

“O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! 

To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! 

To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! 

To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! 

To be indeed a God!” — Walt Whitman

Dear reader, let the anxiety come. Let it tighten your throat, shake your voice, send an electric jolt through your nerves. Let it make your stomach rumble, your palms sweat, your heart hammer like a war drum. Let it do what it will—while you stand stall, confident it cannot break you.

You do not control these attacks. If you think you do that’s an illusion. And the more you try to block anxiety off or try to resist its bodily manifestations, the stronger it surges. So stop. Stop trying to calm yourself. Stop trying to overpower the nervousness. That’s not your job.

Your job is to stand your ground. To be what Marcus Aurelius talked about—

“The rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.”

You are not your pounding heart. You are not the sweat on your palms. You are not the tight feeling in your chest. You are something greater—the master, the commander, the ruler of your soul. And anxiety? Anxiety is nothing but a wild dog at your gates, barking, snarling, trying to keep you from stepping forward.

But you will step forward.

Because you’re not here to be pulled about like a puppet. You are here to do whatever you want.

Marcus Aurelius understood this practice. He said,

“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.”

He knew what most never will: That fear has no power except the power we grant it. That outside of us, there is no good or bad—only events. And within us? The only thing that matters. Our virtues. Our judgments about occurrences. Our actions. Epictetus told his students,

“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person or that person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in right now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Participate. Exert yourself.”

So exert yourself. Let go of control. Not of yourself, but of the anxiety. Let it pass through you like wind through the trees, affecting nothing. Aim to practice the only thing you control, the highest good: courage, wisdom, justice, discipline. Courage to put your neck on the line, because if not now, then when—if not you then who; because fortune favors the bold; because as Leo Tolstoy wrote, “There is no deed in this life so impossible that you cannot do it. Your whole life should be lived as a heroic deed.” Wisdom because your actions today set a positive precedent for the team you’re leading—they’ll trust you more and do anything for you, your family—they’ll know they can rely on you to protect them, and your enemies know not to underestimate you. Justice because you get to look out for other people, the world becomes a better place for it and you trigger the cascade for a braver new world. Discipline because you say what you mean, you teach your body who’s in charge and this earns you self-respect; you earn more confidence to get after bigger goals.

And then—move. Speak. Do what is necessary, not in spite of the anxiety, but indifferent to it. Do whatever you have to do that's appropriate for your lofty nature, as the situation demands so that you're successful, and for the essential work you get to do in service of others. Fidget if you have to.

For what is a greater pleasure than this? To walk like a god into the risk that changes everything. To craft and share something so beautiful even you are left in awe. To love and be loved without hesitation. To live so fully that time itself feels too small to contain you.

That is power. That is freedom. That is what awaits beyond anxiety.

So stand your ground. But remember you won’t get this new way of living, just as,

“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” —André Gide

Without letting go of your past identity.

I’ll leave you with this beautiful poem by William Ernest Henley,

“Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

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What would you do if you weren’t so anxious?

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