A Guide for Anxious Humans
“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” – G. K. Chesterton
Last week I was overcome with paralyzing guilt after slightly miscooking a sausage sandwich.
Don’t worry—the sandwich was delicious. But even as I was putting it together, a critical internal voice was opining that the pan had…
Once upon a time, my parents took me to the zoo. This day is full of memories which have stuck with me ever since—the sunshine, the excitement, the ice cream… even holding hands with my dad, watching eagerly as he unfolded the map.
One of the sharpest and most vivid memories is of…
Anxiety can make decision-making difficult, so I’ve developed a few techniques for figuring out when to leap into something. (And when not to.)
Ding. You’ve Got Mail.
Later, you will think, “I really ought to turn off that notification. It’s not 1997.” But right now, other things are on your mind. Your throat is tight, your heart is thumping, and you’re nervously staring at that bold subject line which has appeared on the screen:
Sometimes I’m ashamed to share my work. You might think that’s understandable (particularly if you’ve been exposed to many of my posts before!) but this isn’t just a healthy sense of shame at my evident limitations.
Often, it’s fear of my own unoriginality. That inner voice of shame tells me to scrap my…
There’s a difference between self-esteem and self-confidence.
Recently, the principles of Feng Shui—an ancient Chinese art which advocates a system of placement within a space to harmonise various energies—became incredibly important to me.
(By sheer coincidence, there was an unpleasant job I didn’t want to do, and spending the afternoon rearranging my office seemed preferable.)
How many times have I felt this anxiety before? And how many times was the anxiety ‘correct’?!
This year I’ve experienced a constant stream of setbacks, of varying degrees of seriousness: minor administrative life hassle, major family tragedy, missed career opportunities, painful emotional entanglements, idiotic breakages, unexpected financial demands.
At times, it’s felt as if the universe was sending me regular doses of deliberate punishment.
[post status: a brief life update] When Walking on Custard came out in 2015 (aside: I cannot believe that was three years ago! What on EARTH is happening to the flow of time?!), I needed some sort of online home. I considered all kinds of wild, imaginative ideas, like interactive websites which would act as companions to the…