Anxiety Disorder: When to Solve a Problem and When to Accept

If you have read the book, or spent any real time with the materials here on the site or over on YouTube, there are a few core tenets that come up again and again. They are so consistent, and emphasized so often, that you are probably already familiar with several of them.

When I sat down to write the book, what I really wanted to do was simplify something that, over the years, had become so noisy. The topic and the process had gotten complex, and in a lot of ways confusing, especially if you are new to it. That is exactly why we used the subtitle, cutting through the noise.

And using the word mindset in the title was not an accident. Because with all the many things people will tell you to do to recover, all the changes you may have to make, all the things you might need to do or not do, I have always felt like it really boils down to this simple matter of perspective. Of belief. Of mindset.

That is my opinion, of course, but here is why I keep landing on it. Mindset is one of the few things we can carry with us all day long. It costs nothing. It weighs nothing. And it has such a great capacity to influence the direction of our lives, moment to moment, day to day, and onward.

Giving up the fight

Maybe the centerpiece of that mindset, the thing we talk about most, is the notion of giving up the fight. Dr. Weekes simply called it acceptance. Some people call it passive acceptance, although I have found that acceptance itself can be a bit of a conundrum, and may not be as thoroughly passive as one might think.

This idea of allowing things to happen that we cannot change is not new. But for a mind that is drenched in fear and anxiety, it is certainly not one that comes naturally. As we have talked about many times, this recovery process is completely counterintuitive. I have met few people, if any, who fell into an anxiety disorder and instantly figured out on their own to reach for an acceptance-based practice right off the starting block. That is just not how we are wired.

We are built to solve problems

We are wired to solve problems. The human brain is essentially built to be a problem-solving machine. Its job, first and foremost, is to protect us. To look for danger in our path, solve for that danger, and clear the way for our safety.

So the urge to fight our symptoms, our mental narratives, and the things that happen to us in an anxiety disorder is not just understandable. It is natural. And learning that the actual solution is to do the opposite takes time for most of us. It is not a concept we are willing to simply implement without a few questions first.

Wherever you are in this process, take heart in this. As with any new habit, there is a learning curve. And for some of us that curve can be particularly steep, and particularly slow. That is okay. The speed at which you figure this out is not as important as you might think, because when these strategies are implemented correctly, they lead to improvement. Whether the light bulb goes off for you quickly or you need much more time, the direction is the same. My own journey was slow, and my brain was stubborn. So stay the course. Allow yourself the natural fluctuations, the ups and the downs, and give yourself grace.

The situation that had my number

But another side of this dawned on me recently, when a situation popped up in my work.

The specifics of the problem are not as important as the realization I came to while I was working through it. This was an ongoing situation, and for quite a while it had presented me with a fair amount of frustration. I am going to guess that just about everyone reading this has had some version of it in their own workplace. I have been lucky to be mostly free of them, honestly. But this one irked me. And if I am being honest, I felt like it was getting the best of me. Or the worst of me, maybe.

It would come up every so often, and I would talk through the workflow with trusted coworkers, fairly and professionally, but usually venting some level of frustration or concern. That is fairly rare for me. I have tended to float through my work life pretty smoothly over the years, and I am grateful for that. But even just thinking about this particular situation could turn my blood temperature up a bit.

Well, it came up again this past week. And for whatever reason, I truly do not know why, I decided to zoom out. I decided it was time to take an honest look at what was actually going on in my mind about it. Why was I able to keep such a smooth process going with nearly every other situation at work, but not this one?

Perspective shaping

And it dawned on me. This was a processing issue. Not that my concerns were not legitimate. Frankly, they probably are. But I have overcome countless problematic situations at work by finding a way to reframe, or reshape, the perspective.

I like to use the term perspective shaping. I do not know if I stole it from somewhere, but I like it. Perspective shaping is something successful people tend to be very good at. Happy people are very good at it. I would not claim to be an expert, but looking back, I think I have done an okay job, and I am grateful for whatever ability I have there. It has kept me employed. It has kept life manageable. And it has generally led me toward good decisions, with plenty of exceptions, like most of us.

So after zooming out, I started to have a bit of a mental shift. I began comparing the amount of energy I was putting into this perceived problem to the true drag it was actually creating in my workflow. And as you might have already guessed, the mental energy I was spending on it, however legitimate, was nowhere near congruent with the actual drag it was causing in my work life.

I would not go so far as to say I was making a mountain out of a molehill. But I would say the ratios did not make sense. The mental math was not adding up. And looking at it from a bird's-eye view, I started to reshape a way to respond. My ego did not love this, I will be honest. But my logical mind knew I was onto something. And as I worked through it, I remembered that I do this all the time. So why had I not been able to do it here? My ego raised its hand again.

I am not going to tell you I solved the problem, or that I will never be irritated by it again. But I do think it is filed in a completely different place now. I have constructed a response that, in the long run, is going to make for considerably less stress in my work life.

This is not about switching off your mind

And that brings me to the distinction I really wanted to make with this whole story.

When we talk about allowing, and accepting, and not trying to solve what is happening to us in an anxiety disorder, it is important to understand that the suggestion is not to turn off all of your problem-solving abilities. It is not to cut out the analytical mind completely. I have pointed to research before that links anxiety with higher intelligence. This condition tends to happen to thinkers.

So when we talk about recovery strategy and the recovery mindset, in no way are we suggesting that you stop thinking. We are suggesting that you stop fighting. Specifically, that you stop fighting the feelings you are having and stop responding to the narratives that ask you to solve them, chase them away, or reassure yourself when anxiety is at its peak. That is the counterintuitive mechanism in action.

Knowing when to draw your weapon

The recovery process asks us to have the judgment to discern when life genuinely needs proper evaluation and decision making, like my situation at work, and when a narrative or a feeling simply needs to be left alone. Like when your heart is pounding for the thousandth time. Or panic shows up in your mind. Or your hands are sweating. Or you wake up feeling flat, or fatigued, or low, or any other one of the symptoms sensitization can throw our way.

The recovery mindset demands discernment. It is knowing when to draw your weapon, so to speak, and when to leave it holstered.

If you are reading this, you are very likely good at analyzing and problem solving. Life requires that we do so. In fact, doing it well can actually reduce unneeded stress and keep you from wasting mental energy in situations like the one I described. Like a lot of things with this topic, it is a nuanced and subtle difference. And yet, at the same time, it is a distinct one. I hope laying it out this way helps separate the two, and takes some of the worry out of stepping up and being confident when it really is time to make a decision and figure out what is best for you.

An exercise, if you want it

Think back on a few recent situations in your life and see if you can sort them into one of these two buckets: the ones that called for your sharp, capable mind, and the ones that were really just asking to be left alone. It is an interesting thing to run through, and honestly, it is pretty rewarding to do.

Keep moving forward. Keep working, keep learning, and these concepts will keep getting clearer as you go.

If you want to go deeper on the mindset underneath all of this, and how to build the kind of discernment that makes it work, the easiest place to start costs nothing.

Get the first two chapters of the book for free, sent straight to you, and see if this way of thinking clicks. You can suggest a topic or ask a question for a future episode while you are there. I respect your inbox and keep it simple.