Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  So he flew across to the nearest tree. There was a branch just above him. He flew up to it. Hawks hate to sit on a lower perch when a higher one is offered, and so he hopped and scrambled onto the one above him, and then onto another, and another, laddering up the tree, pulling the creance behind him. Soon he sat at the very top of the unclimbable oak, the world offering itself to him; the skies fletched with pigeons, the fields sinking towards Stowe, the roof of the palace and its glittering lakes and all its obelisks and temples and classical avenues, all the lines of sight cut into the landscape by men two hundred years ago, with his small hawkish face looking down upon it as if this view, this perfect view, was the reason it was made. White had only left Gos on the railings for a minute. He’d heard the farmer’s car and ran across the field to tell Mrs Wheeler about his new wireless set. When he got back Gos was not on the well but on top of a tree, a shadow against the sky, and the twigs and branches below him woven and tangled with twine. He whistled, waved food, but the hawk didn’t move. He panicked and pulled on the creance and it made Gos bate and the twine more tangled than ever. He started to worry the creance would snap. ‘It had hardly any breaking strain,’ he wrote. ‘It had already been broken twice.’ The hawk was held tight; powerless, White called for someone to help him. But the arrival of the farmer’s son in a white shirt carrying a ladder made the hawk bate even more. Soon Gos was hanging upside down in a cocoon of fraying string, feathers breaking in his struggle to free himself, before finally he hung unmoving, exhausted, immobilised, a feathered fly in a tarred and knotted web. It was an hour and a half before White entangled his jesses with a screwhook fastened to the end of a salmon rod, dragged him down to the ground and got him back on his fist. You bloody little sod, White hissed at Gos. The hawk, he wrote, looked at him angrily, ‘as if it had all been my fault’. A couple more days and I’ll fly her free. A couple more days. But then a series of summer storms send cold water running in sheets along the ruffled tarmac and shell the roof with twigs and leaves. It is terrible flying weather. So instead of going out to the hill I exercise Mabel in the park. I tie the swivel to the creance and lower her to the ground – she jumps to the grass crab-wise and looks up at me, hunched and baleful – then I put a scrap of food on my glove, raise it high in the air, and she flies vertically up to eat it. Then we do it again.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  And what happened next was this: my eyes started avoiding a book that lived on the shelf by my desk. At first it was just a visual blind-spot, a tic of a blink; then something like a grain of sleep in the corner of my eye. I’d look past the place where the book was with a little flicker of discomfort I couldn’t quite place. Soon I couldn’t sit at my desk without knowing it was there. Second shelf down. Red cloth cover. Silver-lettered spine. The Goshawk . By T. H. White . I didn’t want the book to be there, and I didn’t want to think about why, and soon it got to the point that the bloody book was all I could see when I sat at my desk, even if it was the one thing in the room I wouldn’t look at. One morning, sitting there, sun on the table, coffee to hand, computer open, unable to concentrate, I snapped: this was ridiculous. I leaned down, drew out the book and put it on the desk in front of me. It was just a book. There was nothing especially malevolent about it. It was old and stained with water, and the ends of the spine were bumped and scuffed as if it had been in many bags and boxes over the years. Hmm , I thought. I was interested in my emotions now. I thought about the book cautiously, ran my feelings over it the way you feel for a hurting tooth with your tongue. The dislike was palpable, but bound up with a strange kind of apprehension that needed pulling into parts, because I wasn’t sure exactly what it was made of. I opened the book and began to read. Chapter One , it said. Tuesday . And then: When I first saw him he was a round thing like a clothes basket covered in sacking . It was a sentence from a long time ago, and it carried with it the apprehension of another self. Not the man who wrote it: me. Me, when I was eight years old. I was a scrawny, too-tall child with ink on my fingers, binoculars around my neck, and legs covered in plasters. I was shy, pigeon-toed, knock-kneed, fantastically clumsy, hopeless at sport, and allergic to dogs and horses. But I had an obsession. Birds. Birds of prey most of all. I was sure they were the best things that had ever existed. My parents thought this obsession would go the way of the others: dinosaurs, ponies, volcanoes. It didn’t.

• From Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Cycle of Anxious Thoughts (2020)

  And when that happened, the church was launched into existence, thousands and thousands were saved and began to follow Jesus, countries were evangelized, and generations were changed forever. I know you might be thinking, Jennie, that’s great. But I just need to quit feeling so anxious. I know. But part of quitting feeling anxious is finding an altogether different reason to live. When Christ is our prize and heaven is our home, we get less anxious because we know our mission, our hope, our God cannot be taken from us. A New Way to Think You know, this is what this entire book comes down to: our thoughts being wholly consumed by the mind of Christ. This matters because, as we looked at earlier, our thoughts dictate our beliefs, which dictate our actions, which form our habits, which compose the sum of our lives. As we think, so we live. When we think on Christ, we live on the foundation of Christ, our gaze fixed immovably on Him. Wind? What wind? Waves? What waves? We step. We walk. We make it across that sea. Prison? Well, okay. At least the guards might be saved. Shipwreck? Hmmm, okay. Apparently God wants me here instead of there, where the ship was headed. A whole new way to think—that’s what we’re after here. It’s been more than a year since I experienced that season of unwelcome 3 a.m. wake-up calls. And while I still do wake in the middle of the night every so often, the interruption no longer fills me with terror and dread. Far from it! During those early-morning times, I now experience something like peace. In fact, in a truly redemptive turn of events, God took the most upsetting and disruptive part of my daily experience and began to use it for good. It’s no exaggeration to say that the bulk of this book was written between the hours of 3 and 5 a.m., morning by morning, week by week, month by month. Sleeplessness gave way to sacredness. Isn’t that a beautiful thing? In the dark, my mind used to spiral, afraid that there was no good place to land. Afraid that God was not real. Afraid that I was not safe. Afraid that I was not seen. Afraid of the days to come. Those fears, I would learn, were frauds. I was seen. I was safe. God was real. God remains so real today. Even now as I type from my bed, my husband asleep beside me, my computer screen aglow, and my fingers moving too slowly for my rapid-fire thoughts, I am at home. At home with God again. He chose me. He chose me and set me apart. I am not alone in the dark. I am known. I am chosen. I am safe. I am God’s, and He is mine. So again and again in the night, I make my choice.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  When we’re immobile at home, this can be a part of an extended freeze-like state that can evolve into a dissociation. It can also feel like a profound physical lethargy that feels all-consuming. While it can temporarily feel comforting to lie as low as possible, we have a wealth of research that advocates for doing the exact opposite. Moving your body—and, no, it doesn’t have to be anything vigorous like training for a marathon—can be incredibly helpful for your mental health. Whether it’s a gentle yoga practice, walking for twenty minutes, or going for a swim, we know that getting some exercise can make a fundamental difference in the experience of anxiety. How so? Harvard Health Publishing reports that when you get your heart rate up, this changes your brain chemistry, including the availability of antianxiety neurochemicals, such as serotonin, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), brain- derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and endocannabinoids. These can act like natural painkillers that also improve your ability to sleep. Additionally, exercise activates the frontal cortex of the brain, which helps downplay that overly active amygdala that so many of us have. Exercise also has a musculoskeletal impact, relieving muscle tension, which is seen all too often with anxiety. Lastly, exercise often gets our minds off whatever it is that we’re feeling anxious about. The power of distraction—especially through exercise—can’t be underestimated. 161 Given that we often dread the physical symptoms that anxiety bears on our bodies, exercising can help us become more comfortable with the sensations of a racing heart, sweating, and feeling out of breath—not too different from how the body can feel during a panic attack. We can reduce our anxiety sensitivity through exercise as we see how survivable these sensations really are. While anxiety can make us feel weak, both physically and mentally, regular exercise helps us see just how strong we are. 162 Almost inevitably, this builds your confidence and comfort with your body. In fact, though not true for everyone, it’s been shown that exercise can be just as effective as taking an antidepressant. 163 I’ve seen the power of this in my own life. Because my anxiety often shows up physically, I can be the first to sit home on the couch and turn into a little mummy. However, it was when I read Michael Easter’s book The Comfort Crisis (in one of my mummified states) that I learned about the power of a misogi. 164,165 The idea of a misogi stems from the Japanese Shinto practice of ritual purification by standing under an icy waterfall. It represents the notion of the body being able to handle discomfort in order to tap into what we’re truly capable of. It’s a physical and psychological exercise where we learn the magnitude of our strength—which anxiety often makes us doubt. That’s when I asked myself what my misogi would be.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  He also learned that some of the men he dated seemed to be with him only when he was willing to brave the traffic. However, he also was able to find a man who was happy to compromise and drive out to him as well. Had he not set that boundary, he could have floundered in even more aimless relationships. Because he stood up for himself, Jordan found a man who adored him and whom he adored. The best part was that they could actually spend time together, because Jordan was learning how to set boundaries not just at home, but at work as well. A NEW WAVE TO RIDE: What are some boundaries that you can begin setting in your life? How can you stay committed to these boundaries, even when others may give you pushback? HOW TO SWIM IN THIS NEW WATER How do we actually set boundaries to protect ourselves, though? We’re right back at that diving board where we’re looking down into the abyss. It’s scary to take the jump. When you’ve lived a life of people-pleasing, you usually know the outcome. People will be happy with you, while you will (semi) hate yourself as a result. The idea of telling people no or saying we’re not available is pretty unpredictable—it’s vulnerability at a level 10. I want you to come back to the dialectic, though: you can both have boundaries and connect with others. You can still be an amazing friend and have time for yourself. You can be a loving child to your parents and still not live out every dream they have for you. All these things can coexist. It does not have to be one or the other. In fact, I would argue that operating on either end of the spectrum doesn’t put us in a place of health. I love the framework that John and Linda Friel present in their book, Adult Children: The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families. 78 They write about the three different kinds of boundaries that we can set, and as I describe each, I invite you to consider where you land: 1. Diffuse: For my people-pleasers, this is when you’re too flexible with your boundaries and you say yes to everything and everyone. You feel overwhelmed and perhaps internally angry but struggle to stand up for yourself. You may feel like everyone is walking all over you, but your anxiety can block you from changing the behavior. 2. Rigid: The opposite of diffuse, you’re quick to say no and you keep others at a distance. You don’t trust others and you may struggle to connect because you believe people may be trying to take advantage of you. You have time for yourself, but you may also lack close relationships.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Then he gestured to my cheek. ‘That’s a smart eye you have.’I said, ‘It is, rather, ain’t it?’He looked kind. ‘Perhaps it was the blow, as made you faint. You gave us quite a scare.’‘I’m sorry. I think you’re right, it must have been the blow. I - I was struck by a man with a ladder, in the street.’‘A ladder!’‘Yes, he - he turned too sharp, not seeing me and-’‘Well!’ said Ralph. ‘Now, you’d never believe such a thing could happen, would you, outside of a comedy in the theatre!’I gave him a wan sort of smile, then lowered my eyes and started on the bread and butter. Florence was studying me, I thought, rather carefully.Then the baby sneezed and, as Florence took a handkerchief to its nose, I said half-heartedly: ‘What a handsome child!’ At once, his parents turned their eyes upon him and gave identical, foolish smiles of pleasure and concern. Florence lifted him a little way away from her, the lamplight fell upon him; and I saw with surprise that he really was a pretty boy - not at all like his mother, but with fine features and very dark hair and a tiny, jutting pink lip.Ralph leaned to stroke his son’s jerking head. ‘He is a beauty,’ he said; ‘but he is dozier, tonight, than he should be. We leave him in the daytime with a gal across the street, and we are sure that she puts laud’num in his milk, to stop his cries. Not,’ he added quickly, ‘as I am blaming her. She must take in that many kids, to bring the money in, the noise when they all start up is deafening. Still, I wish she wouldn’t. I hardly think it can be very healthful...’ We discussed this for a moment, then admired the baby for a little longer; then grew silent again.‘So,’ said Ralph doggedly, ‘you are a friend of Miss Derby’s?’I looked quickly at Florence. She had recommenced her jiggling, but was still rather thoughtful. I said, ‘That’s right.’‘And how is Miss Derby?’ said Ralph then.‘Oh, well, you know Miss Derby!’‘Just the same, then, is she?’‘Exactly the same,’ I said. ‘Exactly.’‘Still with the Ponsonby, then?’‘Still with the Ponsonby. Still doing her good works. Still, you know, playing her mandolin.’ I raised my hands, and gave a few half-hearted imaginary strums; but as I did so Florence ceased her swaying, and I felt her glance grow hard. I looked hurriedly back to Ralph. He had smiled at my words.‘Miss Derby’s mandolin,’ he said, as if the memory amused him. ‘How many homeless families must she not’ve cheered with it!’

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Sacrifice to the ancestors was deemed essential to the kingdom, because the fate of the dynasty depended on the goodwill of their deceased kings who could intercede with Di on its behalf. So the Shang held lavish “hosting” (bin) ceremonies at which vast quantities of animals and game were slaughtered—sometimes as many as a hundred beasts in a single ritual—and gods, ancestors, and humans shared a feast. 16 Meat eating was another privilege strictly reserved for the nobility. The sacrificial meat was cooked in exquisite bronze vessels that, like the bronze weapons that had subjugated the min, could be used only by the nobility and symbolized their exalted position. 17 The meat for the bin ceremony was supplied by the hunting expeditions, which, as in other cultures, were virtually indistinguishable from military campaigns. 18 Wild animals could endanger the crops, and the Shang killed them with reckless abandon. Their hunt was not simply a sport but a ritual that imitated the sage kings, who, by driving the animals away, had created the first civilization. A considerable part of the year was devoted to military campaigning. The Shang had no great territorial ambitions but made war simply to enforce their authority: extorting tribute from peasants, fighting invaders from the mountains, and punishing rebellious cities by carrying off crops, cattle, slaves, and craftsmen. Sometimes they fought the “barbarians,” the peoples who surrounded the Shang settlements and had not yet assimilated to Chinese civilization. 19 These militant circuits around the kingdom were a ritualized imitation of the sage kings’ annual processions to maintain cosmic and political order. The Shang attributed their victories to Di, the war god. Yet there also seems to have been considerable anxiety, because it was impossible to rely on him. 20 As we can see from the surviving oracle bones and turtle shells on which the royal diviners inscribed questions for Di, he often sent drought, flooding, and disaster and was an undependable military ally. Indeed, he could “confer assistance” on the Shang but just as easily support their enemies. “The Fang are harming or attacking us,” mourned one oracle. “It is Di who orders them to make disaster for us.” 21 These scattered pieces of evidence suggest a regime constantly poised for attack, surviving only by ceaseless martial vigilance. There are also references to human sacrifice: prisoners of war and rebels were routinely executed and, although the evidence is not conclusive, may have been offered up to the gods. 22 Later generations certainly associated the Shang with ritual murder. The philosopher Mozi (c. 480–390 BCE) was clearly revolted by the elaborate funerals of a Shang aristocrat: “As for the men who are sacrificed in order to follow him, if he should be a [king], they will be counted in hundreds or tens.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  That’s why learning about OCD—and educating ourselves—is so important. If we can recognize an OCD thought for what it is, rather than buy in, we can name the game so much faster. This means that while we cannot stop the obsessive thought from happening (as you’ll remember, we can’t control much of what the brain sends to the spam folder), we do get to choose what pile we put that mental mail in. For example, if you’re having the obsessive thought that your partner doesn’t love you and you need to look through their phone to make sure they’re not cheating on you—this is where you have a choice. Instead of going all in on the obsessive thought and taking it as truth, you can instead say, “I’m noticing that I’m having the same obsessive thought about my partner cheating on me. That’s my brain doing its OCD thing. I have a choice in how I respond. I choose to not go through his phone, even though that may feel uncomfortable for me.” What’s at play here? It’s that empowered acceptance again. You accept that you’re having an obsessive thought. Your empowerment comes when you choose to not engage in the compulsive behavior. This is taking the out-of- control (the obsession) and responding with an in-control action. Sometimes we call this “opposite action,” when you make an intentional choice to do the opposite of what the compulsive behavior wants you to do. 35 I realize this is much easier said than done. When we feel anxious, our minds feel so out of control. We feel unhinged. What’s cruel is that we think by engaging in compulsive behaviors, like washing our hands excessively or avoiding certain people, we will feel better. Momentarily, we do. That sweet wave of relief that washes over us when we check or seek affirmation is addicting. Yet it’s what’s ultimately making us feel worse. You may think that when you engage in compulsive behaviors you’re giving yourself a buoy, but it’s actually an anchor that’s pulling you down deeper and deeper. It’s when we learn to sit with it—our thoughts, our feelings, and our bodies— that we can feel grounded again. This isn’t meant to be comfy. No one wants to look at their obsessive thought straight on. But it’s when we face it fully, rather than run away, that we see our fear and our pain for what it is. We learn that we can in fact live with it. The fancy therapy term for this is what’s called exposure and response prevention therapy, or ERP.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  70 Lecture 20: Calvin and Reformed Theology leads to what is radically new in Calvin’s doctrine of predestination: the notion that we can know we are elect, predestined for salvation. “How do you know you are elect?” becomes a crucial pastoral question in Reformed theology. For Calvin the certainty of election is based on the inward and effectual call, which is the work of God’s grace—what later Protestants call “conversion.” The effectual call in conversion gives us a true, saving faith, one that perseveres to the end, rather than a temporary faith. This generates the distinctively Calvinist anxiety: How do I know for sure that I have true, saving faith? It also explains why the concept of a once-in-a-lifetime conversion becomes a central theme in much of Protestant theology: If you know you have been truly converted, you can know you are predestined for salvation. One main route to “assurance of salvation,” as it is called in Reformed theology, is the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. The other main route is more external: The fruits of the Spirit, that is, the good works which follow from true faith is evidence that we are true believers. When Catholics, Lutherans, and the Reformed get anxious, they get anxious about different things. Catholics get anxious about whether they are in a state of mortal sin, so they go to confession. Calvinists get anxious about whether they have true faith, so they seek internal or external evidence that their faith is real. Luther has the anxiety he calls Anfechtung, whose deepest form is the worry that the hidden God of predestination might be different from the revealed God of the promise, so he keeps returning to the promise of baptism. Ŷ Calvin, Institutes, bk. 3, chaps. 2 (on faith) and 21–24 (on predestination). Cary, “Sola Fide: Luther and Calvin.” McNeill, The History and Character of Calvinism. Suggested Reading 71 1. Do the three Protestant solas seem to you a gain or a loss by comparison to Catholicism? 2. Is it good to have the kind of certainty Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is aimed at providing? Questions to Consider

• From Bestiary (2020)

  Later—when we were in the classroom closet for our time-out, having flooded the bathroom and cut PE—I whispered to Ben in the dark that I might still eat her someday. Her laughter lit the dark between us, torched it to ash. When I told her to stop laughing, that it could really happen, Ben said I shouldn’t be afraid of what the tail wanted me to be. You’re becoming the species that will save you. But neither of us knew what I needed to be saved from. Neither of us knew what a beast was born to do. DAUGHTERBirthdate [image file=image_rsrc1SC.jpg] Or: Why Fathers Fail as Sources of WaterOn my brother’s birthday, my father asked if we wanted to go to the zoo. It was the same one Duck Uncle had taken us to. Our mother told us we had to go, even after my brother faked sickness by stewing vomit on the stove: He boiled water and cornstarch and an apple peel for color, then poured the pink glue of it down his shirt, pretending to gag it out of his mouth. But my mother wiped him off with a dishrag and said our father was our father: He carried us the way birds carry the sky. The sea shoulders the boat, she said. He’s the water, we’re what floats. Water can sink a boat too, I said, tracing a hole in the air with my finger. My brother and I finally agreed to go not because we thought our father was the sea, but because our mother begged us, and she was the only body of water we believed in. After my mother took the bus to work, my father drove us there with the windows down, our cheeks ripened by the wind. Our eyelashes knitted to the dust that blew in, a powder of sun-dried cowshit and dirt from the fields along the highway. Some summers, the fields caught fire and grew trees of smoke and my mother dipped bandanas in the sink to tie around our mouths, telling us to breathe careful: Our lungs could be lit up like logs. I fell asleep with my head rolling in my brother’s lap, his hands petting my hair along its part. He roved his palm over my face like a stethoscope, but it was his heart I could hear, accelerating as the car did. When we neared the zoo, I could hear him counting his own breaths, numbering them backward from a hundred, something he only did when my father was near.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  You also don’t need to stay in a situation where you’re utterly miserable. Even though anxiety may want you to feel weak and deferential, that’s not a script that you need to adhere to. You can write your own script and create the conclusion that best suits you. That’s not selfish or inconsiderate. You’re being honest with yourself and everyone else around you about what actually matters to you. No apologies necessary. WHEN IT’S TIME TO GET BACK INTO THE WATER This chapter isn’t about the initial crash of heartbreak. It’s about how we can pick ourselves back up again, even when we feel jaded and resentful after a loss. If we’re not careful, the anxiety of getting hurt again can make us feel like we never want to try again. We’ve all seen this pop up in our lives in various ways. We swear off dating after someone cheats on us, feeling like we can never trust anyone again. We refuse to get another dog because it ripped our hearts out when our loving pet died. We promise to never get close with another friend because they could abandon us, backstab us, or drop the ball like the last one did. The more we write others off, the farther and farther we get from allowing ourselves to vulnerably connect. Now, sometimes, we need to sit on our shore for a while. We need to reflect on what has happened to us before we jump back in the water. While there’s no set timeline for how long you should take it easy, remember to listen to your body’s cues. If you find yourself crying on a first date or wanting to talk the entire time about how someone did you dirty when you’re meeting someone new, that may be a clue that more of a time-out is needed. Grace and Ryan sat together for two months in couples therapy after they broke up. After being in each other’s lives for ten years, they each felt that they couldn’t be ripped away from each other overnight. The breakup was hard enough as it was. They held each other through that pain before gradually and then fully parting ways. Eventually, though, there comes a time when you feel courageous enough to dip your toe back in your water. You may need to give yourself a nudge—after all, sometimes it’s hard to feel fully ready to let our hearts be loved after a loss. We have to remind ourselves that it’s not just anxiety that coincides with a fresh start. There can be passion and excitement, too. If we’ve been holding ourselves back for too long, we can forget what it feels like to deeply connect with another person, creature, or experience. We forget how it feels to be kissed, to have a pet greet us at the door, or to visit a new country for the first time.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  And yet, interestingly, one study found that teaching children to fear the world, something that about 53 percent of parents do, correlated with less success, less job and life satisfaction, poorer health, more depression, increased suicide attempts, and “less flourishing.” 55 Then again, it’s a lot easier to tell your children that the world wishes you well when you’ve been in a place of power and privilege all of your life, as had family members in generations prior. When you don’t have to fear the unexplainable and unpredictable hammers of life, you’re much more free to “flourish.” Given this, it makes sense why we are collectively Generation Anxiety. Biologically, historically, and emotionally, anxiety has become etched in our coding. For many of us, it has been steeped in our tea that we are not protected. Indeed, so many of our parents and grandparents haven’t been. Our families have fed us user guides to keep us hyper-alert. It’s been done with the best of intentions. And while we need to integrate this intergenerational wisdom, there’s a part of me that wonders: What if it can be different with us? Yes, we may be a generation marked by anxiety and depression right now. Some people mockingly call us “snowflakes” because of it. But the fact that we have the capacity to feel deeply shouldn’t define us negatively—if anything, that capacity to care is a strength, not a weakness. Just as we hold pain in our blood, we also hold power, too. Contrary to how some may frame us, I believe we are much more than our fear. While we would never choose the situation we’ve been dealt, we can take what we’ve been given and make something better. After all, if our genes can be changed based on the traumas we’ve endured, can they not be changed by the positive strides toward healing that we take as well? Who said we can’t be the comeback kids with the comeback genes? Indeed, various studies are showing that change is possible. We are seeing how mindfulness, exercise, eating nutrient-dense foods, not using substances to excess (especially nicotine and alcohol), and reducing stress, among other tools, can all play a part in changing the script. 56 What we do to our bodies changes us on a cellular level. For example, practicing mindfulness can help reduce the size of the amygdala (that lovely fear center we’ve been learning about) while thickening the gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, which helps us plan, problem solve, and navigate our emotions. 57 Another example: changing your diet and refraining from inflammatory-inducing foods (here’s looking at you, ultraprocessed foods) impacts our gut microbiome. When we put foods such as salmon, spinach, cauliflower, and strawberries in our bodies, they act as protective agents against depression.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Modern military historians agree that without professional and responsible armies, human society would either have remained in a primitive state or would have degenerated into ceaselessly warring hordes. Before the creation of the nation-state, people thought about politics in a religious way. Constantine’s empire showed what could happen when an originally peaceful tradition became too closely associated with the government; the Christian emperors enforced the Pax Christiana as belligerently as their pagan predecessors had imposed the Pax Romana. The Crusades were inspired by religious passion but were also deeply political: Pope Urban II let the knights of Christendom loose on the Muslim world to extend the power of the Church eastward, and create a papal monarchy that would control Christian Europe. The Inquisition was a deeply flawed attempt to secure the internal order of Spain after a divisive civil war. The Wars of Religion and the Thirty Years’ War may have been pervaded by the sectarian quarrels of the Reformation, but they were also the birth pangs of the modern nation-state. When we fight, we need to distance ourselves from the adversary, and because religion was so central to the state, its rites and myths depicted its enemies as monsters of evil that threatened cosmic and political order. During the Middle Ages, Christians denounced Jews as child-killers, Muslims as “an evil and despicable race,” and Cathars as a cancerous growth in the body of Christendom. Again, this hatred was certainly religiously motivated, but it was also a response to the social distress that accompanied early modernization. Christians made Jews the scapegoat for their excessive anxiety about the money economy, and popes blamed Cathars for their own inability to live up to the gospel. In the process they created imaginary enemies who were distorted mirror images of themselves. Yet casting off the mantle of religion did not bring an end to prejudice. A “scientific racism” developed in the modern period that drew on the old religious patterns of hatred and inspired the Armenian genocide and Hitler’s death camps. Secular nationalism, imposed so unceremoniously by the colonialists, would regularly merge with local religious traditions, where people had not yet abstracted “religion” from politics; as a result, these religious traditions were often distorted and developed an aggressive strain. The sectarian hatreds that develop within a faith tradition are often cited to prove that “religion” is chronically intolerant. These internal feuds have indeed been bitter and virulent, but they too have nearly always had a political dimension. Christian “ heretics” were persecuted for using the gospel to articulate their rejection of the systemic injustice and violence of the agrarian state. Even the abstruse debates about the nature of Christ in the Eastern Church were fueled by the political ambitions of the “tyrant-bi shops.” Heretics were often persecuted when the nation feared external attack. The xenophobic theology of the Deuteronomists developed when the Kingdom of Judah faced political annihilation.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Calvin compares himself in this controversy with David fighting against the Philistines. "If I should describe," he says in the Preface to his Commentary on the Psalms (1557),726 "the course of my struggles by which the Lord has exercised me from this period, it would make a long story, but a brief reference may suffice. It affords me no slight consolation that David preceded me in these conflicts. For as the Philistines and other foreign foes vexed this holy king by continual wars, and as the wickedness and treachery of the faithless of his own house grieved him still more, so was I on all sides assailed, and had scarcely a moment’s rest from outward or inward struggles. But when Satan had made so many efforts to destroy our Church, it came at length to this, that I, unwarlike and timid as I am,727 found myself compelled to oppose my own body to the murderous assault, and so to ward it off. Five years long had we to struggle without ceasing for the upholding of discipline; for these evil-doers were endowed with too great a degree of power to be easily overcome; and a portion of the people, perverted by their means, wished only for an unbridled freedom. To such worthless men, despisers of the holy law, the ruin of the Church was a matter of utter indifference, could they but obtain the liberty to do whatever they desired. Many were induced by necessity and hunger, some by ambition or by a shameful desire of gain, to attempt a general overthrow, and to risk their own ruin as well as ours, rather than be subject to the laws. Scarcely a single thing, I believe, was left unattempted by them during this long period which we might not suppose to have been prepared in the workshop of Satan. Their wretched designs could only be attended with a shameful disappointment. A melancholy drama was thus presented to me; for much as they deserved all possible punishment, I should have been rejoiced to see them passing their lives in peace and respectability: which might have been the case, had they not wholly rejected every kind of prudent admonition." At one time he almost despaired of success. He wrote to Farel, Dec. 14, 1547: "Affairs are in such a state of confusion that I despair of being able longer to retain the Church, at least by my own endeavors. May the Lord hear your incessant prayers in our behalf." And to Viret he wrote, on Dec. 17, 1547: "Wickedness has now reached such a pitch here that I hardly hope that the Church can be upheld much longer, at least by means of my ministry. Believe me, my power is broken, unless God stretch forth his hand."728

• From Bestiary (2020)

  Dayi was my first aunt, the eldest of my mother’s half-sisters. Ama’s letter said her first daughter was born to be dead, a ghost in future tense, so I was expecting to pick up a corpse. But when we picked her up at the airport, she was not made of ash. The first thing she said to us was that there’d been no geese. She’d read somewhere that flocks of geese flew into the airplane engines, got minced into pie-meat, and that’s how crashes happen. It was the first time she’d ever flown, and she wondered why the windows didn’t open. My mother said there were no geese migrating until winter. And I said there was no air up there, only sky, which was not made of air but water. If she opened the window, the plane would flood and everyone would drown. Just like you almost did, I almost said, but my tail told me it wasn’t time for a confrontation. In the car, my mother watched Dayi in the rearview mirror. They had rhyming faces: same crow-colored hair that revealed its blue when the light inflected it. Same eyes: sap-soft at room temperature. The left eye and the right eye were siblings, and you could only speak to them one at a time. My mother was lighter than all her sisters, slicking so much horse-oil on her skin that the sun slid right off her. Dayi was coming to live with us because of her frequent strokes: There was a bird in her brain that laid eggs of blood. My mother offered to take care of her in our house, even though everything my mother took care of went rabid. Her apples grew teeth instead of seeds, and our birch’s branches curved down into claws. We’ll take care of her, my mother said, and it sounded like a threat. There was a vengeance to the way my mother prepped the sofa, punching the pillow into shape, sealing the cracks between cushions with duct tape. When I was born, I stole a mother from her, she said. And it’s better to be born dead than with that kind of debt. My mother prepared for Dayi’s arrival like a pregnancy, locking away sharp or flammable things, compiling a list of English names for her to answer to. _ We brought Dayi to Costco. I told her it was the only place in the country where you could buy both your cradle and your casket. Your life span was the length of an aisle. Carts so big they looked like animal cages rattling across the concrete floor. I sat cross-legged in the cart and humped the bars until my mother told me to stop acting deranged. I said I was pretending to be a tiger in its cage.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  Jie says the hoses look like alien penises. While she laughs, I watch the stretchers, scuttling in and out of the building like beetles. I wait for Jie to tell me. To tell me Ma must be inside there. To say Ma is ash. Or she can’t be, she is in our old house stroking a picture of our three sisters, she is on her knees in the next room praying, she is in the kitchen scraping away the mold that is our fault, she is undressing Ba in the bath and oiling his back. The reporter on-scene speaks too fast to understand. We scan the screen for a body count, but there is only the day’s temperature in the left corner. Jie shuts off the TV and we watch the last ghost-strand of static wriggle in the center of the black screen, then flatline. Jie tells me to go to bed. She thumbs the broken seam in our sofa, tugs at the thread. Go to bed, she says. I ask if Ma is inside there. She says, Sleep. I ask if she’s sure it’s the right factory. I mean the wrong factory. Jie shuts off the light, and we sleep together on the sofa, her chest pressed so deep into my back I feel her heart punching my shoulder blades, harder than anything I’ve ever been hit with, louder than what we know how to say. Have you ever wished me dead? I forgive you for that, just as I want you to forgive me for what’s next. Ma comes home after six days, two days after the fire is put out. She hadn’t been at work. She hadn’t even left our block. She slept in the bathroom of the dollar store, locking it from the inside. All day she walked up and down the aisles, fingering pots of plastic putty and flipping the glazed pages of magazines, pretending she could read them. Finally, the employee told her to purchase or leave. Ma says yuanfen kept the fire caged from her, kept her corralled in the dollar store until the fire was done. When Jie and I first hear Ma knocking, we think it’s a debt collector and hide behind the couch. We know it isn’t the police: Ma has no ID that can confirm her identity. She has no face in this country, only a fire’s record of her body. Then we hear Ma calling our names, Ba’s. Her fist flying into the door like a dumb bird. We let her shout. We let her keep knocking with no one answering. It’s an entire minute before Jie climbs up from behind the couch, unlatches the door, presses her lips to our mother’s knees. It was easier to want her living when she was dead. We wanted one more day of missing her.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  Two months ago the church people got a toilet installed for us. When we first used it, we squatted on top with our feet on the seat. It was Jie who told us we were doing it wrong: Our asses were supposed to go inside the halo. Don’t laugh—there was a time you didn’t know how to do this either, when I told you that the toilet is an ear that the sea hears through, and even now I sometimes see you with your head inside the bowl, conversing with another country. _ A boy at the Old Colonial Diner teaches Jie how to make a metal detector out of a radio, a broomstick, cardboard, copper wire. I won’t tell you all the details, in case you try to build one yourself. In return for the lesson, Jie lets him finger her in the back of the diner. Jie washes dishes at the sink while he stands behind, three of his fingers spidering around inside her. His nails snag on her pubic hair and she hisses, twists the faucet hotter, scalds off her calluses. We use the metal detector in the yard behind the house to search for the gold. Jie holds the broomstick and I hold the radio. The copper wire wraps around both ends of the broomstick and the radio is taped to one end, the hair-clump of extra wire dragging on the ground like a tail. Jie switches the radio to AM and the morning news sounds like someone getting strangled, all static, a sound like the sea muffled inside our mouths. We discipline the dirt. Rake into rows and follow along. I warm the radio on my skin while it announces the weather: the sky cussing rain at us in the afternoon, more rain tomorrow morning. Jie skims the soil with the broomstick, sweeping its splintered end in half-circles, shushing me even though I’m not talking. When we’re near metal, the radio will whine with another voice, a song in gold’s frequency. I hear nothing until the static sours into something higher and raspier, almost Ma’s voice. Jie says, Dig here. We’re on a square of land where shadows don’t seem to survive. We dig with our bare hands, but we’re only a fist deep when we find an old lawnmower blade. The radio sings in three more spots, but the quicker we dig, the sooner we surrender to our suspicions: that the gold’s gone. In its place: five spent bullets, a dog whistle, a saw blade, some pennies, a bike chain, a whisk, a blank dog tag. The bullets glisten like dog eyes and my toes remember when they were shot, their ache outdated and residing in my spine.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  I helped Casey name the cycle. She was feeling anxious and wanted affirmation from Seth. The more she checked with him, the more uncertain she felt. While Seth would tell her what she wanted to hear, it was harder and harder for her to believe him. Why? Because she couldn’t prove that he loved her, and she couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t break up with her. It was a classic case of anxious attachment. Something had to give. I invited Casey and Seth to start responding differently. I encouraged Casey to refrain from asking these hot-air questions that she couldn’t get answers to. I invited Seth to a session with Casey and coached him on how to respond when Casey was seeking validation. Rather than telling her what she wanted to hear, he learned to instead respond with “Casey, you know how I feel about you. I’m not going to answer that question because we know it will actually reinforce your anxiety.” I shared with Casey that the validation she had been seeking was not going to satiate her in the relationship—it was chipping away at the relationship. Instead, she needed to see with time and through Seth’s actions that he did in fact love her. She had to practice trusting him. She also needed to accept a hard truth: they may break up someday—and that would be okay. “Always” and “never” are two words that can’t be promised in any relationship (even with marriage), as life is inevitably changing day by day. Even with the best of intentions, nothing is guaranteed. A hard pill to swallow, I know. Now, remember how I told you Casey had trouble expressing emotion? Yeah, after we had these sessions, not so much anymore. The volcano erupted. When I shared these recommended changes in behavior, she got mad. Red cheeks, big eyes, shaking hands—she was hot lava. I had just thrown her world upside down by not guaranteeing that this relationship would last forever. Casey jolted. “So, you’re telling me that I should stop asking my boyfriend if he loves me or not?” “Yep.” “And you’re telling me that he’s supposed to respond by saying that I already know how he feels, and he will let me know if he changes his mind?” “Yep.” I paused. “Do you believe that your boyfriend loves you?” “Well . . . yes.” “How do you know?” “He’s there for me. We have so much fun together. The sex is great. He’s my best friend, really.” “And do you trust that if he did want to end the relationship, he would do so in a respectful way?” “I think so.” I waited a beat. “And let’s be honest. Let’s say your worst fear came true and he did end the relationship. What would you do?” She admitted, “I would be really sad at first. Heartbroken, in fact. But I would also be okay.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  It certainly was for Luís when he said, “What do you mean that you can’t guarantee that I’m not going to hurt my father?!” I could see the anguish in his eyes. Sitting with the uncertainty of life can be enough to fully unnerve us if we let it. Having to hold that in-between space rather than receiving a full “yes” or “no” can bring us to a halt. But even if someone makes us a promise, nothing is ever guaranteed. I could make a false promise to Luís, but ultimately it would only be enabling his anxiety to perpetuate. He’d also be internalizing that he needed me to be the judge of his future. This would only disempower him further if he learned that others, and not he himself, determined the choices that he made. You can see how this plays out with OCD. Take for example how Luís was desperately afraid of getting sick. Now, was it possible that he could get listeriosis from a cantaloupe? Yes. In fact, 1,600 of us will get infected this year and 260 will die from it. 40 And yet when you consider that we have, at the time of this writing, 329.5 million people living in the United States, that means you have—get ready for it—a 0.00000486 percent chance of contracting this foodborne illness. Scary? Sure. Unlikely? Very. With OCD, we think the odds are stacked against us. We struggle to weigh the logical probabilities. The chance of something “bad” happening feels shattering. It’s that “maybe” that completely sidetracks us. It feels too hard to live in a world that doesn’t operate completely on all-or-nothing principles. This is often why we engage in checking behaviors with others. We want someone to tell us they won’t leave us. We need others to confirm that we didn’t hit that bicyclist. We need to search WebMD just one more time. It’s never-ending if we let our anxiety run amok in this way. Friend, these are false assurances. You’re only feeding the anxiety beast more when you’re checking, avoiding, or seeking enabling from others. I know it’s hard to sit with the uncertainty. It may be that “I don’t know” is actually the best response we can hear and tell ourselves. Why? As much as it may hurt to admit, who the hell does actually know? Accepting that we don’t have all the answers—and that we don’t need to have all the answers—can bring us out of the mental hellhole that we all get trapped in. This was a fundamental lesson that Luís was learning in our work together. Sometimes he would still buy into his obsessions of harming his dad, though. This is where I gave him some tough love. “Luís, I want you to do two things moving forward. First, I want you to begin trusting yourself more. You are a capable man, and you are in control of your behaviors.

• From Generation Anxiety: A Millennial and Gen Z Guide to Staying Afloat in an Uncertain World (2023)

  The key point no matter what: you need to model what it looks like to have self-respect. I realize how entirely anxiety-provoking this all is. It can feel like you lose either way. Even if they say they want to change, you may worry that it won’t last. When they don’t care to make a different choice, you worry that you’ll never be able to convince them otherwise. No matter how hard you pull the rope in this tug-of-war, it’s not your battle to win. You can’t save anyone. We have to learn how to let go. No amount of worrying is going to resolve the situation. Resources can help. Conversations can motivate. But ultimately, each person decides for themselves if they want to make and sustain a change. PROTECTING YOUR OWN SURFBOARD When you’re watching someone actively hurt themselves or derail their lives, it is really hard to sit with. This is where you’ve got to love yourself a little (or a lot) harder. When you’re so worried about someone else, there’s little time to consider how you’re doing. Being a caretaker (or a constant fretter) is a full-time job if you allow it to be. I’ve seen so many people develop anxiety disorders and come down with depressive episodes because they’re so immersed in someone else’s pain. You need to look after yourself. It’s painful enough to see one person suffer—you don’t need to get so far pulled down that your life completely unravels as well. Some of us think we don’t truly love someone if we don’t get sucked into their chaos. That’s called enmeshment, friend. Codependency, even. When you do not allow yourself to thrive because someone else isn’t, it doesn’t make the situation better. It stagnates it. Like with Jessie, when she was forgoing her own well-being, it didn’t make Tony’s situation any better. It was only making her situation worse. It’s a trope that you may have heard by now but it’s worth reiterating: you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help someone else. I hope this is a wake-up call to take care of yourself.