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)

  I’m starting to worry. Is there something wrong with her? She’s oddly tame. Where is the lunatic I’d expected? For two days I’ve sat with her and not once, contra White, have I longed to dismember her and batter her to death. I’d expected a barrelling tornado of terror and wildness, some great and awful struggle of souls, but instead, as the light deepens and the late swifts outside ascend on flickering wings to bury themselves in the sky, I sit on a sofa watching a tired hawk go to sleep. The leading edges of her wings drop and rest against the glove. One downy grey eyelid slides up to cover an eye, then the other. Her shoulders fall; her head wobbles. The tip of her glossy black beak sinks into the feathers over her crop. Watching her doze in this vesper hour my eyes close too, but when sleep comes I am standing in the skeleton of a burned-out house, in white, blank air that glitters faintly with mica or frost. Around me are blackened joists and rafters. I put out a hand. Touch a piece of charred wood. Cold, furred, wrong. Rising panic. Refusal. A sense of absolute dismay. Then of toppling, the house collapsing into itself and on top of me. And we wake together, the hawk and I, her with a start of apprehension, a tightening of feet and feathers, and me with a slow, sickening disorientation that makes me fasten desperately onto the sight of the hawk to drag me back into a world with no ash in it. The same thoughts over and over. Why is she sleeping so much? Hawks sleep when they’re sick. She must be sick. Why am I sleeping? Am I sick too? What is wrong with her? What is wrong with us? Nothing was wrong with the hawk. She wasn’t sick. She was a baby. She fell asleep because that’s what babies do. I wasn’t sick either. But I was orphaned and desperately suggestible, and I didn’t know what was happening to me. For years I’d scoffed at White’s notion of hawk-training as a rite of passage. Overblown, I’d thought. Loopy. Because it wasn’t like that. I knew it wasn’t. I’d flown scores of hawks, and every step of their training was familiar to me. But while the steps were familiar, the person taking them was not. I was in ruins. Some deep part of me was trying to rebuild itself, and its model was right there on my fist. The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life. I was turning into a hawk.

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

  Who does Jesus say that I am?” I could see it. She felt desperate. She felt alone. Her mind had been running wild for some time, and she couldn’t make it stop. She needed me to reach in, help grab the reins, and slow it down. I was so struck by this amazing young woman in front of me that I kind of reverted to seeing her as my little girl, now all grown up, instead of as a fierce woman about to change the world. “You are smart!” I said. “You are passionate. And generous and creative and cute—” “Mom,” Kate interrupted. “I don’t want to know what you say about me. I want to know what Jesus says.” Oh yeah. Right. Of course. Because everything else is like chasing the wind, Ecclesiastes says. 7 Our minds spin and spin, often grabbing hold of lies in the search for stability. Messages get mixed, and it feels as if we can’t quite put our feet back down on the simple truths of what it means to love Jesus, what it means to be loved by Jesus. If, like Kate, you need to be reminded of who Jesus says you are, may I put my hands on the sides of your face and tell you again what He says about Himself and about you? I AM WHO I AM. Exodus 3:14 I am the beginning and the end. I am the first, and I am the last. Revelation 22:13 I am light; in me there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. Isaiah 48:13 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Jeremiah 1:5 I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. John 15:16 I am he who blots out your transgressions. I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25 To all who receive Me, who believe in My name, I give the right to become children of God. John 1:12 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16 My Spirit is within you. Ezekiel 36:27 I will not leave you. Deuteronomy 31:8 I will equip you for every good work I’ve planned. Hebrews 13:21 I gave you a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7 I will build my church through you, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. Matthew 16:18

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  But later these misapplied instincts stop being funny. At just past six o’clock a small, unhappy wail came from a pram outside the window. Straight away the hawk drove her talons into my glove, ratcheting up the pressure in savage, stabbing spasms. Kill. The baby cries. Kill kill kill. Two days pass. I sit and walk, and sit and sleep, the hawk almost constantly on my fist. My arm aches and a damp tiredness grips my heart. A farming programme on the radio. Wheat, borage, rapeseed. Polytunnels and cherries. The hawk is alternately a hunchback toad, a nervous child or a dragon. The house is a tip. Scraps of raw meat decorate the bin. I’ve run out of coffee. I have forgotten how to speak. My mouth makes small, mumbled assurances to the hawk that all is well. She meets them with silence, with thready, nervous cheeps through her nose. As I walk she follows my feet with her eyes as if they were two small animals moving about the house with us. She is interested in flies, in specks of floating dust, in the way light falls on certain surfaces. What is she looking at? What is she thinking? I hear the click of the nictitating membrane that crosses her eyes as she blinks, and now I see them closely her eyes begin to disturb me. They look like discs of pale paper stuck to the side of her head, each with a hole-punched black pupil housed under a transparent dome like a bubble of water. The hawk is stranger than I’d thought. And calmer than I’d believed possible. I’m starting to worry. Is there something wrong with her? She’s oddly tame. Where is the lunatic I’d expected? For two days I’ve sat with her and not once, contra White, have I longed to dismember her and batter her to death. I’d expected a barrelling tornado of terror and wildness, some great and awful struggle of souls, but instead, as the light deepens and the late swifts outside ascend on flickering wings to bury themselves in the sky, I sit on a sofa watching a tired hawk go to sleep. The leading edges of her wings drop and rest against the glove. One downy grey eyelid slides up to cover an eye, then the other. Her shoulders fall; her head wobbles. The tip of her glossy black beak sinks into the feathers over her crop. Watching her doze in this vesper hour my eyes close too, but when sleep comes I am standing in the skeleton of a burned-out house, in white, blank air that glitters faintly with mica or frost. Around me are blackened joists and rafters. I put out a hand. Touch a piece of charred wood. Cold, furred, wrong. Rising panic. Refusal.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  White rushed to the scene, took his hunting knife and pinned the rabbit’s skull to the ground. Desires that had never flowered in his courting of the nurse were unleashed in a wave of darkness. ‘Think of Lust,’ he wrote, of killing the rabbit. ‘Real blood-lust is like that.’ 22 Apple Day Oh God. What am I doing here? I’m sitting on a white plastic picnic chair under the shade of a marquee roof. Ten feet behind me Mabel resembles a shadow cast on water; her wings are crossed as tight as swords and her eyes bloom huge with horror. I know how she feels. Too many people, I think, fidgeting on my seat. Too many people. ‘So, Helen,’ Stuart had said. ‘The landowner’s asked us to bring some hawks along for Apple Day at the farm.’ ‘Apple Day?’ Stuart told me that it was a tiny country fair, a celebration of rural history, farming and local food. ‘We’re not flying, just weathering the hawks in a marquee so members of the public can see them. I’ll take my tiercel. Greg’s bringing his barbary. Alan’s coming up with some eagles. Can you bring Mabel?’ ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘No problem.’ I could do this. I’d worked in a falconry centre, for God’s sake. All I did for months was show people hawks. But as the day drew closer I started to fret. How will Mabel cope? Two months ago she was a bomb-proof, crowd-proof goshawk. But goshawks aren’t like other hawks: they need constant carriage to stay tame. Now we’re living in the empty suburbs we’ve not seen people for weeks. She’s forgotten how not to be scared of people. And so have I. My teeth are clenched so tight in the face of the crowds I feel pain blossoming up my jaw. After twenty minutes Mabel raises one foot. It looks ridiculous. She is not relaxed enough to fluff out her feathers; she still resembles a wet and particoloured seal. But she makes this small concession to calmness, and she stands there like a man driving with one hand resting on the gearstick. She looks pathetically small next to the birds beside her. To her left is a golden eagle, a hulking great thing with chest-feathers like armoured scales and taloned feet the size of human hands. To her right is a male martial eagle, an antelope-killing black and white monster with piercing white eyes. It is enormous, bigger than most of the dogs walking past the mesh fence in front of the marquee, and it watches them go by with its black chrysanthemum-petalled crest raised in idle speculation of murder. Stuart has brought his tiercel peregrine. Greg has brought his barbary falcon, a tiny jewelled dusty-blue and copper falcon with thin golden toes. While it preens he sits cross-legged, chatting with members of the public, his red cashmere jumper holed wildly at the elbow.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  My throat hurt. My eyes hurt too, and my heart. I cut the end of the other jess. Shaking fingers. Then I placed the two jesses side by side on the glass tabletop. They matched. Tomorrow , I thought, I’m meeting a man I don’t know off the Belfast ferry and I’m going to hand him this envelope full of paper in exchange for a box containing a goshawk . It seemed the unlikeliest thing imaginable. The goshawk I was about to collect had been bred in an aviary near Belfast. Breeding goshawks isn’t for the faint-hearted. I’ve had friends who’ve tried it and shaken their heads after only one season, scratching their newly greyed hair in a sort of post- traumatic stupor . ‘Never again’ , they say . ‘Ever . Most stressful thing I’ve ever done.’ Try it, and you discover there’s a very fine line between goshawk sexual excitement and terrible, mortal violence. You have to watch your hawks constantly, monitor their behaviour , ready yourself for intervention . It’s no good just putting a couple of goshawks in an aviary and leaving them to it. More often than not the female will kill her mate. So instead you house them in separate but adjoining solid-walled aviaries, with a barred hatch between the two through which the pair can see each other . As winter turns to spring they conduct their courtship, like Pyramus and Thisbe, through the gap in the wall, calling, displaying, dropping their powder-blue wings and fluffing their white undertail coverts that look for all the world like a pair of capacious marabou bloomers, and only when the female seems ready – a piece of fine judgement that does not admit error – do you let the male into the breeding chamber . If all goes well , they mate , lay eggs , and a new generation of home-bred goshawks, downy white chicks with bleary eyes and tiny talons, enters the world. I’d never met the breeder of my new hawk, but I knew already he was a man of steel nerves and superhuman patience. White’s hawk was taken from the wild. No one bred goshawks in captivity in the 1930s: there was no need to try. There were a hundred thousand wild gosses out there in European forests, and no import restrictions to speak of. Like nearly all falconers’ goshawks back then, White’s had come from a nest in Germany. ‘A bundle of precipitous sticks and some white droppings’ was how he imagined his hawk’s birthplace: he’d never seen a goshawk nest. But you can see one, and there’s no need to strike out into the forest to do so. There’s live feed of goshawk nests, now, on the internet. One click, and you’re given an up-close and personal view of the family life of this most secretive of hawks. There, in a four-inch box in low-resolution glitter , is a square of English woodland.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  I shout at her. She does not know the noise is directed at her, but I hate myself for shouting, and that guilt sits on top of the other guilts and all those sit on top of the knowledge that the accident that caused this must have been terrible indeed. The air in the car turns solid as glass. I take deep breaths and stare out of the window. It is a beautiful evening. This makes things worse. I watch starlings coast over the shopping centre, watch the sun, sinking, sinking, and the smooth air furring at its edges into the shade of a woodpigeon’s breast, all delicate greys and torpid pinks. I turn on the traffic news. Turn it off. Mabel bates again, disturbed by the unaccustomed stops and starts and engine silence. Every bate ratchets up my stress another notch. I call Stuart on my phone. He’s waiting for us. I fume. The car inches. I look down and notice I’m nearly out of petrol, which adds a whole, delightful other dimension to the ticking minutes. By the time we get to the hill I’m practically catatonic. There, at the top of the hill, is Stuart’s Land Rover. We walk up the track. It’s getting dark. Mabel looks ragingly keen to fly for the three minutes it takes to walk up there, and I start to relax. But she takes one look at the nylon kite that Stuart has been using to help train his falcon to climb high into the sky – takes one look at this triangular splash of fluttering primary colours, looks me in the face, and then bates. Bate. Bate. Bate. Stuart persuades me not to go home. ‘We’ll find something for her to fly at,’ he says. ‘She’ll settle down.’ She does, a bit. So do I. I try to unkink my knotted shoulders and take deep gulps of cooling air. I am stressed. I don’t normally fly hawks free like this. Normally I’d call her to the fist on the creance as usual, then untie the creance and fly her once or twice without it. Only later would I try flying her at quarry. But I defer to Stuart’s knowledge: he knows about goshawks and he’s done this many times before. Time passes. It’s now getting on for a thick, gloamy evening. Smoke is everywhere on the horizon. A yellow crescent moon tilts, out of focus, up there in something that looks like a plate of agar. Swimmy dusk. Bats flit. Trees gather darkness to themselves. Mabel’s swivel and leash are in my pocket, I have swapped her jesses for thin flying jesses that will not catch on twigs or branches, and I grip them tightly between my gloved fingers. I have walked, under Stuart’s instructions, to a triangle of rough ground just one side of a copse of trees. It is a thick patch of thistles and dry seedheads, and we trudge through it.

• From H Is for Hawk (2014)

  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’.

• From The History of Christian Theology (2008)

  164 Glossary evangelicalism: In English speaking countries, this term refers broadly to low-church movements beginning in the 18 th century with an emphasis on conversion and revival (for example, Methodism and various branches of Calvinism and Anglicanism), and more narrowly to the movement beginning in the 1950s, led by ¿ gures like Billy Graham in the United States and John Stott in England, in which Christians who have previously called themselves “Fundamentalist” turned to engage modern culture rather than separate from it. Note, in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, “evangelical” or evangelische simply means Protestant. ex cathedra: (See cathedra.) excommunication: A church’s act of refusing communion to a person, which means not allowing him or her to share in the church’s celebration of the Eucharist. Existentialism: A 20 th century movement in philosophy and theology which makes use of a concept of human existence derived from Kierkegaard, for whom existence is a task, a concern that inevitably involves guilt, anxiety, and despair, which can only be honestly faced by the free decision of faith. Extreme Unction: Derived from a Latin phrase which is more literally translated, “¿ nal anointing,” it is the sacrament now called “Anointing of the Sick,” which in the Middle Ages was performed only for those thought to be dying. extrinsicism: A criticism often leveled against neo-Thomism that it separated the supernatural order from the natural order so sharply that it made the life of grace extrinsic and irrelevant to normal human life and experience. federal theology: From the Latin word foedus, meaning “covenant,” another term for covenant theology. (It has nothing to do with the United States federal government.)

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

  It is unlikely that Ashoka’s dhamma was Buddhist. This was a broader ethic, an attempt to find a benevolent model of governance based on the recognition of human dignity, a sentiment shared by many contemporary Indian schools. In Ashoka’s inscriptions, we hear the perennial voice of those repelled by killing and cruelty who have, throughout history, tried to resist the call to violence. But even though he preached “abstention from killing living beings,”102 he had tacitly to acknowledge that, as emperor and for the sake of the region’s stability, he could not renounce force; nor in these times could he abolish capital punishment or legislate against the killing and eating of animals (although he listed species that should be protected). Moreover, despite his distress about the plight of the Kalingans who had been deported after the battle, there was no question of repatriating them since they were essential to the imperial economy. And as head of state, he could certainly not abjure warfare or disband his army. He realized that even if he abdicated and became a Buddhist monk, others would fight to succeed him and unleash more havoc, and as always, the peasants and the poor would suffer most. Ashoka’s dilemma is the dilemma of civilization itself. As society developed and weaponry became more deadly, the empire, founded on and maintained by violence, would paradoxically become the most effective means of keeping the peace. Despite its violence and exploitation, people looked for an absolute imperial monarchy as eagerly as we search for signs of a flourishing democracy today. [image file=image_rsrcDZA.jpg] Ashoka’s dilemma may lie behind the story of the Mahabharata, India’s great epic. This massive work—eight times the length of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey combined—is an anthology of many strands of tradition transmitted orally from about 300 BCE but not committed to writing until the early Common Era. The Mahabharata is more than a narrative poem, however. It remains the Indian national saga and is the most popular of all India’s sacred texts, familiar in every home. It contains the Bhagavad-Gita, which has been called India’s “national gospel.”103 In the twentieth century, during the buildup to independence, the Gita would play a central role in the discussions about the legitimacy of waging war against Britain.104 Its influence in forming attitudes toward violence and its relation to religion has therefore been unparalleled in India. Long after Ashoka was forgotten, it compelled people of all ranks to grapple with his dilemma, which thus became central to the collective memory of India.

• From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB) (1907)

  TEC: "2C: Aram. jong, 3, pr 0 גר‎ proselytize, Ph. 3 in n.pr., & “1 ִּ--(נרם.‎ Gn 15°+74t. sf. Ja Ex20"+ 4t., a Dt 1"; pl. גָּרִים‎ Ex22” + 9%., גִּירִים‎ 2Ch2";—1. sojourner, temporary dweller, new-comer (no inherited rights), 61. Ex ד‎ 2% Lv 24 Nur5” Jos8* (opp. homeborn); of Abraham at Hebron Gn 23° (P; || (תושב‎ ; Moses in desert Ex 2”(J) 183 (E; here explan. of name Gershom, Moses’ son); as claiming hospitality Jb 31°; perh. in above cases, and certainly in general, with technical sense; fig. of Yahweh Je 14%; of Israel in Egypt Gn 15% Ex 22” 23° (all JE) Lv 19* (H) Dt ro” 23°; O73 with Yahweh Lv 25% (H) 1 Ch 29” 39% (in all || (תושב‎ cf. 119". 4. usually of O°) in Israel 2 ₪ 1° (Amalekite) cf. Jos 8%%* (E) 20° (P) Is 14'; dwellers in Israel with certain conceded, not inherited rights (cf. RS OTIC 434 ; 2nd ed. 342. .ה‎ ; K42; Sem 75 f. Sta Geseh. 1-400) The 13 is to share in Sabbath rest Ex 20” 23” (both JE) Dt5"; otherwise he is to have like obligations with Israel Ex J 2 19-48-49 Ly 16” (all 0 Lv 7 eee any 1826 20° 2238 24h 22 (all H) Nu (Ne 0 19” 35” (all P) Ez14’; similar rights Dt 1 Ez 47°; and like privileges Dt 16" 26" 29” 31” cf. 2 Ch 30”; very rarely any distinction made, in obligation Lv 2677797 (H), in per- missible food Dt 14”; in future success Dt הר‎ kindness to 13 frequently enjoined: Lv 19” || ,ענ‎ 237° (|| 2d.) 1o™ (all) Diiro®? 14° ל‎ ae Or a | ְאַלְמְנָה‎ Bin) : ו‎ prohibited Ly 19” 0 Dt 52 Ex22” 26°? (JE) Dt 24” 27” Je7® 22° Ze 70 (these eight || MIPS) DIN) ; obj. of care to 7 y 146° ((|d.); charge that 73 has been oppressed Ez 22’ 1 3° (both |lid.); also Ez 22” (|| P2812), + 94°; 66. also command that a poor brother be 158 “a "treated like 73, i.e. kindly, Lv25*(H). Latest conception somewhat different: גר‎ 1Ch22? 2Ch 2% (הגירים)‎ gathered for hard service; yet cf. 2 Ch 30”. (Oft. c. verb. cogn. Ext 29 Ly 16” I ל‎ 1875 19” 20" Nu ou ב‎ Ton Jos 20° Ez 47”; oft. || תושב‎ Gn23* Ly 25 2385.47 1Ch29”’y 39% 1 גּרוּת‎ n.f. וישבו בַּנְרוּת-- (1806ק-)₪ם881ס1‎ and אשר אצל בית‎ DM Je 41”, inm, khan? so Ew Gf; Hi al. nin folds, after Joseph. Aq. trax n.pr.loc..a southern city of Judah, toward Edom Jos 157). t [מגור]‎ n.[m.] sojourning-place, dwell- ing-place, sojourning—sf. DV 55"; ik estr, ל מְנוּרִי‎ sf." Gn 47" ID דש‎ 0 ak PRP Gn 17° 284, 39 Jb 18%, pan Gn 367 +2t., DOD Ex 6!;—dwelling- place + 55" Jbi ג‎ always pl., 2 718 Gn 17° 28* 367 37' Ex 6* (Hex always P) Ez 20%; sojourning (pl.)=life-time, מ"‎ "2% Gn 47°72" Gn 47%; of. DMB ש‎ 119%,

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I’m the girl who flirted with you once eighteen months ago? I’m the girl who asked you to supper, then left you standing, without a word, on Judd Street?‘I’m a friend of Miss Derby’s,’ I said at last.Florence blinked. ‘Miss Derby?’ she said. ‘Miss Derby, from the Ponsonby Trust?’I nodded. ‘Yes. I - I met you once, a long time ago. I was passing through Bethnal Green, on a visit, and thought I might call. I brought you some watercresses ...’ We turned our heads and gazed at them. They had been placed on a table near the door and looked very sad, for I had fallen upon them when I swooned. The leaves were crushed and blackened, the stems broken, the paper damp and green.Florence said, ‘That was kind of you.’ I smiled a little nervously. For a second there was a silence - then the baby gave a kick and a yell, and she bent to pick it up and hold it against her breast, saying as she did so: ‘Shall Mama take you? There, now.’ Then the man reappeared, bearing a cup of tea and a plate of bread and butter which he set, with a smile, on the arm of my chair. Florence placed her chin upon the baby’s head. ‘Ralph,’ she said, ‘this lady is a friend of Miss Derby’s - do you remember, Miss Derby that I used to work for?’‘Good heavens,’ said the man - Ralph. He was still in his shirt-sleeves; now he picked up his jacket from the back of a chair and put it on. I busied myself with my cup and plate. The tea was very hot and sweet: the best tea, I thought, that I had ever tasted. The baby gave another cry, and Florence began to sway and jiggle, and to smooth the child’s head, distractedly, with her cheek. Soon the cry became a gurgle, and then a sigh; and hearing it, I sighed too - but turned it into a breath for cooling my tea with, in case they thought I was about to start up weeping again.There was another silence; then, ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name,’ said Florence. To Ralph she explained: ‘It seems we met once.’I cleared my throat. ‘Miss Astley,’ I said. ‘Miss Nancy Astley.’ Florence nodded; Ralph held out his hand for mine, and shook it warmly.‘I’m very glad to meet you, Miss Astley,’ he said.

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

  You know the feeling—when you can barely keep your eyes open, and it physically hurts to be awake. It’s no walk in the park. And yet, it’s survivable. If we can remember that the pain is temporary and that we can endure discomfort, the insomnia doesn’t have to be so threatening. Remind yourself of all the times when you’ve been able to get through tough days, even on little sleep. It’s not ideal, but it’s doable. And worst case, if you need to call out with a sick day or cancel a meeting to take a nap—do it! If there’s an opportunity to alleviate some pain if you’re suffering, don’t be a martyr to the cause. Take a break. The point is that the pain of exhaustion does not need to be feared—remind yourself of your resilience. And remember—when you are intentional about lying down and resting (even if you’re not actually asleep), that does the body good! This is restorative in itself. If you mentally beat yourself up for not being a good enough sleeper, here are just a few examples of some reframes I used with Suma when she was struggling with insomnia at first: INITIAL THOUGHT WHEN FRUSTRATED WITH INSOMNIA: REFRAMED THOUGHT: “I’m so upset that I can’t sleep! What’s wrong with me?!” “I’m noticing that I can’t sleep right now. It might not be pleasant but it’s okay to be awake right now.” “I’m going to feel miserable tomorrow. I’m going to flunk my test because of this.” “I may not feel great tomorrow but it’s just one day. I’ve gotten through hard days feeling tired before and I’ve still performed well. Plus, I can take a nap after my test if I need it.” “This is such a waste of time to lie here. This is doing nothing for me, being wide awake.” “Even if I’m not asleep, my body is still getting rest by lying here right now.” If you’re like Suma and your anxiety can get the best of your sleeping habits, here are some sleep hygiene tips.

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

  Now we are about to go to battle against the unfettered thoughts that define us. Once the thought has been interrupted, we enter neutral ground. We then get to decide whether we are going to choose life and peace, the mind of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit—or sin and death, the mind of the flesh. In each of the next seven chapters, we are going to retrain our minds to think about truth. As we go to war with each toxic, twisted thought, we will begin to see the fruit and freedom of believing truth, walking moment by moment in our identity as children of God. The spiraling, chaotic thoughts that have so long kept us trapped will give way to the peace and beauty and abundant life Jesus died to give us. [image file=Image00030.jpg] 8 Holding Space for Silence I Choose to Be Still with God A friend reached out to me not long ago. She was spinning so fast emotionally that you could see it affecting her physically. I placed my hands on the outsides of her arms, as if to hold her up—or hold her still—as she spoke. Her marriage was in knots. One of her kids was acting out. Her pace of life was making her crazy. A misunderstanding had caused a rift between her and a dear friend. I listened to her describe these struggles, and I knew I did not hold the power to stop her spinning in that moment. While there were a dozen or more practical problems to untangle, before any of that she needed the only thing that could bring peace. “I love you,” I said as I looked into her eyes, “but you need Jesus right now.” Yes, there would be time for us to connect. Yes, I would help in any way I could. Yes, my friend would need the support of her people as she navigated the path ahead. But now, first, while the rotations were coming fast and furious, she needed to be alone with God. She needed what only Jesus gives. I said, “Right now I am going to leave you, and you spend thirty minutes alone with God.” She said she would. In the stillness and quiet, not only do we connect with God but we are also able to more clearly identify what is wrong. Recognizing our spirals and naming them is the first step in interrupting them. She had been spinning and desperate and dying for answers, yet when I checked in twenty-four hours later, the only thing she had to report to me were the twenty reasons that time alone with God just hadn’t happened.

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

  Before I talk myself out of it, though, and bargain for another month to postpone my plans, I come back to my own empowered acceptance. I know what I value. I want to build a family—especially with Greg. I know he’ll make the most incredible dad and I can hardly wait to see that happen. If I continued to delay, I would be forgoing a long-standing love for something that I know matters immensely to me—all for the temporary alleviation of a potentially inconvenient schedule. Not everything in life is about seeking comfort or the avoidance of unease. I come back to it over and over again: it’s about values induction, not pain reduction. I don’t have to buy into the narrative that women can’t have incredible careers and be parents at the same time. Both can coexist. If I allowed myself to indulge, there would always be an excuse for why “now” isn’t a good time. That’s anxiety, people-pleasing, and perfectionism talking. I know what I want, and I remember deeply in my bones: somehow, in some way, it will all be okay. It will be worth it, one way or another. Anxiety will be along for the ride, but I’m the one calling this shot about becoming a mom. I get how scary it feels to enter the unknown. It’s safer to sit on the shores of our lives and tell ourselves, “Maybe someday.” We’ll get a new job next year. We’ll move eventually. But what I’m learning is that there is never a good time. The timing will never be perfect. You just have to go for it and live in the goop of unpredictability. It’s a tall order if you’re someone who has lived with anxiety, like I and so many of my clients have. But it’s an order that you’re ready to fill. If you don’t trust yourself yet, I hope you’ll trust me when I tell you that you can do it. I should know—I’ve seen client after client pursue their values before they were ready or when it was incredibly uncomfortable. I’ve never had any of them express regret for making the brave choice. As you step forward, I want you to know that you are more than your anxiety. It does not have to define your life. You are not an “anxious person.” You are a person who feels anxiety. It is not your identity. Your anxiety doesn’t need to stop you from embracing your life fully. Ask yourself what you would do with yourself if fear weren’t a part of the equation. Now do that. Anxiety does not need to be the excuse anymore. No matter what your anxiety makes you want to do, whether it’s to flee or freeze or postpone, challenge yourself to have an opposite response.

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

  It’s at this point when we feel the strongest pull to avoid the exposure, or to engage in a compulsive behavior to alleviate our distress. This is often done innocuously. We continue with these behaviors because they momentarily relieve anxiety. The problem is that every time we do this dance of avoidance, checking, or any other compulsive behavior, the wave of our anxiety gets bigger and bigger until we feel like it’s impossible to ride out the wave. Before long, we want to get out of the water entirely. We want to stay home, bail on our friends, and keep ourselves safe by eliminating as many triggers as possible. Before we know it, we’re struggling with agoraphobia, where we can’t leave our homes and our friends have given up on inviting us to hang out. Thankfully, there’s a way out. ERP therapy operates on the idea of habituation. Here’s how it works: while the wave of your anxiety spikes when you first face a fear, anxiety levels ultimately go down when you tackle that fear over and over again. With each exposure we see that the wave’s peak gets smaller. We begin to get desensitized to the threat. This works on a behavioral level. When we witness for ourselves that we can survive our anticipatory anxiety and our feared situations, the brain starts to believe that we just might be able to manage it. This is why it’s so important that we show ourselves we can sit with the discomfort of our distress. It reminds us that we’re often far more resilient than we realize. I’ve done this work myself and I get what a delicate dance this is. That’s why I highly recommend working with a provider who specializes in ERP to guide you through this process. I’ve seen how ERP can be life-changing and I’ve also seen how it can be traumatizing when it’s not done well. After grappling for years with emetophobia, I decided to give ERP a try. Even though I knew it would be uncomfortable, I was sick (pun intended) of ruminating about getting food poisoning after meals, scanning the streets for vomit whenever we walked outside, and avoiding places such as bars because I could possibly see someone get sick. The biggest way that it was impacting me was that it was completely impeding my decision to think clearly about getting pregnant someday. Now, I completely empathize if you’re hesitant to start this kind of therapy—I know I was: “You mean I have to actively face my biggest fear? Yeah, I don’t think so.” But my distress was too great. You know if you’ve been there before (or if you’re there right now) that you can reach a point where you’re willing to get uncomfortable if it means relief could be on the other side. That’s where I was when I decided to start ERP. I worked with my own therapist to create my anxiety hierarchy.

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

  5. You often have visions or nightmares about the worst-case scenario happening to your loved ones. 6. Even though you may need alone time, you push yourself to be with others because you feel a pressure that this could be your last chance to have quality time together. 7. You feel like you will never be okay again once your loved one passes away or if they were to leave you. 8. You have trouble leaving your home or another place where your loved one lives. You’d rather be with them than go somewhere new by yourself or to meet new people. 9. You often have somatic symptoms (headaches, nausea, panic symptoms) when a goodbye is coming up or happening. 10. Every time the phone rings you worry that something bad has happened. If a lot of this is hitting home for you, you’re not alone. I would argue that our generation has seen an uptick in separation anxiety. Why? Because we have so much unpredictability in our lives. Things have changed—drastically. No one and nowhere feels safe. Many of us now refuse to go to movie theaters, shopping malls, or concerts because we’re so afraid of what might happen. The grim reality is that we never know when our loved ones could be ripped from us. Even though our world is considered safer than it was even in the 1990s (which as a true Millennial I consider the golden era of Spice Girls and Disney Channel original movies), we don’t trust our security in this world. 192 In fact, while half of all Americans report that they feel unsafe at some point every single day, more than 75 percent of younger Americans between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-four note that they feel nervous about their safety on a daily basis. That means that only 25 percent of young adults feel safe as they move about their lives. Fifty percent of us won’t use a rideshare service because we feel it’s dangerous. We don’t trust others and we don’t even feel safe in our own homes. Forty-two percent of us, when home alone, feel unprotected— myself included. 193 I would argue that September 11 was a significant event that shaped our sense of security in the world for Millennials and Generation Z, just as the COVID-19 crisis will likely shape Generation Alpha. On a fateful fall day, what began as a seemingly normal Tuesday morning turned into one of the most epic tragedies of our time. We witnessed a massive amount of death and destruction on our television screens while we ate our Cheerios. It changed everything. All of a sudden, nowhere felt safe anymore.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I asked. ‘Past Sam Collins’s, on Upper Street. Not so far as the post office. A little doorway on the left-hand side, somewhere between a public-house and a tailor’s ...’ This was all he could recall; I thought it might be enough. I thanked him, and he smiled. ‘What a lovely black eye,’ he said again, but to his daughter this time. ‘Just like the song - ain’t it, Betty?’ By now I felt as if I had been on my feet for a month. I suspected that my boots had worn their way right through my stockings, and had started on the bare flesh of my toes and heels and ankles. But I did not stop at another bench, and untie my laces, in order to find out. The wind had picked up a little and, though it was only two o’clock or so, the sky was grey as lead. I wasn’t sure what time the charity offices might close; I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find them; I didn’t know if Florence would even be there, when I did. So I walked rather quickly up Pentonville Hill, and let my feet be rubbed to puddings, and tried to plan what I would say to her when I found her. This, however, proved difficult. After all, she was a girl I hardly knew; worse - I could not help but recall this, now - I had once arranged to meet her, then let her down. Would she, even, remember me at all? In that gloomy Green Street passageway I had been certain that she would. But with every burning step, I grew less sure of it. It did not, as it turned out, take me very long to find the right office. The man’s memory was a good one, and Upper Street itself seemed wonderfully unchanged since his last visit there: the public-house and the tailor’s were quite as he had described them, close together on the left-hand side of the street, just past the music hall. In between them were three or four doors, leading to the rooms and offices above; and upon one of these was screwed a little enamel plaque, which said: Ponsonby’s Model Dwelling Houses. Directress Miss J. A. D. Derby - I remembered this very well now as the name of the lady with the mandolin. Beneath the plaque was a hand-written, rain-spattered note with an arrow pointing to a bell-pull at the side of the door. Please Ring, it said, and Enter. So, with some trepidation, I did both. The passageway behind the door was very long and very gloomy. It led to a window, which looked out at a view of bricks and oozing drain-pipes; and from here there was only one way to proceed, and that was upwards, via a set of naked stairs.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  He shook his head.‘Not even with that. Haven’t you worked, these past six months - harder than Kitty, almost? You know the act as well as she; you know her songs, her bits of business - why, you taught them to her, most of them!’‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘This is all so new, and strange. All my life I’ve loved the music hall, but I never thought of getting up upon the stage, myself...’‘Didn’t you?’ he said then. ‘Didn’t you, really?’ Every time you saw some little serio-comic captivate the crowd, at that Palace of yours, in Canterbury, didn’t you wish that it was you? Didn’t you close your eyes and see your name upon the programmes, your number in the box? Didn’t you sing to your - oyster-barrel - as if it were a crowded hall, and you could make those little fishes weep, or shriek with laughter?’I bit my nail, and frowned. ‘Dreams,’ I said.He snapped his fingers. ‘The very stuff that stages are made of.’‘Where would we start?’ I said then. ‘Who would offer us a spot?’‘The manager here would. Tonight. I’ve already spoken with him -’‘Tonight!’‘Just one song. He’ll find space for you in his programme; and if they like you, he’ll keep you there.’‘Tonight...’ I looked at Walter in dismay. His face was very kind, and his eyes seemed bluer and more earnest than ever. But what he said made me tremble. I thought of the hall, hot and bright and filled with jeering faces. I thought of that stage, so wide and empty. I thought: I cannot do it, not even for Walter’s sake. Not even for Kitty’s.I made to shake my head. He saw, and quickly spoke again - spoke, perhaps for the first time in all the months that I had known him, with something that was almost guile. He said: ‘You know, of course, that we cannot throw over the idea of the double act, now that we have hit upon it. If you don’t wish to partner Kitty, there’ll be some other girl who does. We can spread the word, place notices, audition. You mustn’t feel that you are letting Kitty down...’I looked from him to the stage, where Kitty herself sat on the edge of a beam of limelight, sipping at her cup, swinging her legs, and smiling at some word of the conductor’s. The thought that she might take another partner - might stroll before the footlights with another girl’s arm through hers, another girl’s voice rising and blending with her own - had not occurred to me.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  And talk from here’ — I touched the buckle on his trousers, and he twitched - ‘not from your throat. Go on.’“‘Why Socialism?” he read again, in a deep, unnatural voice. ’ That is the question I have been invited to discuss with you this afternoon. “Why Socialism?” I shall keep my answer rather brief.’I sucked at my lip. ‘Some joker is sure to shout “Hurrah” at that point, you know.’‘Not really, Nance?’‘You may count on it. But you mustn’t let it unsettle you, or you’ll be done for. Go on, now, let’s hear the rest.’He read the speech - it was a matter of two or three pages, no more - and I listened, and frowned.‘You will talk into the paper,’ I said at the end. ‘No one will be able to hear. They will get bored, and start talking amongst themselves. I have seen it happen a hundred times.’‘But I must read the words,’ he said. I shook my head.‘You shall have to learn them, there’s nothing else for it. You shall have to get the piece by heart.’‘What? All this?’ He gazed miserably at the pages.‘A day or two’s work,’ I said. Then I put my hand upon his arm. ‘It is either that, Ralph, or we shall have to put you in a funny suit...’And so through the whole of April and half of May - for of course it took considerably longer than one or two days for him to learn even so much as a quarter of the words - Ralph and I laboured together over his little speech, forcing the phrases into his head and finding all sorts of tricks to make them stay there.

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

  That’s where I saw Grace take control of her situation. She was empowered as she accepted the reality of the relationship. And be prepared—I expect you to probably have a strong reaction to this: she set an ultimatum. Yes, you read that right. Grace said from the start that she would give therapy six months. If Ryan was still unsure about marrying her at that point, she was out. He would either know by then or he wouldn’t—either way it was an answer. Now this is where some of you may be saying, “But if you really love them, you’ll wait forever.” “Why do you need a ring to prove that your partner loves you?” “If they’re not ready yet, then it’s never going to work out. You’re a fool to stick around this long anyway.” “What if they only propose because they don’t want to lose you and then they secretly resent you?” Or my favorite, “This is sounding too hard. Relationships that are meant to be should come easier.” Well, if you’ve ever lived with a partner with anxiety or you’ve lived with it yourself, then you know that few things ever come that easy. It’s in the nature of the anxious brain to hem and haw, to doubt, and to be indecisive. We always need just a little more time. It’s not that we don’t love whom we are with. For some of us with anxiety, it can feel really hard to take that next step into the unknown. It’s scary to jump in the pool, even if we know we want to be in the water. This is where Grace and Ryan had been sitting for ages. They each hoped that the other would make the jump ahead. Ryan hoped Grace would change her mind about having kids. Grace hoped that Ryan would love her enough that he’d be willing to forgo having a family. Both were too anxious before therapy to fully broach the situation. This is where something like a time ultimatum can really come in handy. Boiled down, ultimatums are simply boundaries that are clearly elucidated. If you are honest about what you want and what your values are, that’s not something to be apologetic or feel guilty about. We often shame people, especially women, for giving ultimatums (ahem, boundaries), when really, they’re just naming exactly what they want and by when. Ultimatums are about respecting your time—and the time of the person you’re with. Rather than leading you to slowly build resentment if your wishes do not come to fruition, ultimatums make sure there are no surprises if and when you need to leave to find your values fulfilled elsewhere.