Instead of reaching a conclusion about a person based on the limited information you have about them, consider that you’re not seeing the whole pictu… - Brianna Wiest

What happens when we start to chase what we really want: We resist doing the work that it takes to actually get it because we are so afraid of not having it, any brush with failure makes us rescind our effort and tense up. When we go so long not having what we really want, we create subconscious associations between having it and “being bad,” because we have judged others for having it. When we get it, we fear losing it so badly that we push it away from ourselves so as to not have to withstand the pain. We are so deeply enmeshed in the mental state of “wanting,” we cannot shift to a state of “having.

One of the hallmarks of anxiety is rapid thinking. Because you are focusing on some issue so deeply and for so much time, you assume that you are also thinking through the issue thoroughly and arriving at the most likely conclusion. However, the opposite is happening. You’re experiencing a logical lapse. You’re jumping to the worst-case scenario because you aren’t thinking clearly, and then you are engaging your fight-or-flight response because the worst-case scenario makes you feel threatened. This is why you obsess about that one, terrifying idea. Your body is responding as though it’s an immediate threat, and until you “defeat” or overcome it, your body will do its job, which is to keep you in defense mode, which is really a heightened state of awareness to the “enemy.

Maybe the kind of success you’re really hungry for is to feel at peace each day,