It's just that living with anxiety - living alarmed - makes it impossible to enter the moment, to land inside my body and be there. I cannot be in th… - Glennon Doyle

I surrendered myself to the cages of others' expectations, cultural mandates and institutional allegiances. Until I buried who I was in order to become what I should be. I lost myself when I learned how to please.

It's okay to feel all of the stuff you're feeling. You're just becoming human again. You're not doing life wrong; you're doing it right. If there's any secret you're missing, it's that doing it right is just really hard. Feeling all your feelings is hard, but that's what they're for. Feelings are for feeling. All of them. Even hard ones. The secret is that you're doing it right, and that doing it right hurts sometimes.

know I'm floating into anxiety when I find myself obsessing. Obsessing over the next speech, the kids, the house, my marriage, my body, my hair. Anxiety is feeling terrified about my lack of control over anything, and obsessing is my antidote. Writing is clawing the ground when I'm sinking too low, and obsessing is clawing the ground when I'm hovering too high.
I thought I'd been hiding my anxiety until my wife touched my arm and said, "I miss you. You've been gone for a while." Of course, we've been by each other's side virtually nonstop. It's just that living with anxiety — living alarmed — makes it impossible to enter the moment, to land inside my body and be there. I cannot be in the moment because I am too afraid of what the next moment will bring. I have to be ready.