I Didn’t Choose Anxiety

Sometimes people get a bit upset with us.

If you’re familiar with our philosophy, you’ll have noticed that we say things like, “Stress is your choice” or “Anxiety is your choice.”

And this sometimes meets opposition. People defensively say, “I didn’t choose this!”

“I didn’t choose for my significant other to leave me!”

“I didn’t choose to get fired!”

“I didn’t choose to have this disease!”

“I didn’t choose to have people to treat me like this!”

Of course you didn’t choose these things. No one would choose for their kid to get sick. No one would choose to get in a car accident. No one would choose to get ridiculed.

But you choose how you emotionally react to those things.

You didn’t choose the situations. But you chose how to respond to those situations.

How you feel is your responsibility. No situation and no person can reach inside you and make you feel anxious, or any other emotion for that matter. That’s on you.

Then we meet more opposition. “I didn’t choose to have anxiety!”

I get it. I do.

I have dealt with a lot of anger myself. And I would love to say that it wasn’t my choice. But if it wasn’t mine, then whose was it?

Who or what put the emotion there, if I didn’t? And who or what is going to make it better?

I know that you didn’t say to yourself, “I choose to be anxious right now.” I know you didn’t make that conscious choice. That’s not the problem. The problem isn’t that you felt anxious. The problem is that you keep feeling that way. You keep on feeling anxious. The problem is that you haven’t made the conscious choice to feel a different way.

So when you say, “I didn’t choose to feel anxious!” I have to ask, did you choose to stop feeling anxious?

Because if you don’t choose to stop feeling anxious, then you are choosing to continue feeling anxious.

And it’s about now that people say, “Well, how?”

And that’s my most favourite question. The ability to choose your emotions, stop negative emotions and start positive emotions - that’s called emotional regulation. The ability to regulate your emotions. And that’s a skill.

Like any skill, it must be practiced and developed so that you become proficient at it. It develops through sincerity and a genuine effort.

You can choose. You can develop the skill. We can help.

P.S. Do you want to learn the skills? Here’s one. It’s yours for FREE.

P.P.S. Do you want to take this further? Do you want to hone your skills? Click here.

Here’s to Conquering Stress,

The Stress Experts