In short, our anxiety is caused by uncertainty. It’s a feeling of alarm, of stress, of fear or even slight panic, when things feel unsettled, constantly shifting, out of control.
We feel this kind of groundlessness, this out-of-controlledness, all the time at some level. But there are times when this feeling is heightened:
- We lose our job or feel like our job is unstable
- We get into deep debt or feel like our finances are out of control
- Someone we love has a crisis (like health crisis)
- We get sick
- There’s a death in the family
- Someone we can’t stand gets elected to the leadership of our country (this has happened in multiple countries, I’m not talking about anyone in particular)
- You move to a new home in a new city
You get the idea — they’re all times of heightened uncertainty, and so the feeling of anxiety starts to increase.
The thing is, if you go through just one of these things, it’ll increase stress and maybe anxiety … but then if things calm down, you have a chance to recover. But if you’re constantly going through these kinds of things, it doesn’t give you a chance to recover. You’re constantly in a fragile state, and everything becomes more stressful.
The key is not to eliminate uncertainty and stress in your life … but instead to increase your resilience by allowing yourself to feel grounded even in the middle of a stressful, uncertain event. Then things become not such a big deal. They might stress you out a bit, but they won’t be the end of the world.