For over a decade, I ran a popular music and literary series called Happy Ending. I produced and hosted every show. No matter my mood, spirit, or state of mind, I had to be onstage—first weekly, then monthly. It was a tall order (albeit one I requested).

I learned early that my energy set the tone for the entire night. As the first person to walk onstage, I was the tuning fork. My mood dictated the evening—signaling to the audience what kind of night they’d have, and to the performers whether this was worth their time or a f**king death trap.

My history of performing began long before the series, just not on a stage. As a child with undiagnosed panic disorder, I had to act like I wasn’t having a panic attack—because I was terrified of what was happening to me. I thought if I hid it, the fear would go away; if I showed it, it would devour me.

Turns out, I wasn’t just pretending—I was practicing.

Spend your life hiding fear, and you learn to live in two minds: one performing cool, one cowering under it. Running Happy Ending taught me to navigate that paradox—to feel fear, while projecting confidence.

Over time, I started inventing ways to get through other stresses. It worked. For years I kept them secret, embarrassed that to manage, I needed to pretend, while everyone else (or so I believed) could deal without invisible crutches. But in recent years, especially after my memoir Little Panic: Dispatches From an Anxious Life came out, people started asking me how I got through things, when I had so much anxiety. So, I started sharing mine.

The word “hack” has always rubbed me the wrong way. You can’t hack life. You can’t shortcut pain. But you can reframe it—rotate the problem, tilt your point of view until something hard becomes doable.

Today, I’m letting you in on some top-secret pivots that get me through things that bring me anxiety. I hope that they’ll inspire you to create your own pretendings.

1. PRETEND YOU’RE SOFIA COPPOLA

I suffer from an unfair amount of social anxiety. The pandemic exacerbated it.

When I have to go to a party, or any social event alone, the only way I can actually get through the door of any party is to pretend I’m Sofia Coppola.

Why Sofia Coppola?

To me, she’s the most interesting type of beautiful—she embodies an aloofness I’ve coveted but never felt; she seems to be know the answers to every Zen Koan.

So: Interesting to look at, intimidating, mysterious.

I have no idea if pretending I'm Sofia Coppola makes me seem different to other people, but I feel different to myself, and often it’s that difference that matters. When we feel too familiar with our perceived shortcomings, we tend to fall back on them. But when we feel a bit new to ourselves, those shortcomings no longer exist.

2. DRESS LIKE YOU’RE ON VACATION

I’ve desperately wanted to go away, and there are a trillion reasons why I can’t actually have a proper vacation (I have heard very nice things about them), but the real reason is money. I can’t afford it.

A while back, it dawned on me. Why not just dress like I'm on vacation in order to extract that specific vacation-feeling from my regular, every day life?

I wore an oversize blue-and-white striped Breton-style T-shirt, tucked into green—just walking along the Thames—loose pants, sandals, and …the pièce de résistance? A straw hat. I got stopped on the street, people! I got complimented and you know why?

Because of the next pivot…

3. PRETEND YOU’RE ON VACATION

Well, I mean, you’re already dressed for it, right? Might as well go all the way.

Leave your neighborhood. Go on google maps and find a cafe, restaurant, thrift store, museum, cultural oddity, anything that appeals to you, and spend a few hours elsewhere, doing elsewhere things.

You can be in Jackson Heights, Queens or Arlington, Virginia and STILL pretend you’re in Barcelona, or Menorca (my favorite place on Earth), or somewhere you’d so love to be right now).

Time will slow down.

Highly recommended!!

4. PRETEND YOU’RE IN THE COUNTRY

Sometimes I pretend that my small Brooklyn apartment is actually a tree-house in the woods.

Everything begins to take on a country tone, and time elongates.

By choosing to think a different way, you can change your state of mind, and your sense of place. It’s when I’m pretending that my apartment is a house in the country that I begin to care more about my apartment.

5. SOFIA COPPOLA AGAIN!

This works for getting onstage (or Zoom) in front of a live audience. Choose anyone. Choose Meryl Streep. Mark Ruffalo. Idris Elba. Choose Viola Davis. Sandra Oh. Colman Domingo.

Whomever you choose, lean into it and have fun. After all, it’s not you everyone is looking at, it’s Meryl, Viola, Idris, or Sandra they’re seeing.

6. PRETEND YOU’RE ON A TV SHOW

When there’s a task I must do that I’m avoiding (say, my dishes), I imagine that I’m on a TV show, and the scene calls for me to wash the dishes.

7. PRETEND A MAGAZINE EDITOR IS COMING OVER TO INTERVIEW YOU

Your apartment is a disaster, but you can’t seem to clean it. The messier it gets, the worse you feel about yourself.

Try this: Pretend that a journalist you admire is coming to profile you. Obviously, they’ll write about your apartment. When you survey your apartment through someone else’s eyes, you’ll see what needs doing. This always works for me.

8. PRETEND YOU WORK FOR YOUR HERO

I know he’s dead, but when I’m procrastinating and need to work, I pretend I’m David Bowie’s ghostwriter, and my novel is actually his. The rule of the game is that I have to hand him pages at the end of the day. Because I’m in awe of him, I want him to be pleased with what I deliver. So I work toward that.

This kind of pretending gets me out of my own head, away from the internal chastisements. When I’m writing for David Bowie, my mind enemies disappear. It’s just me, real-writing a pretend book for David Bowie.

9. WRITE UNDER A PSEUDONYM

Don’t necessarily publish under a pseudonym, but if you’re having trouble writing anything—a toast, a screenplay, a eulogy—pick a pseudonym and write with the name masking your real identity.

Like #8, this frees up different areas of your brain, and you find yourself having original thoughts, and you feel out-of-character. It’s wild. It’s also effective and fun. Try it!

And the mother of all….

I wrote about this a couple weeks back. But this is the mother of all tricks.

Share your tricks in the comments.

Until next week, I will remain…