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How To Use Little Tricks to Outwit Your Fear

What if we had metaphysical archery quivers with arrows customized to pin our troubles and anxieties to the wall, allowing us to move past them and into our lives without constant mental anguish?

We can.

That is, each of us has the ability to learn little tricks to get us through hard times. Some people call these “hacks,” but as you get to know me, you’ll find that I am not a fan of overused words—their potency loses meaning when you hear something too often (like someone who says I love you 55 times a day).

Montaigne, Seneca, Epictetus, and all the Stoics used little tricks to get through hard times, and friends …

… so do I.

Read on for their favorite tricks, and for mine.

But first, a tale of woe, followed by a surreptitious dollop of hope.

Because of the popularity of the posts: Resolving the Unresolvable and Dr. Chansky’s Rules for Ruminators, I asked Dr. Tamar Chansky to join me in a Live Q&A on the topic of anxiety and rumination.

The goal was to field questions and offer suggestions and answers for how to move through hard times, especially during the holidays, now known as the pandemic holidays. (Does a truer oxymoron exist?)

I was excited about this event, confident even. After some reading and thinking preparation, I was looking forward to hanging out with Dr. Chansky, to work and learn alongside her.

I’m grateful to her for many reasons, and I do not take her time (or her mind) for granted. I also really wanted everyone to meet her because she’s an invaluable resource and has the most generous and kind heart.

And, of course, I was excited to meet everyone who joined us, and my friends, I FELT CALM. CALM! ME!

But, my friends, the Live event did not go well.

First of all, I couldn’t get the camera to work, even with actual, professional, expert tech help. An app I once downloaded and THREW OUT was apparently blocking my access to my camera. Dr. Chansky couldn’t get on until I sent her the link, but I couldn’t send her a link until I got on.

MEANWHILE, the Live talk was scheduled for 5 p.m., and since I logged on at five minutes to 5 anticipating a smooth and seamless entry into this new world of “being live” (don’t think about this concept too much, or you’ll get a “meta-migraine”—trademark pending!), and it took 15 minutes before I was able to get on, I was, well, no longer calm.

People with anxiety and panic disorders (or both) constantly battle with the concept and mental weight of time. Our relationship with time is … fraught. I’ll delve deeper into this conversation again, but for now, just know that I do not like to be late, nor do I like when others are late.

I FEEL the lateness pressing against my soul.

It’s not just rude, but whenever I’m on time, and someone else is late, I start questioning whether I’m in the right place or if I got the time wrong, the date wrong, or the YEAR wrong.

I worry that something happened to them, that they are hurt, in trouble, or perhaps even dead.

Then, I worry that perhaps they’re actually inside the restaurant (or wherever we’re meeting), and now I’m actually the one who is late and they are fractalling inside the emotional geometry of their time-anxiety. When I go and look for them inside and don’t see them, I question whether I looked hard enough, or missed a secret room, or a trick door I don’t know about, and on and on it goes until they show up and I’m drained and exhausted and just want to put my head down on the table and go to sleep.

I was late to the Live event, and I did not like it one bit. I imagined those waiting for us to appear at the appointed time, not knowing what was happening and questioning their reality—the worst-case scenario for those with anxiety.

After trying and failing, and trying and failing, my tech guru suggested that I abandon my computer and get on my phone, and finally, I appeared on the Live video feed, but there was no Dr. Chansky.

Something on her end wasn’t working either, and no matter how many times we tried, neither of us could get her on the stream.

Comments were pouring up from the bottom of the screen like confetti going in the wrong direction. Viewers were writing helpful tips for how to get her on, and I was attempting to fill the time while reading the comments, trying to follow the tips, all the while being cheered on and championed by viewers.

Admittedly, the incoming comments and my trying to find a way to get Dr. Chansky on the Live rattled and overwhelmed me so much that I began to feel myself slip into paralysis.

One of my fears is to suddenly freeze when others are waiting on me. Because when people are expecting something from me, and I’m paralyzed, it exacerbates the paralysis—it’s like I’m in a conscious coma.

But that day, something magical happened.

Instead of doing what I would typically do when I freeze, which is to transform into an automaton, I suddenly realized I had to abandon the pretense that I could execute the original plan on my own and accept the circumstances at hand, recalibrate and give them not what was advertised, but what I knew I was capable of offering, which was my own experience, and what I’ve learned.

And so, that’s what I did.

I ignored the streams of comments, but more importantly, I ignored the pull of my fear that was trying to shut me down instead of opening me up. My brain didn’t know what to do, but my body did: My body told me to let go of trying to fill both Dr. Chansky’s role and my own and instead go toward the subject I knew best, the one I felt most comfortable talking about—my own experience.

And so I did.

I forced myself to sit back and focus on what I needed to move forward and not let my anxiety overwhelm me, but rather co-exist with it and carry on. And as I did that, I realized that I was employing a method I learned by writing this newsletter: Morita Therapy. The longer the Q&A, the more I put How to Live methods to the test.

I was practicing new techniques in real-time, and they were working.

Below are some of the best bits from the Live Q&A, including the methods I’ve developed over decades that got me through the live, and get me through everything else in life.

To round it all out, please find the most useful tricks used by my dead posse: Plutarch, Epictetus, Seneca and Montaigne.

Please upgrade to read the rest of the piece, discover some shortcuts to facing our fears, and get to know the Stoics…

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