Imagine that you aren’t satisfied with your job.  You have options.  You can quit your job and look for another, or you can get some training for a new direction in your career.   Or suppose that you have a close friend to whom you haven’t spoken in years.  You can reach out to them by phone, Facebook, or email.  You aren’t satisfied with your physical condition, so you join a gym, get a personal trainer, and start to work out.  All of these situations have something in common. You see something about your life that you want to change, you figure out what actions will help you with that change, and you do them.

To address a problem like anxiety, it is good to have a clear understanding of all of its components. Perhaps it sounds strange to talk about the components of anxiety; isn’t anxiety just a feeling we have. Well, feelings are one part of anxiety, but it has other elements as well. It is important have a deep understanding of the anatomy of anxiety so we know how to respond to it and treat it.

Fear and anxiety are a normal and natural part of living. We are born with the capacity to experience fear and anxiety. Of course, you may already know that since it seems you are living with these two feelings all the time. But what are fear and anxiety? How are they similar? How are they different? What role do they play in our lives?

Anxiety and stress are part of life, but in order to keep them from controlling our lives we must develop a new relationship with them. This new relationship happens by being aware of the stress and anxiety when it is actually happening, seeing what it looks and feels like and choosing a different response. Mindfulness is what helps us do that.

We go around appraising situations all the time: at home, at work, in the car, in our relationships, in social settings.  We aren’t aware of this appraising because most of these situations are within our normal range of experience.  But if we decide that a situation has some degree of danger to our security, or it’s something we can’t handle, our body goes into what has been called a “fight or flight” mode.  This is our bodies’ way of keeping us aware and alert so we can decide what to do in this threatening situation.