I regularly experience rushes of anxiety. Ones in which it feels as if life has no meaning or significance. In those moments, I feel afraid, alone and scared.

I think that as a psychologist I should have all the answers for moving anxiety on quickly when it comes knocking on our doors. But I don’t. Sure, there are some strategies that occasionally work for me, and possibly work for others as well, but I don’t have a ‘method’ that works every time, and over time.

For my experience of anxiety has changed over the decades. In my earlier years, it was more a ‘daily living’ default setting. Now, my ‘normal’ is much, much calmer, and intermittently, there are bouts in which life feels scary. Interestingly, over those same decades, I have crafted a rich career; formed committed relationships; raised a child; navigated adolescence, mid life and all the years in between; grieved the loss of loved ones and loved animals; and managed health concerns as they arose. I have lived in spite of anxiety and other psychological ‘phenomena’.

Regardless of anxiety’s presentation, I do know its experience is created from thought, but that knowledge rarely helps me in the moment. I experience anxiety, and think ‘it’s just thought’, then what? Sitting in a psychological limboland without the rudder of another thought is equally scary. What actually ‘helps’, is the ‘coming in’ of another train of thought. One moment, I am sitting by the river, fearful of being alone and alive, five minutes later I am filled with warmth at the sight of human interactions occurring at different campsites as I return to my tent. My soul is balmed. Another moment, I am afraid of the week ahead of me and the next I am so happy to be able to sit on my couch and watch another rerun of ‘Rake’. That’s how life goes, one moment this, the next that.

Whilst I can offer a list of thoughts and actions to deliberately ‘bring in’ another thought/feeling, I also know that if I just allow my emotional experiences to ‘be’ and keep living, another train of thought/feeling will arrive. The past passes. Just as hayfever passes, or not getting to sleep passes, or a cold passes. Rest, take care, and living takes over again. Physical and psychological experiences, uncomfortable and comfortable, pleasurable and distressing, boring and intense, are all a small ‘passing’ part of the ‘mix’ of living.

Rather than come up with a list of strategies for moving ‘anxiety’ on, maybe our psychological resources would be more usefully spent on the main act – living a life we like. Because its the thoughts of things we like that ‘come in’ and nudge out the driver thought behind the experience of anxiety. Maybe living lives we like is what we can know better and more about, because we already know what we need to know about anxiety. It comes, and goes, when a ‘nicer’ thought comes in.