What's behind your anxious mind?



One of the most difficult features of anxiety is that it tends to be all-consuming. It squats in the middle of our minds and refuses to let anything else in or through. Though the anxiety causes us great pain, it denies any attempts to be questioned, analysed, probed or reconfigured. We are both terrified and unable to think beyond our terror.



Our thoughts become low, relentless, repetitive, stymied things: returning again and again to the issue of whether the door is locked, the accounts were signed off or the social media account is not under attack. Anxiety dominates over and excludes any other form of mental activity; all that's in our minds is terror.



But there is one nimble way to try to outwit anxiety – and that is with a question that recognises a fundamental feature of anxiety: that it is frequently a smokescreen for something else, something beyond what we consciously think is worrying us.



One of the peculiar facets of our minds is that we may choose to feel anxious rather than to confront things that may yet be more painful or emotionally awkward in our lives. It can be easier to fret than to know ourselves properly.



So, for example, we might feel anxious about whether we're going to get to the airport on time as an escape from the greater challenge of wondering whether this holiday is even worth it. Or we might get intensely anxious about a financial issue in order to avoid a yet trickier acknowledgement of our confusion at the course of our emotional lives. Or we may develop a sexual anxiety as an alternative to thinking about our sense of self-worth and the childhood that destroyed it.



Panic may be invited to shield us from more profound sources of self-aware agony. And yet, of course, we are always better off getting to the root cause of our troubles, rather than filling our minds with diversionary panic – and in order to do so, we would be wise at points to ask ourselves a simple but possibly highly revealing question:



'If your mind wasn't currently filled with these particular anxious thoughts, what might you have to think about right now?'



The question, as simple in structure as it is acute in design, is liable to unlock a moment of original insight. One answer might go like this:



– I might realise how sad and lonely I am…



– I might realise how angry I feel towards my partner…



– I might realise how abandoned I feel…



And that, of course, is precisely what we should be doing now. Filling our minds with, and processing, all the stuff that our anxiety is normally trying to keep at bay.



If we need to suffer, and often we will, the least we can do is to ensure that we are suffering for the right reasons. At points, we should trade our anxiety in for something far more important: a confrontation with the real ambivalence and complexity of our lives.



词汇表

all-consuming [ˌɔːl kənˈsjuːmɪŋ] 占据全部心神的，耗费精力的

squat [skwɒt] 盘踞，蹲伏

probe [prəʊb] 探究，调查

reconfigure [ˌriːkənˈfɪɡə(r)] 重构，重新配置

terrified [ˈterɪfaɪd] 恐惧的，极度害怕的

terror [ˈterə(r)] 恐惧，惊恐

relentless [rɪˈlentləs] 顽固的，持续不断的，无情的

stymied [ˈstaɪmid] 受阻的，停滞不前的

sign off 签字确认，批准

dominate over [ˈdɒmɪneɪt] 占据上风，支配

nimble [ˈnɪmbl] 巧妙的，灵活的，机智的

outwit [ˌaʊtˈwɪt] 智胜，以机智胜过

smokescreen [ˈsməʊkskriːn] 烟雾弹，掩饰手段

peculiar facet [pɪˈkjuːliə(r) ˈfæset] 奇特之处，独特的方面

awkward [ˈɔːkwəd] 难处理的，棘手的

fret [fret] 焦虑，苦恼，发愁

intensely [ɪnˈtensli] 极度地，强烈地

self-worth [ˌself ˈwɜːθ] 自我价值感，自尊

shield [ʃiːld] 保护，防御，躲避

self-aware agony [ˌself əˈweə(r) ˈæɡəni] 自我认知的痛苦，自觉的痛苦

better off 状况更好，处境更好

diversionary panic [daɪˈvɜːʃənəri ˈpænɪk] 转移注意力的恐慌

revealing [rɪˈviːlɪŋ] 启发性的，揭示性的

acute [əˈkjuːt] 精妙的，敏锐的

be liable to [ˈlaɪəbl] 往往会，倾向于，有可能

unlock [ʌnˈlɒk] 激发，发掘，释放

original insight [ˈɪnsaɪt] 独到的见解

abandoned [əˈbændənd] （感到）被遗弃的，被抛弃的

keep at bay [beɪ] 阻挡，牵制，使无法靠近

confrontation [ˌkɒnfrʌnˈteɪʃn] 直面，对抗，对峙

ambivalence [æmˈbɪvələns] 矛盾心理，举棋不定

complexity [kəmˈpleksəti] 复杂性，复杂事物



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