Yesterday I watched a movie that tells the story about the last days of a housewife, who was diagnosed with incurable cancer. It is not an outstanding movie per se, but I still found myself heart-broken at the little things the housewife did as she approached the exit door of this world, just to make the lives of her loved ones easier when the time came; and deeply moved by how those—her husband, mother-in-law, son, daughter and younger brother—who had depended on her, began to take responsibility for their own lives, after they realized how much she had done for them. I like the idea shown by this movie that for those who dare to face it, death presents an opportunity for extraordinary growth.
After I watched the movie, it occurred to me that I’m not very afraid of dying anyway, because sometimes life feels so long and tiring that taking the exit route is not as scary as it appears. There are days when I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, because I already feel tired by the mere thought of the many bills that are waiting to be paid and the endless problems that will come up one after another. I know it is the anxiety that has been with me all these years that has drained my energy, and through its lens the world could become a dull place, even though I have everything I would ever need. I easily get trapped in my internal drama that something bad might happen and go to great lengths to take precautions, although for the most part what I have worried about never really happens. One day after finding out that I had gotten admitted to an MBA program during COVID, a friend complimented me with, “How did you manage your time? It is amazing that you could get so much done!” I said, “If you had known, in addition to that, how much extra time I have wasted in dealing with my inner conflict and anxiety, you would have been even more amazed.”
Since I have been experiencing anxiety and learning about it for a really long time, I can tell that my anxiety is just a manifestation of a deep feeling of insecurity, which in turn is due to a mixture of genetic inheritance and environmental circumstances from a very young age, especially the first few years of life. Because of its complicated psychological roots, usually it is hard to find a cure for anxiety. However, there are ways to manage it, and I would like to share my experience with using writing as a tool to reduce anxiety.
Over a decade ago, a friend suggested I should keep a daily gratitude journal, an exercise that has been well researched by positive psychology. Researchers have found that by writing down what we are grateful for and hence making it more concrete and real, we will learn to pay more attention to the positive aspects of our lives and become more optimistic. Although I ended up following this advice for only about a month, it enabled me to appreciate the good things that had been happening all the time, which I had taken for granted, and helped me direct my focus toward positive feelings and give less power to negative emotions. If you are interested to learn more, there are plenty of online articles talking about the best practices for keeping a gratitude journal; for example, Gratitude Journal: A Collection of 66 Templates, Ideas, and Apps for Your Diary, How and Why of Gratitude Journal, and The Ultimate Gratitude Journal Guide. If you have maintained a gratitude journal, what was your experience like? What benefits did you receive from it?
We don’t have to always write down good stuff though. The anxiety episodes we have experienced are worth writing about as well. Instead of reliving the unpleasant experience and making a mountain out of a molehill, the point is to review the event, analyze the situation, recognize the thoughts and feelings we had, and come up with an alternative way to think and act if it ever happens again. This is very similar to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a form of psychotherapy that helps us identify and adjust our thoughts to eliminate the undesirable behaviors and perform the desirable ones. Above all else, instead of harshly criticizing ourselves, it is essential to sympathize with our weaknesses, even though we have a sincere wish to overcome them and improve ourselves. For example, after another chaotic morning rushing my children to school, I was overwhelmed by the thoughts that I was a terrible mother and the unpeaceful morning routine would have a long-term effect on my children’s emotional well-being. When I wrote about it later, I realized that due to their young age and their individual temperament, my children simply needed more time to get ready and I could reduce the time pressure on all of us by adjusting the morning routine. Also, I felt more compassion for myself by acknowledging that I had woken up with a headache in the morning. I reminded myself once again that in the end of the day, everybody does things they wish they haven’t done, and being an imperfect mother is only human. As you can see, writing about a negative experience helps us learn from it and clears our mind of the disagreeable feelings, and as a result these feelings will no longer linger on and hurt us.
Another thing I have learned recently is that when writing about random topics—just because I’m interested in them—I get to organize my thoughts and gain a much deeper insight than if I just turned them over in my mind. William Faulkner once said, “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it,” and you will be surprised by what your writing tells you too. Also, such writing serves as a point of reference if you would like to discuss the topics with others, or later on if you want to see how your thoughts have evolved over time.
If you don’t have time to write or simply don’t like writing, talking with friends along these lines could serve the same purpose. For example, if you talk about what you are thankful for, it will boost positive emotions for both you and your friend. It is perfectly fine to cry on your friend’s shoulder and when you do so, just remember that in addition to getting the emotional support, you can also learn something from your unpleasant experience—especially if you are specific about the situation and share exactly what has happened. Lastly, if you have ever given thought to abstract concepts like love, death, achievement, and relationship, they can lead to a meaningful discussion too.
While I’m thinking about the movie once again at this very moment, a question crosses my mind: if dying isn’t as bad as I think, what else could be so bad as to warrant my constant feeling of anxiousness? Absolutely not those that keeps bothering me, such as the stupid things I said the day before, the work item I have been putting off at my workplace, my children’s future if they don’t like math. This thought really helps me put things in perspective and hopefully will reduce the magnitude of my anxiousness in the future. And in the event of an anxiety episode, I will continue to use writing as my ally. Do you think writing could help you too?
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