Anxiety [with infinitive]: a desire to do something, typically accompanied by unease. Comes from a latin origin of angere to anxius, which means: to choke.
What’s it like living with anxiety? You probably know considering 1 of 5 Canadians live with anxiety. Look up another article about how hard it is to live with anxiety because that’s not what this is going to be.
I’m going to tell you about how hard it is to get my butt out of bed in the mornings, but how I have to do it because, guess what? Life is just too exciting. THAT’S why I, Ari Trejo, suffer from anxiety. Too many things in life are far too exciting. Call me overdramatic, call me bipolar, call me annoying. But through my experience with anxiety, I’m hoping to show you how life is EXCITING and is also anything but mediocre, and how to use anxiety for our good.
In fact, life is so exciting that sometimes I choke. Life is so exciting, that sometimes my hands sweat. Life is so exciting that sometimes I forget to breathe. Life is so exciting, that sometimes I can’t stand in a room full of so many people I know because it’s too exhilarating to be in their presence and so I leave and I start to cry. Why am I crying? I don’t know and no one can tell me. I just know I need to cry. Do I feel better after I cry? Yes, sometimes I do. Other times, I need to go to sleep because life was just too much for me that day.
The definition of anxiety shows how yes, I desire to do something, but because I don’t know what the ending might be, I get something called anxiety. That’s what happens when I start to think too much about the outcome. That’s what happens when I start to worry.
How did I start overcoming anxiety?
No, I am not perfect yet. But I figured out a way to deal with anxiety day by day:
E X C I T E M E N T
When you start overthinking a situation, your mind can come up with a million and ten different outcomes for one simple situation, especially when you’ve been diagnosed with anxiety. But even if there is no diagnosis, we are human. Sometimes, we worry. Here’s how my worry helps me every single day:
For example:
I’m terrified about what people think about me sometimes. More often than not, I have left certain places because even in a room full of people, I felt alone in my worry. I couldn’t handle looking different, being different; I didn’t know how to be myself. My hands start to sweat. My heart starts to race a little faster than usual. My throat closes up and I feel that huge clump in my throat right before I start to cry. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I don’t.
The way I used to deal with this was leaving the building I was in, going to my car, no matter how cold it was, and crying by myself.
Now, this situation has changed drastically for me.
How???
Peace…
HOW???
Instead of taking this situation and being worried about what sad, negative, unhelpful things people could be saying about me, I look around the room that is seemingly overwhelming and I point out the people that I love, even if I don’t know for sure (because of the anxiety) if they love me back, and I’ll just sit in a chair like an idiot looking around the room, thinking about at least 1 thing I LOVE about every single person in that room. If there is someone I don’t know and therefore can’t point out one thing about them that I love, there is probably a 75% chance they may be feeling the same anxiety I’m feeling of not knowing enough people in the room and therefore feeling different, excluded, anxious.
Go talk to them. Yes, it may be awkward. Yes, icebreakers make things easier. But YES, you will have changed their entire night for the better because you acknowledged them. YES, you may be anxious to talk to them, but YES, BE EXCITED TO CHANGE SOMEONE’S LIFE! YES, this has helped my anxiety go down in the past and it will continue to do so. YES, this makes my own night be turned around for good, for the better, for joy, for internal rewards that just can’t be explained. 
In essence, anxious energy can be turned around to excited energy that ends up cha
ging more lives than just your own. Take any situation you’re overthinking, and I’m not going to tell you to stop thinking of a million and ten outcomes for any situation because that is next to impossible on your own with anxiety. Instead, become EXCITED about all those POSITIVE outcomes that could happen! Because in the end, you may just change someone else’s life and help become a cure to someone else’s anxiety.
Life is about the little things AND the big things. It is NOT mediocre. A very wise young woman once told me that if I’m living in mediocrity, I need to rethink where I’m at. So… Turn every anxious thought into an exciting thought, and everyone will do that in their own way. But for every single situation in the world, THERE IS A POSITIVE OUTCOME SOMEWHERE, FAR FROM MEDIOCRITY. Find your own way to find your own positive outcome whether it be through writing all the positive possibilities, praying, or even overthinking… You can be healthy in your anxiety… Believe it!
ARE YOU EXCITED YET?!?