Anger, anxiety, depression, and the lot are not polite or politically correct to talk about in many social settings. They feel uncomfortable, and it’s easy to judge ourselves as being “weak” for having them, even if we don’t subscribe to Pollyanna-esque naiveté. So we learn to manage our negative feelings. One common way we do this is by performing what I call “cognitive Photoshop”—rationalizing our feelings away and becoming needlessly stern with ourselves for having human emotions. Essentially, we use our intellect to explain and then functionally bypass our experiences. Except that this doesn’t solve the problem. Why? Because anxiety isn’t meant to be ignored. We evolved anxiety to signal when to withdraw, so we can protect ourselves and survive. When ignored, anxiety becomes the child you’re ignoring. It will scream louder and tug at you. Anxiety makes itself heard via that urgent preoccupation bubbling up inside us, causing us to get lost in the tornado of thoughts in our head. Our bodies react—migraines, tight chest, tense muscles. We start to notice them or even look for these physiological reactions—in psychology speak, we call it “hypervigilance”—and get even more anxious. We catastrophize, believing something very bad is inevitable. To manage, we perform even more cognitive Photoshop. Eventually there comes a point where logic fails to hold the fort, and this erupts as anxiety attacks, panic attacks, or the times you “let it out”—doing the things you regret like drinking excessively, having a meltdown, or saying things you don’t mean. When that happens, you affirm to yourself that your feelings are dangerous. The vicious cycle of cognitive Photoshop and anxiety perpetuates. Cognitive Photoshop, essentially, is managing a train wreck. Instead of managing, I advocate mastering our minds, starting with internalizing these five important lessons: She has been featured in Elle, Forbes, and Business Insider and has previously worked with Olympians, business professionals, and individuals seeking to master their psychological capital. She works globally in English and Mandarin-Chinese via Skype and Facetime, blending cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and ancient wisdom.
