Caroline Foran

You said your anxiety gave you anxiety.

I mean, for me, it was never, oh, I'm anxious about this thing.

It was the fear of the fear.

Like I had a mental breakdown and I was so frightened that that could happen to me when there was no seemingly obvious trigger.

And so I was really, I was really brutal with myself about that because I would say, look how much worse off other people have it.

And but...

It was awful.

I mean, I dug myself into such a deep hole.

But self-compassion, and it sounds simple, and it actually is, but it just takes a while to start to trust it and believe it.

When you can turn to yourself and say, regardless of the situation, this is hard.

I'm having a hard time.

Today I'm feeling it.

It's here for whatever reason.

I don't need to like it.

I don't need to change it.

I just need to accept that this is who I am in this moment.

And ask myself, what's the one thing I can do today?

Or what's one less thing I can take off my plate?

And when you start to really...

properly engage that self-compassionate muscle, you are interrupting that sequence of stress events in your body.