Caroline Foran

It is almost bizarre, I think,

for someone to live in the world today, a world which we were never designed for, with a system that was never meant to be in this environment and not feel anxiety.

It took me a long time.

There were so many facets that came together and I really very prescriptively chart through all that in the book because I wanted, I think the question I get asked most is like, what can I do and where do I start?

Like, yes, I know I'm anxious.

Yes, I know I'm

experiencing anxiety like we know that now like we talk about it we're all aware of it we use the word we don't need someone to say I know what it is you've got anxiety we know that so it's what to do where to start what turns to take what um dead ends to avoid and I went

such an arseways way around getting to where I am now because I didn't have the awareness.

We didn't have the conversations.

I didn't have the knowledge.

I had really unhelpful perceptions of what it meant to experiencing anxiety.

I was so concerned with what it said about me that I was weak or broken or...

beyond help and that there was something really wrong with me.

So I stayed stuck in very bad anxiety for a very long time and trying desperately to just think my way out of it, which is a mistake.

Yeah, I did.

I did so many different things.

I tried so many things.

I was also very vulnerable to...

Like basically charlatans who would say, try this one thing and you'll never feel it again.

I was like, sign me up, you know, but because I didn't understand the mechanisms of anxiety, none of those things were going to make a difference until I met myself right where I was with self-compassion, which was so hard to do because I did not like myself.