Healing from an anxiety disorder is less about making anxious feelings go away and more about learning to tolerate them.
Amy Jacobsen, a CBT clinician says:
A key ingredient in this process is not actually getting the fears and anxiety to go away – rather, it is enhancing our ability to tolerate anxiety and uncertainty when it is present. By learning how to tolerate distress, we learn to have the “wiggle room” to filter information better and take actions that are consistent with our values and goals. A natural and pleasant side effect of increased tolerance of anxiety is lower anxiety – as we become stronger in our ability to handle it, our sensitivity to it comes down, and our experience of triggers can increasingly change and improve.
Jacobsen also highlights an important insight from The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety by Forsyth and Eifert.
“Remember that the goal is not to feel better but to get better at feeling.”
Finally, she says that building one’s tolerance for anxiety is similar to building muscle strength through weight training. Over time your capacity to tolerate anxiety grows.
— Amy Jacobsen, “What Does ‘Overcoming’ Anxiety Really Mean?,” Anxiety and Depression Association of America, January 27, 2017
