As someone who has struggled with anxiety for most of my life, I know firsthand how it can be overwhelming, debilitating, and all-consuming. But I've also learned that anxiety, when channeled properly, can be a powerful tool for creativity and personal growth. In this article, I want to share my own experiences with anxiety, how I've learned to transform it into a superpower, and how you can do the same.
First, it's important to understand what anxiety is and where it comes from. Anxiety is essentially the manifestation of the separation you feel from your emotions and the definitions of yourself that are informed by those changing emotional states. When you look at your emotions as part of your identity, anxiety becomes a feedback loop that gets worse and worse, feeding on itself until it feels like a necessary and all-consuming part of your life.
For me, anxiety was a constant companion growing up. As a highly sensitive person and empath, I absorbed the emotional states of those around me and felt overwhelmed by the pain and trauma of others. I learned to be a chameleon and people-pleaser, avoiding conflict and sensing the landmines of anger in the people I interacted with. But this approach led to overthinking, perfectionism, and a fear of failure that suppressed my creativity and hindered my ability to experience intimacy with life.
Over time, I learned that anxiety was misused creativity. It was a fear-based creativity, contorting my imagination into all these fearful possibilities. But once I disentangled anxiety from my creativity, the passion that fueled my creativity could flow more naturally, without the self-conscious anxiety of the mind hindering it. Now my creativity flows more efficiently through my mind as a tool, performing at its peak and flowing without negative operating systems of self-consciousness, which creates anxiety based on the one timeline of past, present, and future.
But how did I transform anxiety from a debilitating force into a source of creativity and growth? It all started with a choice: do I actually want anxiety in my life? When I realized that anxiety did not feel good or true, I had a choice to make. And that choice opened up new possibilities for healing and transformation.
The next step was understanding the root of my anxiety: fear. Anxiety was just a distorted understanding of my passion, creativity, and survival operating at lower frequencies of fear, density, pain, mistrust, unworthiness, shame, and guilt. But once I disentangled fear from passion and creativity, I could channel that energy upwards in an upward spiral toward love, joy, wealth, prosperity, and all the things that propel me forward.
So, how can you turn anxiety into a superpower? Start by making a choice: do you want anxiety in your life? Once you make that choice, start untangling the root of your anxiety: fear. Then, channel that energy upwards into an upward spiral toward love and joy. Finally, let your passion and creativity flow more naturally, without the negative operating system of self-consciousness and anxiety.
Anxiety can be a powerful tool for personal growth and creativity when channeled properly. By understanding the root of our anxiety and making a choice to transform it, we can turn fear into a superpower that propels us forward.
Jeremy Lasman Founder & CEO of The Passion Company