22 Coping Statements for Dealing With Anxiety

1. I don’t have to make myself anxious about anything, or put myself down if I stupidly and foolishly do make myself anxious.

2. My anxiety is bad, but I’m not bad.

3. I don’t always have to feel comfortable, and it isn’t awful when I don’t.

4. I can bear-and bear with-anxiety: it won’t kill me.

5. It is not necessary to be in perfect control of my anxious moments. To demand that I be in control only multiplies my symptoms.

6. Others are not required to treat me with kid gloves when I feel uncomfortable.

7. The world doesn’t have to make it easy for me to get a handle on my anxiety.

8. Anxiety is a part of life; it is not bigger than life.

9. My over-reactive nervous system is a part of my life, but it’s not bigger than life.

10. I can take my anxiety with me when going places and doing things that I am reluctant to do (or stay isolated).

11. Controlling my anxiety is important, but hardly urgent.

12. Comfort is nice, but not necessary.

13. I don’t have to be the one person in the universe to feel comfortable all the time.

14. I’d better not feel calm, relaxed, and serene all the time, because if I did, I’d have one dickens of a time motivating myself.

15. Anxiety and panic are burrs in my saddle: highly inconvenient and uncomfortable, but hardly awful.

16. I don’t have to hassle myself or put myself down for not coping better with my anxiety.

17. This, too, will likely pass.

18. I can blend in with the flow of my anxiety; I don’t have to go tooth-and-nail, head-on with it.

19. If I feel anxious, I feel anxious… tough!

20. I may have my anxiety, but I am not my anxiety.

21. I don’t have to shame or demean myself for anything-including creating tight knots in my gut.

22. Feelings of awkwardness, nervousness, or queasiness may interfere with my projects, but they do not have to ruin them.