If you’ve been living with anxiety, chances are you’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to get rid of it. I know I did. You may have tried distracting yourself, thinking positively, avoiding certain situations, breathing your way through it, or simply trying harder to “calm down.” If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone—and you’re not doing anything wrong.
I remember my own struggle with anxiety all too well. At one point, even walking into a supermarket felt impossible—the noise, the lights, the people! I was terrified of having a panic attack. I couldn’t stand in a queue without my heart racing, my chest tightening, I couldn’t catch my breath, and panic would flood my system. So I avoided those situations whenever I could. And on the days I couldn’t avoid them, I fought with everything I had—trying to slow my breathing, push the anxious thoughts away, not make eye contact, do anything just to get through it. By the end, I would be completely drained—mentally, emotionally, physically—all just from going into a shop.
So the hard truth— I wish I’d known at the time, is that the more we struggle to control anxiety, the more tangled we become in it.
That might sound backwards. After all, isn’t control supposed to be the answer? Isn’t the whole goal to get rid of anxiety?
It certainly seems that way, but this is the trap. As long as you’re hooked by the agenda of trying to control, suppress, avoid, or eliminate anxiety, you stay locked in a loop. Anxiety shows up, you try to control it, which adds more pressure and judgment, which amplifies the anxiety—and around you go.
In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we call this the struggle trap—a vicious cycle where the harder you try to not feel something, the stronger and more disruptive it becomes. This is the case for other emotions too—struggle is the problem, along with its companion control.
The more you fight with anxiety—telling yourself you shouldn’t feel this way, trying to force it down—the more powerful it becomes. Like quicksand, the more you struggle, the deeper you sink.
So what’s the alternative?
This is where ACT offers a radically different and deeply compassionate path. ACT helps us tell the difference between what’s within our control and what’s outside our control. And that’s a game changer.
We cannot control whether anxiety shows up. We cannot control every thought that crosses our mind or every emotion that rises in our body. But we can control how we relate to those experiences. We can choose how we act in the presence of anxiety. We can move toward what matters, even with fear riding in the passenger seat.
Instead of fighting anxiety, we learn to make room for it. Instead of resisting what we can’t change, we turn our attention to what we can change—our actions, our values, our choices.
That’s not giving up. It’s a shift in strategy from control to willingness, from struggle to commitment and action.
ACT helps you build a life that’s bigger than anxiety. Not by getting rid of uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, but by stepping into the driver’s seat of your own life, even with discomfort present. It teaches you to anchor your actions in what truly matters to you, so that your life isn’t dictated by fear, but led by your values.
You don’t have to win the war against anxiety.
You can put down the weapons and walk away from the battlefield.
You can start living now, even with anxiety whispering in your ear.
And that is not weakness.
That is courage.
