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Why Anxiety Makes You Great
The Dizziness of Possibility
Ugh, that feeling of dread/angst/anxiety. We have all felt it. It’s natural to try to escape it, find a way to stop the struggle and push against the feeling. After all, it’s that old fight or flight response acting up. It’s in our DNA. We can’t help it, right?
While it’s true that the amygdala in our brain manages the fight or flight response, protecting us from harm (it presumes), and some of us experience greater degrees of dread and angst, we do not have to to struggle to survive in a state of anxiety because we have a choice.
It’s because of anxiety we become aware of our potential.
In his 1844 timeless best seller, The Concept of Anxiety, Soren Kierkegaard referred to anxiety as the ‘dizziness of freedom.’ He wrote that we all have complete freedom to choose (even if it’s an action that most scares us) and it is for that reason we experience anxiety.
The feeling of anxiety is “freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility.”
— It is the awareness of our freedom that scares us.
Instead of holding you down, anxiety empowers your creativity. You get dizzy with possibilities and although the feeling can be unpleasant at times, in this way you grow and develop
