Answering emails or messaging other people can make us feel like we’re suffocating.

A tiny task can feel overwhelming and can petrify us. Sometimes we have to calm ourselves down just to send an email to someone we have known for years. At times, we don’t answer texts back or we leave messages unanswered because it’s so much easier to let it go, instead of interact.

We always, aways have to stay busy.

We have to stay busy to keep sane. Whether it be a creative outlet like singing or writing, or something like exercise to keep our mind from running away from us, we always have to be doing something. Anything to shut the voices out. Anything to calm down our thumping, burning hearts. Anything to keep us from exploding.

We constantly put ourselves down.

We may be successful in our careers. We may be great at our jobs. We may even get praised often. But do we believe it? No. In our career, in our personal life and in our love, we put ourselves down. We always think we can do better and we always put ourselves through so much stress just to get through one day.

We freak out over the tiniest of things.

We are incredibly mean to ourselves when we make mistakes, no matter how easy it was for us to make it. We beat ourselves up in our heads day in and day out. We don’t know how to tell ourselves that it is ok. It’s ok to fall and stumble. And everyone, and I mean everyone,makes mistakes.

We are people pleasers.

We love to make people happy even if that means making ourselves unhappy. We want our parents to be proud. We want guests to be happy 24/7 at a party we host. We want to make our bosses proud, and we want to make ourselves proud. However, anxiety makes us think that nothing we do is good enough.