We live in an older home, and my husband and I often lament its poor ventilation system. Smells from the kitchen will emanate in one of the bedrooms and the air quality reading on our air purifier quickly descends into less desirable readings when we make a simple pot of popcorn on the stove. It doesn’t take much smoke from our cooking for the smoke detector to go off. One time, the steam from a humidifier in my daughter’s bedroom set it off.
On the one hand, I’m thankful our smoke detector detects the faintest trace of smoke and alerts us. It keeps us safe, and I know that it’s doing its job. On the other hand, it can be annoying – not only the feeling of alarm it creates, but the need to then investigate and ask ourselves, is our house really on fire? Is there really a threat here? (Or does the battery need changing?)
Anxiety functions in much the same way. It’s not all bad – if I see my kid chase a ball that looks like it’s rolling into the street, my anxiety and fear scream, “DANGER!” and I run after her and yell at her to stop. My anxiety is doing its job and serving its God-given purpose of protection. I was recently talking with a client about a big life decision. She was feeling pressure to make a choice despite there being no deadline and despite not knowing what choice she wanted to make. Yet, she was feeling a sense of urgency, like I-have-to-figure-this-out-right-now! When we considered her anxiety as functioning like a smoke detector, we were able to notice how the alarm was pointing towards something she really cared about – the subject matter of this decision. The sense of urgency and need to figure out her decision immediately was telling her there was a fire and a threat to the subject matter, but upon investigation, she realized there really wasn’t an immediate threat – she could take her time to consider her options and make a decision, despite the present uncertainty. Her discomfort around not knowing what her decision would be did not disappear, but she was able to notice the alarm existed because it alerted her to something she cares about, and while she will have to make a decision eventually, there is no immediate threat present.
