 Welcome to the Anxious Morning, where each weekday morning we take a look at ideas, concepts and lessons designed to help you understand and overcome your anxiety. For more information, visit us at theanxiousmorning.com How are you feeling? This is a loaded question for people like us. If you have people in your life that know that you are struggling with an anxiety problem, the odds are high that you get asked this question quite often. There are variations on this theme, of course, but when we let the world know that we are anxious and afraid, at least some people in the world will make it a point to ask us about that on a regular basis. Is this a good thing? Are they wrong to ask us? Of course they're not wrong. People that care about us genuinely want to know how we're doing. They care about how we feel. They ask this out of concern, and as an expression of caring or love, they want us to feel good. I know I want my friends and loved ones to feel good if at all possible, but you know what else I want from my friends and my loved ones? I want them to feel powerful, strong and capable, almost as much as I want them to feel good. And why is this? Because feeling good or bad is like the wind. It's constantly shifting and changing, and when a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, the wind blows or someone has a panic attack in Oslo. Feeling good is nice, but it's not where we want to plant our flag. We want to plant our flag on solid ground that remains under our feet regardless of our mood or the weather. We want to feel and to know that we are powerful, strong and capable. It's much easier to feel good when you feel these things first. This brings us back to that magic question. How are you feeling? It does not necessarily serve us to answer that question constantly, so when we want to move forward, we must make a choice. We either have to work with the members of our support circle to teach them that they should not ask that question all the time, or we can choose to begin answering it in a new way. If we get asked all the time and we reply with a litany of our symptoms, thoughts and fears, we are choosing to camp deep in the heart of the disorder. The fleeting few seconds of relief we may experience by saying yet again that we are struggling and afraid is far outweighed by the obstacle-less places in the way of our progress. We should endeavor to be asked this question far less frequently because this will teach us that we do not have to automatically speak our fears out loud to be okay. And when asked, we should strive to answer more productively for the same reasons. Question. How are you feeling? Answer. I'm anxious today, but I'm learning that I can handle that without making a major issue of it. Let's talk about something else so I can practice getting better. Try that. You might find that it helps you stand just a bit straighter today. If you're enjoying The Anxious Morning and you'd like to get a copy of the podcast delivered into your email inbox every morning, visit theanxiousmorning.email and subscribe to the newsletter. If you're listening on Apple or iTunes, take a second and leave a five-star rating. Maybe write a small review. It really helps me out. And finally, if you find my work useful and you'd like to help keep it free of advertising and sponsorships, you can see all the ways to support the work at theanxioustruth.com. Thanks so much.