 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 many times have you found yourself caught up entirely in another scary thought, strong feeling, or bodily sensation because it felt more important than usual than therefore worthy of examination? This is really common. We all do it sometimes, so don't beat yourself up when this happens. I did it plenty of times. Here's a quick tip that might prove useful when it comes to this particular situation. Jot down what you're feeling, thinking, or experiencing. Just make a brief note of what you're afraid of, unsure of, or worried about in that moment. This is not an invitation to sit down and write 5,000 words attempting to figure out your anxiety. Just a quick note we'll do. Take the title of that note, This Feels Important. Do this before you take your fear to your safe person, friends, family, online support group, or whatever. Keep all your This Feels Important notes in one place, in a notebook or on your phone, or whatever works for you. There is no right or wrong in this. Over time, you will build yourself a little collection of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that all felt really important at the moment. Can you see where this is going and how this can be a useful tool? When you've built your little collection of momentarily important thoughts or feelings, you can refer back to it next time you find yourself in that same situation. When you have a new thought, feeling, or sensation, go to your This Feels Important journal and be reminded of the repeating pattern. When we see our repeating patterns of behavior in black and white, we get a jolt of much needed objectivity and reality. We can use this to help us disengage the gears and jump off the hamster wheel. Again, it's important for me to say that I'm not talking about delving into every thought you have and engaging in analysis designed to solve or figure it out. This is just a little tool that can help point out what you're doing so that you can maybe not do it again. Maybe it'll work for you, maybe it won't, but it's at least worth considering. 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 slash support. Thanks so much.