 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. Not everyone fears a heart attack. Some members of the community fear emotions. For these people, panic and anxiety become nightmares because of the emotional states they produce. Feeling anxious or experiencing panic means feeling a wide range of emotions including fear, vulnerability, disappointment, anger or sadness. For our friends that are having a hard time handling these emotions, feeling these things will drive them to reach conclusions about being permanently broken, never getting better, being defective, being weak or being a disruption or disappointment to their loved ones. Anxiety creates emotions than those emotions themselves are seen as failures or disasters. Commonly, this is the result of being fused with our emotions. When fused with our emotions, one may believe that they ARE their emotions. This can often lead one to declare that emotions are indicators of worth or value. Success or failure is based on emotional outcomes. Did I feel the right way? This often appears in the realms of parenting or intimate relationships. For example, feeling anxious while interacting with a child leads to sadness based on the mistaken idea that a good parent would not be anxious around their child. Another common scenario involves feeling anxiety while interacting with a life partner or during times of physical intimacy. The mistaken belief that a good partner would only be happy or joyful during these interactions leads to declarations of failure or brokenness. This can create a really nasty self-fueling cycle. Anxiety creates feelings of failure, which then create negative emotional states like sadness, which themselves get judged as failure, which then leads to additional emotions and the cycle is ignited. In a situation where emotions are your feared disaster, you will find yourself avoiding, not based on the usual fears, but based on feelings of failure or confirmation of weakness. Most people might refuse to drive on the highway because they fear that panic means a heart attack or passing out. But some refuse to drive on the highway because having a panic attack while driving means they are failing and confirms the self-belief that they are broken and will never get better. Important, you are not your emotions. Your emotions do not determine who you are. They only reflect what you are experiencing. So how does one approach this situation? Well, the same rules apply in a general sense. While other members of the community may have to learn how to move through the fear of death or loss of control, you will have to learn to move through those feelings of failure and the negative self-judgments. Just because I think I am weak does not mean I am. I can allow these emotions, recognize them as part of being alive, and show myself that I can handle them. I understand that this is a tall order. If you've spent a lifetime seeing your emotions as confirmation that you are weak or broken, this will not be an easy shift to make. This can be hard work, but we don't need easy here, only possible. Tomorrow, we'll continue with a look at some common misconceptions about emotions. 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.