I was driving one day, and I felt that sting of anxiety float into my chest. What was I worried about? I couldn’t tell you (which really should be the punchline of this story, but let’s continue).

I was letting my worries bounce around in my head like a pinball machine turned into a snowball. Growing bigger and bigger with every second. You might know the feeling. Like the walls are closing in, and you feel like your brain is 10,000lbs of pure worry.   “WHAT IF? THIS IS HORRIBLE!”.

I usually feel like when I have been consuming too much social media or watching the news too much. All things that are DESIGNED to sell advertising. In order to do that, they have to keep your eyes on the screen. The best way to do that is to scare the shit out of you. 

In that moment, I took a deep breath. It suddenly hit me. What if I zoomed out. What if I imagined myself on an airplane. Looking down at the earth below. Everything is so small. The worries down there….they are tiny.  Time happens differently in the air. You get from point A to point B in hours rather than days. It’s the reason we fly vs drive. 

If we imagine leaving all of our problems on the ground when we take to the skies, they look so damn tiny.

Maybe our problems are monumental. Maybe they are life altering. But no matter what you believe about “the afterlife”, we are only plopped on this earth for so long.  

Letting a problem consume us now, letting it take up our days, letting it stop us from seeing that 36,000ft view. It’s silly when you zoom out on it all.

Do I always think this way now? Well, hell no. But when I’m laying in bed worrying about viruses or mean people or money or my responsibilities or war or any other scary topic, I try to remember to zoom out.  Not in an effort to forget that awful things and hard times exist, but to ensure that I can keep moving forward. That I can be the best version of me. The best wife and mother that I can be. The best human being that I can be. That I can show empathy rather than letting my worries keep me from seeing others and holding them up.

Our time here is short.

But I’m choosing to, most days, take the HOURS flight through my anxiety, rather than walk in it with my head down for weeks.