It’s okay. I’m okay. But today I have anxiety. All week it was building. I was overthinking and overworking and undersleeping. But I am fine. Yes I have the usual stuff. The stomach that feels like it is on a rollercoaster. The sense of electricity in my veins. The sharpness of things. The tingling. The tightness in my chest and head. The thoughts that can spiral at any moment. The breath that shakes in my diaphragm. I have been here many times. And it no longer feels like a failure or a descent like it used to. I no longer panic it up into a frenzy. It is like an injury that flares up from time to time, that is all. And when it does I have to be mindful of what I do and how I live and eat and hydrate and stretch and exercise and all that. I will run 5k each morning. Not too far but enough. I will eat whole foods and yoga and all that and I will be fine. I am already feeling more fine than earlier. I will always have little patches. That is just my weather system. It doesn’t stop me from knowing joy and contentment or acceptance or gratitude. I have an incredibly lucky life. I just also have a certain kind of mind that goes to certain places sometimes. I write things down for comfort the way I always did. But also: if you are going through something similar right now, know this: this isn’t unusual, this isn’t shameful, this isn’t defining us for ever, this isn’t our personality set in stone. This is something we experience. Maybe a lot, maybe a little. We are sensitive creatures in an unnatural society and we can feel life’s depths and its heights. Allow yourself not to be 100 per cent well. This isn’t a test. To feel better we sometimes have to learn how to live through the tougher days. To be respectful but not fearful of the fear. To be alive and grateful to exist and feel, knowing the sunshine after the storm is the best kind of all. And, if we look closely, we can see it shine behind the clouds. We aren’t what happens to us. We are how we respond to what happens to us. Beating anxiety isn’t for me about get