What if your anxiety is a smoke alarm, and your body is working perfectly?
Dr. John Delony, a mental health expert with two PhDs, sat down with Lewis and said the thing most of us dodge: if you are awake at 2:30 in the morning, something in your life is on fire. Numbing it with a drink or a screen is like duct taping a pillow over the alarm while the house burns around you.
Then he got personal. While he was writing Building a Non-Anxious Life, his wife walked into his basement gym and told him, “I’m watching my husband die,” and then, “John, we have enough.” His little girl would not hug him, and in counseling he could not put a fist to his chest and say “I love this guy.”
Back then he would have rated himself a zero out of ten on being enough. Now he says nine, and his daughter uses him as a jungle gym. He and Lewis also talk about why “me over us” hurts so many relationships and how paying off debt let him grieve a cousin without a single worry about money.
You’ll finish this one wanting to put your phone down and ask what your own alarm has been trying to tell you about your marriage and your kids.
Redefining Anxiety: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and How to Get Your Life Back
