Recently I caught myself worrying about something that hadn’t even happened yet.
My mind was trying to prepare for every possible outcome.
How I’d cope.
What I’d do.
Whether I’d be enough.
Then I noticed something.
I wasn’t really afraid of what might happen.
I was afraid that, if it did happen, I wouldn’t be able to cope.
Once I saw that, I started noticing the same question hiding underneath many of my worries.
Anxiety Isn’t Always Predicting Disaster
For a long time I believed anxiety was trying to protect me from bad outcomes.
If I worried enough, perhaps I could avoid making mistakes.
Perhaps I could prepare for every possibility.
Perhaps I could finally feel safe.
But most of the time my anxiety wasn’t really asking me to solve a problem.
It was questioning something much more personal.
Can I trust myself?
Could I cope with rejection?
Could I cope with illness?
Could I cope if a relationship ended?
Could I cope if work became difficult?
Could I cope if I disappointed someone?
Looking Back Instead Of Forward
One day I realised something strange.
Whenever anxiety asked whether I could cope, it was asking as though there were no evidence.
As though my entire life had yet to happen.
But that isn’t true.
I’ve already lived through difficult relationships.
I’ve experienced rejection.
I’ve navigated uncertainty.
I’ve raised my son through days I didn’t know how to carry.
I’ve lived through periods of poor mental health.
I’ve experienced loneliness.
None of those experiences were easy.
I wouldn’t choose to repeat them.
But I did survive them.
More than that, I adapted.
I learned.
I asked for help when I needed it.
I kept going.
Anxiety was acting as though these challenges were still waiting somewhere in the future.
In reality, many of them had already become part of my history.
Trust Feels Different From Certainty
For years I thought the answer to anxiety was certainty.
If I could just know everything would work out, perhaps I could finally relax.
But life doesn’t offer certainty.
What it can offer is trust.
Not trust that nothing difficult will happen.
Trust that when something difficult does happen, I’ll probably find a way through.
One depends on controlling the future.
The other grows from remembering the past.
A Different Question
I still don’t know what the future holds.
None of us do.
But I’m beginning to realise that peace of mind doesn’t come from predicting the future.
It comes from trusting the person who will meet it.
I’ve already survived days I once believed would break me.
Perhaps that’s the evidence I’ve been overlooking all along.
So maybe the real question isn’t,
What if I can’t cope?
Maybe it’s this.
What if I’ve been underestimating my ability to cope all along?