“The bargain was this: Admit the anxiety as an essential part of yourself and in exchange that anxiety will be converted into energy, unstable but manageable. Stop with the self-flagellating and become yourself, with scars and tics.” — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“This is why therapists go to such lengths to urge their anxious patients away from intellectualization: The first step toward peace is disarmament.” — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“Freedom is anxiety's petri dish. If routine blunts anxiety, freedom incubates it. Freedom says, "Even if you don't want to make choices, you have… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“Singin' In the Rain might get you through an anxious week or two, but it won't get you through an anxious life. For that… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“It's like I've had a stroke. Do you think I've had a stroke?" "I don't think you've had a stroke." "But how do you… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“By the tie I arrived at the clinic I was typically so demoralized I could barely stand. I was twenty-three years old and I… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“One of the things anxiety educates you in is how deeply physical thought can be, how concrete. In anxiety, there is no time to… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“...Anxiety and panic happen to be mundane phenomena, i.e., even when they are caused by extraordinary things like war and rape, they tend to… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“If this all sounds melodramatic, well that, too, isn’t a bad metaphor for anxiety—as a kind of drama queen of the mind. If you… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“He isn’t trying to transform himself into something different; he’s trying to transform someone different back into himself.” — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“Freud was of the opinion that in fear a person is responding to a specific and immediate threat to physical safety while in anxiety… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
“To be anxious wasn’t shameful, it was a high calling. It was to be alive to life’s contradictions, more receptive to the true nature… — Daniel B. Smith Copy Share Image
