Happiness Weekly Woo-Woo: How do you deal with anxiety?

I'm admitting that the word "weekly" in the post title may be aspirational, but my purpose is to periodically (weekly-ish) share some of the good stuff I've heard, read, or otherwise come across as I'm working my way out of The Suck. Some of it is inspirational. Some of it is instructional. Some of it is saccharine self-help psychobabble. Some of it is spiritual. Some of it just made me think. The term "woo-woo" encompasses all of those things accurately, I think.

I got a lot of good woo-woo out of the book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, so you might be seeing future woo-woo from her as well. (aside: For some reason I feel slightly less pathetic reading self-help books when they're written by Ph.D.s, as was also the case of the excellent book The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky, which I recently borrowed from Loud.)

One of the things Brown talks about is becoming aware of your default response to anxiety so you can better understand why you respond to conflict or stress in certain ways and can better control your responses. When faced with anxiety, Brown says, we have a conditioned tendency to one of two responses:

1. Overfunctioning. In this case, we tend to take over a stressful situation, micromanage, and try to control things. The remedy to this is, when faced with anxiety, recognize that you are feeling anxiety, look inward, and embrace your vulnerability.
2. Underfunctioning. People who underfunction in response to anxiety let others take over and become less competent at dealing with the situation. They may become the disaster of the family or circle of friends, the one who everyone feels the need to look after. The remedy for underfunctioners is to find ways to amplify strenths and competencies in the face of anxiety.

So, how do you respond to anxiety and stress? Do you overfunction or underfuntion?

My natural inclination is to overfunction, micromanage, control, cover, make everyone feel better, do more, etc., etc. When I blew out my circuits, I think I withdrew, ignored, and became an underfunctioner in some areas of my life. Now, of course, my task is to learn to face anxiety without over- or underfunctioning, by standing still, staying peaceful, telling myself and others the truth about the situation (without shame or judgment), doing the best I can, and then detaching from feeling responsible for everything that happens and what everyone else feels. Heh, no problemo, right? It's a big task. Right now I'm focusing on two parts of this monumental process of re-learning how to deal with anxiety (with full recognition that life = anxiety):

1. Telling the truth, mostly to myself, about the reality of any given situation - neither judging too harshly nor explaining or justifying away ickiness, just telling it like it is and accepting it.
2. Making commitments very carefully, to myself and others, so I always mean and do what I say and don't rope myself into things that are wrong and untrue and resentment-making for me.

The summary of all of this thinking is captured in one succinct quote, also from Brown's book. It tells me what to do when I'm faced with stress, anxiety, or conflict. It is one of those things that, like most things that are profoundly true, is incredibly simple and incredibly difficult at the same time. It speaks to boundaries and respect. It has become somewhat of a mantra to me over the past few weeks. It is something that, when practiced, is powerful and empowering. It is this: When faced with anxiety or stress or conflict or anything hard:

"Don't shrink. Don't puff up. Stand your sacred ground."