The Prison of Lacking Language

[More on Fear – II]

Your anxiety is like a prison, isn’t it? Mine sure is.

No walls, no bars, no guards outside monitoring my every mood, and yet when it strikes, all of those controlling forces might as well be in place.

This is how fear works: it locks us into place, steals our freedom of choice, removes our ability to think clearly, and renders us prisoners.

The keys are not medication, necessarily.
The keys are not a self-help book or a guru or religious experience.
The keys, at least some of the time, is language.

Find the words to name the feelings, the exact phrases to articulate the sensations, and the prison walls begin to crumble.

There’s a liberating power in words.
Find them. Speak them. Write them.
To others, but mostly to yourself.