The Achoo! Excuse My Anxiety Series
Achoo!
Excuse me.
That’s what most of us learned to say after sneezing.
Perhaps someone responds, “Bless you.”
We smile.
Maybe we reach for a tissue.
And life goes on.
But imagine if we had a similar way of recognizing when our anxiety was beginning to affect the people around us.
“Achoo! Excuse my anxiety.”
Sounds a little ridiculous, doesn’t it?
Maybe.
But stay with me.
Because anxiety has an interesting quality.
It can be contagious.
A little like a cold or the flu.
Except nobody has to sneeze on you to spread it.
Nobody Sneezed. But Something Spread.
Imagine walking into your home after a difficult day.
You’re frustrated.
Tired.
Worried about something at work.
Perhaps running through tomorrow’s responsibilities in your head.
You haven’t said a word about any of it.
But your shoulders are tight.
Your responses are shorter than usual.
Your facial expressions are different.
Perhaps your tone of voice has changed.
Someone you love notices.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Except maybe you don’t sound particularly fine.
Now the other person begins wondering whether something is wrong.
Perhaps they become anxious.
Maybe they ask another question.
You respond with frustration because you feel like you’ve already answered.
They become frustrated because they were simply trying to check on you.
And suddenly, two people are having a difficult interaction that neither one particularly wanted.
Nobody sneezed.
But something spread.
Of course, anxiety isn’t literally an infectious illness.
We don’t transmit it through germs.
But humans are remarkably sensitive to one another’s emotional expressions, tone of voice, behavior, and reactions.
Sometimes we begin responding to another person’s distress before we even recognize what’s happening.
And in families, where people spend so much time learning one another, those patterns can become especially familiar.
The Emotional Weather at Home
Think about the people you grew up around.
Perhaps you knew when your mother was having a difficult day before she said a word.
Maybe you could recognize your father’s mood by the way he walked through the front door.
Perhaps you noticed that when one parent became anxious, the other became frustrated.
Or when one person was upset, everyone else became unusually quiet.
Nobody necessarily explained what was happening.
You just learned.
Children can become remarkably good students of the emotional environments in which they grow up.
They notice faces.
They listen to voices.
They recognize routines.
They become familiar with what tends to happen when someone is frustrated, worried, disappointed, or overwhelmed.
And those experiences may become part of what they carry into their own relationships later in life.
Of course, that doesn’t mean every anxious parent creates an anxious child.
Human development is far more complicated than that.
Children have different temperaments, experiences, relationships, and ways of responding to the same environment.
And loving families can experience plenty of anxiety without becoming unhealthy families.
But it does mean that our emotional experiences can influence the people around us.
Sometimes in ways we recognize.
Sometimes in ways we don’t.
Anxiety Can Become a Family Activity
Let’s imagine a family getting ready to leave the house.
They’re already running late.
One parent is trying to find the car keys.
The other is reminding everyone that they were supposed to leave ten minutes ago.
One child can’t find a shoe.
Another suddenly remembers something they absolutely must bring.
And the dog has apparently decided this is the perfect time to run into the backyard.
Now everyone is moving faster.
Voices are getting louder.
Someone becomes frustrated.
Someone else starts crying.
The parent looking for the keys becomes even more anxious because everybody else is now anxious.
And somehow the entire family is having an emotional experience that began with something relatively ordinary.
Being late.
Or perhaps it began long before that.
Maybe one parent was already worried about work.
Maybe the other didn’t sleep well.
Maybe a child was nervous about school.
Maybe everyone brought a little something into the morning.
Then life happened.
And all those little experiences began interacting with one another.
That’s one of the interesting things about families.
We don’t simply experience our own emotions.
We also live alongside the emotions of the people we love.
And sometimes we respond to their emotions with emotions of our own.
Before long, anxiety can become a family activity.
Not necessarily a fun one.
And certainly not one anybody intentionally signed up for.
Calm Can Be Contagious Too
But here’s something I find particularly encouraging.
Calm can be contagious too.
Not always.
And not because we have the power to control another person’s emotional experience.
We don’t.
But when we become better at tolerating our own anxiety, we may also become less likely to unintentionally amplify the anxiety of the people around us.
Imagine returning to that family getting ready to leave the house.
The keys are still missing.
Someone still can’t find a shoe.
The dog is still in the backyard.
And everyone is still running late.
But this time, one parent notices the tension.
Perhaps they pause.
Take a breath.
Lower their voice.
And say something like:
“Okay. We’re running late. Let’s figure out what we actually need to do.”
Nothing magical happened.
The keys didn’t suddenly appear.
The dog didn’t develop an appreciation for punctuality.
And the family may still arrive late.
But the emotional climate may begin to change.
One person became a little more regulated.
And that created an opportunity for other people to respond differently too.
Not a guarantee.
An opportunity.
That’s an important distinction.
We cannot make another person calm.
But we can become more intentional about what we’re contributing to the interaction.
And sometimes that matters tremendously.
Five Things We Might Gain
As we develop greater anxiety tolerance, we may discover benefits that reach far beyond simply feeling less anxious.
Some of those benefits can show up in surprisingly ordinary parts of everyday life.
First, we may become the calm in someone else’s storm.
Imagine your child is overwhelmed, your romantic partner is frustrated, or a family member is having a particularly difficult day.
Instead of immediately joining the emotional tornado, perhaps you can remain present.
Listen.
Become curious.
Offer comfort.
Or simply sit beside someone while they experience something difficult.
You don’t have to fix everything.
Sometimes being emotionally available is more useful than having the perfect solution.
And sometimes the person we love doesn’t need another person telling them how to feel.
They just need someone willing to stay with them while they feel it.
Second, we may become better at recognizing the difference between a molehill and a mountain.
Not every inconvenience deserves a five-alarm fire response.
Sometimes a missed phone call is just a missed phone call.
A delayed text is just a delayed text.
Someone having a different opinion doesn’t automatically mean the relationship is in trouble.
And the dishwasher?
Well, perhaps it can wait another fifteen minutes.
That doesn’t mean we should ignore important problems.
It means we may become better at recognizing which problems actually require our immediate attention.
And which ones can wait until after dinner.
Third, we may make better decisions when life becomes stressful.
Anxiety can make everything feel urgent.
We need an answer.
Right now.
We need to solve the problem.
Immediately.
We need to know exactly what’s going to happen.
Preferably before it happens.
But life doesn’t always cooperate with those expectations.
As our ability to tolerate anxiety grows, we may become more comfortable slowing down long enough to consider our options.
Instead of allowing anxiety to immediately grab the steering wheel, perhaps we can remain the driver.
We can experience a feeling without automatically handing it control of our next decision.
And sometimes a little space between feeling and responding can make an enormous difference.
Fourth, our relationships may become more enjoyable.
Imagine being able to disagree with someone you love without immediately becoming defensive.
Or noticing that your romantic partner is upset without assuming you’re responsible for fixing it.
Perhaps we can listen a little longer.
Become curious a little sooner.
Recognize when we’re beginning to feel overwhelmed.
Take a break when we need one.
Return to the conversation when we’re ready.
And remember that two people can experience the same situation differently without either person needing to be the villain.
We can be close to someone and still be different from them.
We can love someone and disagree with them.
We can care deeply about another person’s feelings without needing to manage those feelings for them.
That kind of emotional freedom can create more room for genuine connection.
And fifth, we may discover a little more freedom and adventure.
Freedom to try something new.
To take a healthy risk.
To have a difficult conversation.
To make a mistake.
To let someone disagree with us.
To pursue something meaningful even when the outcome is uncertain.
To enjoy a wonderful moment without immediately worrying about what might go wrong next.
That last one matters.
Because sometimes anxiety doesn’t simply make difficult experiences harder.
Sometimes it gets in the way of enjoying the good ones.
We can become so busy preparing for what might happen tomorrow that we miss something beautiful happening today.
And perhaps that’s one of the more meaningful reasons to strengthen our ability to tolerate anxiety.
We Don’t Have to Manage Everyone’s Feelings
There’s another important part of this conversation.
Developing anxiety tolerance doesn’t mean becoming responsible for keeping everyone else calm.
That would be an exhausting assignment.
And probably an impossible one.
Our romantic partners will still have difficult days.
Our children will still become frustrated.
Our parents may still worry.
Our siblings may still disagree with us.
Our friends may still experience disappointment.
And sometimes the people we love will be anxious even when we’re doing everything we can to remain calm and supportive.
That’s okay.
Their anxiety doesn’t automatically mean we’ve done something wrong.
And our anxiety doesn’t automatically mean they’ve done something wrong either.
We can care about another person’s emotional experience without assuming responsibility for controlling it.
We can offer support without becoming the solution to every problem.
We can remain connected without needing everyone to feel the same way.
And perhaps we can become more comfortable allowing the people we love to have emotional experiences that are different from our own.
That isn’t indifference.
It’s recognizing that we are separate human beings who can remain connected.
A Little More Awareness. A Little More Choice.
As we bring this series to a close, I want to return to something we established at the beginning.
Anxiety isn’t always bad.
Sometimes it protects us.
Sometimes it motivates us.
Sometimes it helps us recognize that something matters.
And sometimes it becomes more intense, more frequent, or more influential than we would like.
That’s part of being human.
We’re going to experience anxiety.
The people we love are going to experience anxiety too.
Sometimes we’ll recognize it early.
Sometimes we’ll notice it only after we’ve already reacted in a way we wish we hadn’t.
Perhaps we’ve raised our voice.
Become defensive.
Withdrawn.
Tried to control something.
Or allowed a difficult day to become a difficult evening for everyone around us.
That doesn’t mean we need to spend the rest of the night criticizing ourselves.
Perhaps we can simply become curious.
What was happening?
What was I feeling?
What was I thinking?
What was I trying to accomplish?
What might I want to do differently next time?
And if our anxiety affected someone we love, perhaps we can acknowledge that too.
Not with shame.
Not with a long explanation about why our behavior was actually someone else’s responsibility.
But with a little honesty.
Maybe even a little humor.
“Achoo! Excuse my anxiety.”
Of course, saying that doesn’t replace an apology or repair when we’ve hurt someone.
But perhaps it can become a playful reminder that our anxiety is something we can recognize, take responsibility for, and learn to respond to differently.
We don’t have to become perfect at this.
We don’t have to remain calm in every situation.
And we certainly don’t have to eliminate anxiety from our lives.
Perhaps we can simply become a little more aware.
A little more curious.
A little more intentional.
We can learn to recognize what belongs to us, what belongs to someone else, and what doesn’t necessarily need to become everybody’s problem.
We can become more comfortable with discomfort.
We can love people without needing to manage every feeling they have.
We can experience anxiety without allowing it to make every decision for us.
And maybe, just maybe, the next time anxiety shows up and spills into a conversation with someone we love, we’ll recognize what’s happening a little sooner.
We might even smile and say:
“Achoo! Excuse my anxiety.”
Because the goal was never to live a life without anxiety.
Perhaps the goal is to learn how to live, love, and enjoy life without allowing anxiety to call all the shots.