This spring, I took my first trip since 2020 on Atlanta’s mass transit train (MARTA).

I planned to escort an out-of-town visitor on MARTA to catch her return flight. The train ride would allow us to extend our visit without having to face Atlanta’s epic traffic.

But soon after we set the plan, bad stuff started happening around the country.

First, the Buffalo (NY) mass shooting. Followed by one at an elementary school in Uvalde (TX). For more than a week after that, the newspapers carried daily reports of shootings throughout the US.

Suddenly, grocery stores weren’t safe. Nor elementary schools. Or churches, flea markets or medical facilities.

The night before the MARTA ride, I lay awake, wondering if it was REALLY safe to take the train.

Why should I believe public transit was safer than any other public location?

I tossed and turned, wondering if we should drive instead.

Living In Interesting Times

My MARTA train monster that haunted my night started to disappear in light of day.

Yet, I couldn’t deny that my sleeplessness was the cumulation of months, actually years, of navigating a world that no longer felt predictable.

And it wasn’t my unique journey. The whole human race is experiencing it.

This steady buzz of anxiety throughout the population. It’s showing up through news casts and social media. Zoom calls. Chats with neighbors.

It took hold quickly with the COVID epidemic, which threw us all for a loop.

The aftershocks seem even worse, probably because they’re hitting wave after wave.

High gas and food prices. Climate disasters. Stores without life-critical supplies. Saber rattling between nuclear nations. Sketchy rabble-rousers, some armed, at our festivals and parades.

We all seem to be caught in a cosmic washing machine stuck on the agitation cycle.

We’re disoriented by a world we don’t recognize. Anxious about the future. Angry at our lack of control. Angrier still at leaders who seem to be either asleep at the wheel or exploiting opportunities in our crises.

The long-term wear-and-tear of interesting times, mixed with stress-as-usual, is enough to make anyone lie awake at night.

Another Perspective

Here’s a provocative thought.

“If you have anxiety right now, you are almost hopeful.”

The quote comes from a YouTube video.by minister Nadia Bolz-Weber (The Narcissist’s Footnote).

When I first heard her two-minute talk, that statement hit me like a bolt of lightning.

Of course, this is true!

That’s because our anxiety always focuses on something going badly in the future.

It believes if you don't pay attention, something could go terribly wrong. 

But it also believes you still have the ability to makes things turn out okay. It wants to you to wake up,  assess your situation and course-correct toward the better outcomes. 

Anxiety is uncomfortable because that's how it motivates you.  

YOUR first step is to hold both the worse-case scenario and a best-case scenario in your imagination.

That's how you start turning anxiety into hope. 

Give Anxiety an Audience

The second step is to give anxiety some respectful attention.

Unfortunately, welcoming anxiety goes against conventional self-help wisdom. Instead, we’re advised to push anxiety away and move forward in spite of it:

 Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Put anxiety in the back seat of the car and turn up the radio!

Pull up your britches and get on with it!

Yet anxiety is worthy of respect. It’s a message from our intuitive intelligence, which frequently accesses our personal archive of “things that went wrong,” both in our own lives and others.

From these past experiences, our intuition will send us “red alert” signals, aka “anxiety,” when it detects signs of danger ahead.

Anxiety was one of our early ancestors’ best survival tools.

Get the Facts

Once you acknowledge your anxiety’s signals, you need to get clear on facts.

Because, while anxiety is smart, it isn’t always right. In fact, it’s usually lacking critical details.

For example, my anxiety perceived MARTA to be as dangerous as the location of other recent shootings.

But that was the wrong comparison. Instead, I needed to compare the safety of taking the train against driving my car.

That comparison looks like this:

• Atlanta has approximately 100 car accidents per day.
• I found no newspaper accounts of mass shootings on MARTA trains. Ever.
• I’ve personally experienced five car accidents in my lifetime.
• Not once did I encounter danger on a MARTA train in the 15 years I’ve used it.
• Simply reviewing the facts allowed me to both heed my anxiety AND make my own informed decision

This assessment alone eased 90% of my anxiety.

Create an Action Plan

Once you’ve done a good assessment of the facts and the future, you’re ready to take action.

And nothing makes anxiety feel better than doing something.

Ask yourself, what can I do right now to feel relieved or in control?

Often, the best first step is a plan.

Write it out. Engage friends and family when appropriate. Or use a friend or a coach as a sounding board.

The more ideas you generate and the more concrete steps you add, the better you’ll feel.

Plans may change. In fact, I’d bet on it.

But the process will make you feel much better.

Find Inspiration

It also helps to find role models. Can-do people who take on challenges.

I relied heavily on YouTube when the pandemic started.

 Remember washing our groceries? I learned how to do it from an ER doctor on YouTube.

It didn’t end up being necessary, but taking small action eased my pandemic anxiety.

Now, as rising prices eat away at our income, ingenious penny-pinchers on social media are showing us how to create palatable meatless meals, grow vegetables on our balconies, and do our own home repairs.

They aren’t waiting for the Federal Reserve to eventually solve their cash flow. They’re doing it themselves. Now.

But the role models I admire most are the community members who ban together and address big problems that our lawmakers won’t touch.

After the Uvalde shooting, I was distraught over “no one is doing anything about gun violence.”

Then, I learned about Sandy Hook Promise, an organization started by parents and dedicated to teaching school children to spot and get help for classmates at risk for committing violence or suicide. Members of this organization have saved lives by taking action on their anxiety.

In other words, someone WAS doing something. I just didn’t notice because I was looking in the wrong direction.

These community members still support better gun laws. They aren’t letting lawmakers off the hook.

But they also aren’t waiting around for others to make their communities safer. And because of they took action, lives were saved.

When we allow anxiety to inspire us, we take action. And we improve our odds of reaching the best-case scenario.

And when we work together, the odds get even higher.

And that’s how we convert anxiety to hope.