Let’s look at two statements that might describe someone’s recovery situation at any given time.
“I’m engaging in living my life and doing what I want to do while I’m anxious.”
“I’m engaging in living my life and doing what I want to do but I’m anxious.”
At first look, they seem pretty similar. In fact, they are mathematically 94% similar. Only one word in 16 is different. Can you see the different word?
WHILE vs BUT
How many times do you hear me say or write that we are never trying to make anxiety go away or stop symptoms and thoughts? Pretty often, right? We all want it to go away. We all want the symptoms and thoughts to stop. It’s OK to want that, but it’s really important to accept that within the context of what I am writing about and teaching, that is a happy secondary effect, not a primary goal. Why does this matter in our little word game of while vs but?
It matters because learning to accept that that we CAN do life WHILE anxious, then using those experiences to teach us that we are still OK even when not feeling OK, is how we build that happy secondary effect trigger. We act WHILE anxious to form that new reaction to and relationship with anxiety that you hear me drone on about all the damn time. It’s that new reaction and relationship that creates the happy secondary outcome. We really want to live in the “WHILE” universe.
WHILE is better than BUT. WHILE moves us toward the outcome we all want but can’t get directly.
BUT, on the other hand, is resistance. BUT is rooted in the idea that recovery doesn’t work unless symptoms, thoughts, anxiety, and fear stop dead in their track. BUT is holding on to the idea that you should not feel things that you do not want to feel or think you are incapable of handling. When we live in the BUT universe, we are not allowing our experiences to teach us what we need to learn in order to get where we really want to go.
This is subtle, nuanced, and a little frustrating for sure.
If you want it to stop, you must accept that it may never stop and that you can handle it if that were to be the case. You must accept living WHILE anxious as something you can do even when you don’t want to do that. It’s not the want. It’s the can. We need WHILE to connect us to what we CAN do but previously insisted that we could not.
How is this useful in recovery? It becomes useful when you want to ask why you’re “doing things” but still feeling anxious, having thoughts, or experiencing symptoms that you don’t like. Before you dig to try to decipher what you’re doing wrong, how you may have been misdiagnosed, or how your anxiety is special because it lingers, first ask yourself one question.
Am I living WHILE anxious, or am I living BUT anxious?
It may seem like a silly question, but if you think about it for a few minutes, it can be very impactful.
Have a great weekend. I’ll see you on Monday.
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
198. Recovery Word Games: WHILE vs BUT