52 Lists for Calm

It’s perfectly normal to experience stress and anxiety. Just likehappiness and anger have their reasons for existing within us, anxiety serves an important purpose as well. Anxiety has been
defined as “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.” Our body creates that anxious sensation (which can
manifest physically, cerebrally, and/or emotionally) for a purpose: to aid us in being aware of ourselves and our surroundings. But there are times when anxiety and stress can get out of hand,
when our body and mind go on high alert when it would serve us
better to experience calm.

Everyday stress that is manageable is different from a medically diagnosed anxiety disorder. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, forty million adults in the United States, age eighteen and older, live with an anxiety disorder, and I am one of them. I was diagnosed with anxiety in my early twenties, alongside depression. And what was misdiagnosed in my childhood as attention deficit disorder, or ADD, was later rediagnosed as complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or C-PTSD.

There is no one reason that anyone develops an anxiety disorder. For me, it was probably a combination of many things: learned behavior from my family (many of whom live with anxiety
and depression); an innate tendency to ruminate and overthink; a propensity for being very sensitive, intuitive, and empathic; the impact of traumatic experiences in my past; chemical imbalances in my body; allergies, inflammation, and gut issues—the list goes on. As you can see, it’s pretty tricky nailing down exactly why anxiety disorders happen, but with help, relief is possible.

This journal is not an anxiety-diagnosing tool. But what this journal does provide is a space for you to find calm in the everyday, so that you can manage stress and anxiety with more ease. You’ll get a chance to develop that positive and affirming voice within you: your intuition—that deep-down subliminal processing of information too complex for rational thought, which can help you
move through difficult situations with more clarity. You will learn to take the time to ground yourself in the present, so that you can get to know your inner world on a deeper level. You’ll get a chance to release your thoughts and feelings as you create your lists and try the guided exercises that go along with them. Each of them is specially designed to help you gain a new way to cope with and relieve stress, so that each day will become a little calmer.