When anxiety won’t let go
Why certain thoughts keep returning (and never feel settled).
3 Minute Read
Some Thoughts Come and Go Without Much Effort.
But, sometimes a thought comes in and you say, “Oh, I don’t like that, that’s terrifying.”
Those thoughts have a way of lingering.
They don’t feel finished.
Because they don’t feel finished, they won’t go.
You revisit them
Think them through
Try to land somewhere
But they never quite settle.
“Did I lock the front door?”
“Did I shut the garage door?”
“Did I turn off the oven?”
Like something is still open.
Still unresolved.
The Real Issue
What makes certain thoughts so difficult isn’t just that they come back–it’s that they never feel completey done.
And until they do, it feels hard to move on.
You have thousands of thoughts every day, most thoughts resolve into something like this:
“That’s fine.”
“That’s no big deal.”
“It will all work out.”
But the thoughts we are talking about, dont land anywhere near those.
They stay open ended.
They easily consume you.
The Illusion of Being Solvable
On the surface, these thoughts, fears, concerns, and nagging feelings seem like they would be solvable: If you just think about them long enough.
But no matter how much you analyze, rehearse, try to remember, negotiate, or try to solve or resolve–the answer never fully satisfies.
They simply won’t let go.
Like Bob Wiley, in the 90’s comedy “What about Bob?” the thoughts are always outside your door and they linger, and linger and linger.
They Moved The Finish Line
Even after enourmous effort and detailed scheeming, when you feel like you’ve reached the answer, the thought shifts.
A new angle.
A new “What If?”
And suddenly the question is open again and you start all over.
These thoughts often seem to ask for something very specific: Absolute certainty and assurance.
Not “good enough”
Not “it’s likely”
But absolute clarity and certainty.
And when that level isn’t reached, it doesn’t feel finished.
They Blur Thinking and Responsibility
At some level, the thought goes from something you’ve noticed to feeling like something you are required to solve.
Like ignoring it would be careless.
Or even wrong.
And that makes walking away feel difficult, very difficult.
The “One More Time” Snare
Sometimes you tell yourself or promise yourself that you will only engage with the compulsion one last time.
It can feel like:
“Let me just think through this one more time.”
“Let me just make sure, one last time.”
“I’ll double check one more time and then I’ll be good to go on.”
But “one more time” never seems to be enough.
The difficulty isn’t just that these thoughts come back. It’s that they never feel finished.
Hope For Today
However, recognizing the “One More Time” snare begins to change the question.
Because maybe the goal isn’t to finally resolve every thought, but to learn how to move forward, even when it doesn’t feel settled.
I understand that this is a hard reality to begin to realize, especially because the desire looks like:
“I just want this to go away”
“I really, really want to be done with this”
Those feeling are understandable and relatable.
However, the lived reality for most is that by trying to do everything they can to resolve and have that finished feeling, you end up only further getting ensnared.
To grow and change you have to learn how to move forward.
How to set one foot in front of the other, and keep going.
How to be able to allow the feeling of uncertainty to be there and not give it the attention it demands.
To be able to recognize, “This doesn’t feel finished, but I am recognizing that is something I struggle with and trying to gain certainty will only further drive me down the rabbit hole.”
This is where the counterintuitive part comes in: by starving the thought of attention—rather than continually engaging with it and trying to resolve it—you begin to weaken its hold.
As the old idea goes, a fire can't keep burning without something to feed it.
Every time you return to the thought to analyze, reassure, or resolve it, you may simply be adding another log.
Sometimes the way forward isn't to fight the fire harder—but to stop feeding it.
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