Brianna Wiest - The Mountain Is You_ Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery (2020)

114 BRIANNA WIEST
Do you ever have the hunch that you’re almost seeking
out problems, creating issues where they don’t exist, overreacting,
overthinking, and catastrophizing?
If you said “yes” to these, congratulations, you’re self-aware.
You’re also just like anybody else.
If you feel like you’re always subconsciously scanning your
life trying to identify the next thing to worry about, the
next potential threat to fear, you’d be right.
What we fear most is what our minds identify as the least
likely threat that we cannot control. If the threat is highly
likely, we don’t fear it—we respond to it. That’s why most
worry comes from not just identifying the one thing we
cannot control, but the one small, unlikely thing we cannot
control.
So why do our minds need this, though?
Can’t we just enjoy what we have and be grateful?
To a point, absolutely.
But our minds also need adversity, and that’s why it’s instinctual
to keep creating problems—even if there aren’t
any real ones in front of us.
The human mind is something called antifragile, which