Everyday Life · · 4 min read
When Someone Else Sees It Too
Recently, my friend Andy sent me a video after reading Notice it… don't feed it.
It wasn't polished.
It wasn't scripted.
It wasn't filmed with perfect lighting or carefully chosen words.
It was just Andy speaking honestly about his experience.
And that is what made it so meaningful.
Andy is 43 years old and has struggled a lot with anxiety and depression. In the video, he shared how the idea of noticing what is happening inside, without continuing to feed it, has helped him reduce the snowball effect of anxiety.
That description stayed with me.
The snowball effect.
Because that is so often what happens.
A thought appears.
A feeling follows.
Then another thought is added.
We question why we feel this way.
We worry that it is getting worse.
We remember other times it happened.
We imagine what it might mean about the future.
Before long, the original thought or feeling has gathered so much more around it.
Not because we deliberately chose to make it bigger.
It just happened automatically.
One thought fed the next.
Andy didn't say that noticing made every difficult thought disappear.
He didn't claim anxiety was suddenly gone.
What he described was simpler and, in many ways, more realistic.
Noticing helped interrupt the snowball.
It helped him see what was happening before it gathered as much speed.
There was something else he said that really affected me.
This was the first book he had ever read from front to back in his life.
At 43 years old.
I could easily focus on the fact that I wrote the book.
I could turn it into a moment about being an author or receiving a good review.
But what I noticed more was the person behind the review.
Someone who has had his own struggles.
Someone who may not normally consider himself a reader.
Someone who found an idea simple enough to stay with, finish and begin using in his own life.
When I first started writing about this, it came from my own everyday experiences.
Thoughts while driving.
Cravings in shops.
Tension in relationships.
Self-consciousness.
The small internal moments that could easily grow if I kept following them.
Sometimes I still wonder whether the message is too simple.
Whether I need to make it sound deeper, more impressive or more complicated.
Then something like Andy's video arrives.
And I am reminded that the simplicity may be the point.
A thought appears.
A feeling appears.
Notice what is happening.
Don't keep adding to it.
Then gently return to the life in front of you.
Watching Andy speak reminded me that this journey is no longer only about what I notice in myself.
It is also about seeing what can happen when someone else recognises the same pattern.
Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
Just soon enough to stop feeding the snowball.