3 min read

Travel Anxiety

It's summer time! Now, to enjoy your hard-earned vacation time and take a break from the hustle and bustle of the 9 to 5 grind. You just need to get away—anywhere really. But wait, now you have to plan an entire vacation for yourself, your partner, and maybe even your family. That just seems like more work to do. Should we drive? Do we fly? Just thinking about this gives me anxiety...

OK, you decided to fly. You planned the trip and accounted for every detail. You make sure you have everything packed—and even packed a little extra. You arrive 2 and a half hours before your flight just to be safe. Surprisingly, TSA is a breeze and not the fist-clenching fiasco it normally is. You casually make your way to the gate. Then, you get a notification that your 7:30 am flight is now delayed, leaving at 10:15 am, and you have a connecting flight at noon. Terror and internal rage overtake you. How could this happen? Who's responsible for this? It must be the airline's customer service representatives. Is it fate? God must be giving me a sign. Someone let out a deep sigh. "No, no one is allowed to complain. Nobody is even allowed to breathe the wrong way or the 'travel deities' will punish us further." This was supposed to be the perfect trip.

Ironically, perfectionism and anxiety run hand in hand. Anxiety believes Murphy's Law—"What can go wrong, will go wrong." So, naturally, a perfectionist will take on the challenge to try to prevent everything that could go wrong from ever occurring. The only problem is that there are things and events that are simply outside our sphere of control. This presents us with a conundrum.

It is a commonly held belief that anxiety is a bad thing to experience. Conversely, at times, anxiety is what helps keep us alive in high-stress scenarios. Basically, there is a healthy level of anxiety. Unfortunately, we all operate on different levels. Biologically, we may produce heightened levels of anxiety hormones. Psychologically, we may have hyperactive thoughts which foresee outcomes or non-existent problems. Socially, our life experiences may have taught us that the world is, or certain events/scenarios are, grossly unsafe. Because our experiences can be unique in these areas, it leaves us all with a uniquely different range of personalized experiences with anxiety.

We all experience anxiety— justified or not. Finding a healthy level is crucial to overcoming it. Sometimes, it may be as simple as allowing anxiety to just be. Accepting that anxiety is there but also knowing that you don't have to respond to it can be life-changing.

In the famous words of Bob Wiley, played by Bill Murray in the 1991 classic, What About Bob? fictional psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), prescribes him to "...'Take a vacation from my problems.'" Like knowing when to leave a crappy job, also knowing when you are allowing your feelings of anxiety to serve you versus knowing when they are controlling you, is a skill that takes deep introspection and involves difficult self-work.

A licensed therapist is trained to help you travel on your journey far from the grips of anxiety. Are you willing to take the first step to book that journey?