I’ll handle it!
I’ve mentioned it before, I’m sure, but one of my all-time favourite self-help books is Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway by Dr. Susan Jeffers.
I picked up a copy on CD some time in 2000 (that’s what we did before audiobooks were a thing, for the benefit of any younger readers 😉), and I listened to it on repeat in my car as I drove up and down the motorway every week from Bolton to Maidenhead and back, a round trip of about 500 miles.
Sadly Dr. Jeffers passed away in 2012, but I highly recommend her book, which is only a couple of quid on Kindle on Amazon UK, or you can probably pick up a copy at your local library.
In October 2022, my last ‘romantic’ relationship ended, and I found myself living alone for the first time in almost a decade and a half. While I’d never been all that dependent on my ex partner, I now found myself facing an uncertain future and with the weight of all the decisions/bills/chores very firmly on my shoulders.
It was an uncertain time, I’m not going to lie. While I’d sat down with spreadsheets galore before even putting in an offer for my little house, and had done my best to estimate the monthly bills I’d need to pay, there was still an element of doubt in my mind, and of course, I needed to set up a new home, buying white goods, quite a bit of furniture and paying for legal fees as well as removals.
I knew it’d be a few months, even perhaps as long as a year, before I’d be sure I hadn’t made a mistake, financially-speaking.
Along with all of the above, I was also going through a grieving process. I first read this quote in a post from the marvellous Mrs. Hinch on Instagram:
“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot.
All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest.
Grief is just love with no place to go.” ― Jamie Anderson
It’s facing a future which isn’t the one you thought you had, and while my ex hadn’t passed away, the person I thought I knew, the man I assumed was going to be my best friend forever, was gone.
I’ve always been a pretty fear-based an anxious kind of a person, a product of my upbringing, as so many folks are, due to my mum and her own difficult upbringing, and I know I’m far from being alone in that.
People who know me in real life might be surprised to read that, but I’m but like a swan, I think (or at least a duck! 🦆) - appearing serene and purposeful to others, the kind of person who’s got it all together on the surface, and yet sometimes I’m actually kicking my feet madly, under the surface. Again, I don’t think I’m alone in putting on a brave face for others.
But this experience, along with the grief I was processing was bringing out new levels of anxiety in me, and oddly, I found myself falling back on materials I’d loved almost a quarter of a century earlier.
I tend to do this with music, too - if I don’t listen to enough music during the week, I find really old random tunes popping into my head. Last week it was The Combine Harvester by The Wurzels (you probably know how it goes).
Just in case you don’t, I just found this gem, you’re welcome!
Anyway, the thing I kept hearing in my head, when anxiety threatened to paralyse me, were Dr. Jeffers’ words, ringing out in my mind, across the decades:
I’ll handle it!
This interrupted my anxious thoughts, stopping them from running away with me, and giving me the opportunity to take a breath and to reflect on all the difficult and scary things I’d handled over the course of my life.
Did it solve all my problems? Nope.
But it gave me some comfort and allowed me to reframe things in the moment, to drag my thoughts away from a hellish potential outcome, and into the present moment, reminding me that what I can control is what actions I take in the here and now, and not the past or the future.
And you know what? Dr. Jeffers was right. I did handle it. Every challenge and issue I needed to sort out got resolved, and my financial calculations turned out to be correct.
So, pick up a copy of the book, or have a look at this YouTube video which summarises it pretty well:
So, what do you think? Is this simple three-word phrase something you can bring into your day, by dropping it into your thoughts and providing a way of pulling yourself back on course when things threaten to get out of control?