Breaking Down The Break Down--Anxiety In The Thinking Mind

We feel that we need to address anxiety in the Outlier mind as it is the most prevalent issue we have seen in Outliers.  This will be the first in a series of articles giving you tools to help overcome (not just manage, but overcome) anxiety.

Let's start with why Outliers have anxiety (to include OCD and panic disorder as well as generalized anxiety disorder).

On one hand anxiety in an Outlier seems reasonable:  the mind can almost make imaginary worlds crystallize for others to touch is a powerful mind that can understand the dangers and fears of life. 

However, it is the "heart" (or rather the emotional part of the brain) not the mind, that we are dealing with.  The young child who is cognizant enough to understand the ravages of war when his playmates are trying to learn how to tie their shoes has the brain to understand war, but not the emotional maturity to deal with what he knows.  The genius who understands that touching a lightpost does not prevent car accidents does not have the emotional wherewithal to follow his logic, not his fear.

At some point a person latches onto a fear--maybe they ran into a big dog that scared them.  Because the brain, especially the primal brain, wants to generalize, the fear grew from that dog to all big dogs to all dogs.  The logical part of the brain knows it was one dog and one time.  The primal part wants to avoid those bad feelings and therefore decides that all dogs are evil.  We have to learn not to let our primal brain be in charge of our lives.

The emotional center of the brain is primal and strong.  But is controllable and the Outlier can use his or her powerful mind to control the primal part of their brain.  We can control the emotions, not subduing them but directing them appropriately, using our minds.