Anxiety's Great Equalizer: What's the Worst that Could Happen?

I was on the phone with my mother when we were in our car on our way to the gym. I would work out, and the boys would play in an awesome indoor area called "The Adventure Zone" with ball pits, slides, climbing tubes and rope ladders. I had her on speaker phone and was sharing my good news.

"Our credit is so good, mom, that I was able to get a home equity line of credit with a seriously low, fixed APR! Now we can pay off the high interest credit card and finish the patio project!"

"You're going to lose the house!"

That was her first thought because of her experiences with debt. When she was married to my father, they had some big financial issues; maybe it's a generational thing, but she was hesitant to say no to my dad when he wanted to buy something we couldn't afford, like a bigger house or a new car. So when I told her what I thought was good news, her first thought was that, like my father had done in the past, we would be "robbing Peter to pay Paul."

While I completely understood her concern, and I knew where the exclamation came from, our 5 year-old in the back seat did not. To my mother, I said:

"Mom, we have plenty of equity in the house to cover this debt. I'm being smart about this. We incurred some very high interest debt a few years ago and this will save us more than $130 each month in interest on that debt. We'll be fine."

The boys and I had a great time at the gym for the next couple of hours. When I was done with my workout, we went swimming together and laughed a lot. The conversation with my mother was the furthest thing from my mind when we were driving home. That's when our older son told me he wanted to have a lemonade stand the next day.

"Sure, Jacob, that sounds great! We can stop by the grocery store on our way home and pick up supplies. I'll invest my money in supplies, and then you can pay me back. Whatever is left over is for you to keep. Does that sound good?"

"No, mommy. I want you to keep all the money so you can pay the mortgage. I don't want to lose the house."

My 5 year-old son was worried that we might lose our family home. I explained to him that the mortgage was not something he should be worried about, and that what I said to my mother about not losing the house was the absolute truth. And then my eyes filled with tears as I calmly asked him these questions:

"Let's pretend for a second that something happened and we couldn't pay for our house any more. We would sell it, right? And then we would move into something a bit smaller, like an apartment. Would that be so bad? As long as we are all together, with a roof over our heads and enough food to eat, I think that's what really matters. What do you think?"

He agreed. "I love our house, mom, and I love my friends, so I wouldn't want to leave. But as long as you and daddy, Max and Puddley (our yellow lab) are with me, I guess that's ok. We wouldn't move away from my friends, right?"

That conversation comes back to me every time I'm stressed about finances and other anxieties. That's why I ask myself these questions when I feel my anxiety ramping up over anything: "What's REALLY the worst that could happen?" "What would I do in that situation?" "Is it likely that will happen, or what is the more likely scenario?"

As I mentioned in my comments on Rebel Brown's post, I'm not sure if it's the ADD, but these questions send my mind off in a totally different, much less anxiety-ridden direction. My brain is still full-on busy mode, engaged and noisy, but I'm more focused on action and less on the what-ifs of a situation. I'm guessing my friend Trent Selbrede can relate to this.

Thank you to Lisa Gallagher (her anxiety post is incredibly insightful) and Rebel Brown for the inspiration to put this story down; it has been in my head for many years and I never realized the impact that conversation had on me.

What about you? How do you deal with anxiety? I highly recommend you read Rebel's post and watch the video for another option.