The Mountain Is You

HOW TO RESOLVE THIS
Work on building a circle of people who support and in-
spire you, who have similar goals and enjoy spending time 
with you. You should leave a get-together feeling ener-
gized and inspired, not exhausted and angry. 
It takes time to find your group of friends, and you may 
not discover that all at once. It could start with offering to 
take someone you admire out for coffee, or reaching out 
to do something with a person with whom you’d like to 
reconnect. Slowly but genuinely rebuild your connections, 
and then foster and care for them as much as you can. 
W O R R Y I N G A B O U T I R R AT I O N A L F E A R S 
A N D L E A S T L I K E LY C I R C U M S TA N C E S
Another very common way that people sabotage with-
out realizing is by preoccupying themselves with fears of 
worst-case scenarios. 
You’re probably familiar with this, at least to some degree: 
You have a weird or highly unlikely thought that evokes a 
deep sense of dread, fear, and series of “doomsday” scenar-
ios in your head. You then keep coming back to it to the 
point that it even controls some part of your life.
Irrational fears, especially the kind that are least likely to 
become reality, are often what we project real fears onto. 

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BRIANNA WIEST
THE MOUNTAIN IS YOU
These irrational fears are safe, because deep down we know 
they aren’t going to happen. They are placeholders, a way 
for us to express the feeling we really have onto something 
we know isn’t going to happen. 
When you find yourself in a fear cycle, constantly re-
peating some strange, random, or unimportant one-off 
circumstance or situation that has a very low probability 
of becoming reality, ask yourself if you have any feelings 
about something related that is actually valid. 
For example, if you get anxious about being a passenger in 
a car, consider if your fear is of “moving forward” or being 
“out of control.” Or, if you’re anxious about being fired from 
your job, the fear might really be the idea that you aren’t 
worthy of another job or being humiliated by a higher-up.