When anxiety shows up, we often focus on managing symptoms or finding quick relief. But there’s value in stepping back and reflecting on the personal qualities we want to carry us through.
When anxiety arises, who do I want to become in response? How do I want to treat myself in such a situation?
These questions help us figure out how to engage with difficulty in ways that don’t make things harder for ourselves. What follows are three qualities that are especially helpful for supporting your mental health when anxiety feels overwhelming.
key takeaways
Humanitarian Qualities in Facing Anxiety: Managing anxiety involves developing important humanitarian qualities such as compassion, honesty, and generosity. These virtues help in treating yourself and others with care and understanding during anxious moments.
Self-Compassion and Honesty: Self-compassion involves being gentle and empathetic towards yourself during struggles with anxiety. Honesty helps in understanding the roots of anxiety and making healthier decisions, avoiding biased interpretations and excessive self-criticism.
Generosity and Balance: Generosity means listening to your body and giving it what it needs for health and wellness. It's important to balance generosity without overextending yourself, ensuring time for rest and recovery to maintain overall well-being.
HUMANITARIAN VIRTUES
Qualities for Facing Anxiety Well
Taking up the responsibility to manage anxiety isn’t merely a psychological skill. When we willingly face anxiety instead of unhelpfully avoiding it, we actually exhibit important humanitarian qualities. It’s hard to appreciate these when we're uncomfortable, but there are three in particular available to us when we're in the midst of anxious distress.
These are the qualities of...
Compassion
Honesty
Generosity
These are humanitarian qualities, or even virtues, because they form the foundation of how you should treat yourself and others. And this is especially so when anxiety pulls you into otherwise undesirable and unhelpful impulses.
What follows is an outline of how these virtues can be developed specifically through your commitment to facing anxiety well — not by avoiding it, but by accepting difficult situations as opportunities to cultivate them.
✶ Need Help? If you're struggling to identify what these qualities look like in action, start with Who Do You Admire? How to Use Role-Models to Overcome Anxiety.
MEETING FEAR WITH GENTLENESS
Compassion in the Face of Anxiety
Compassion — specifically self-compassion — is the gentleness and empathy you extend toward yourself in the midst of your struggles with anxiety.
It’s a balanced form of care — not indulgent in self-pity on one end, and not apathetic toward your struggles on the other.
Self-compassion recognizes that anxiety is part of the shared human experience.
In your most difficult moments, compassion allows us to say, “This is really hard right now, and I need to care for myself.” And in doing so, you create space for healing and build the strength to keep moving forward.
✷ Learn More: To better understand the emotional cycles that make self-compassion so necessary, see Why You Worry So Much: Understanding & Breaking the Cycle.
SEEING CLEARLY SO YOU CAN RESPOND EFFECTIVELY
Honesty in the Face of Anxiety
Honesty is demonstrated in your efforts to understand anxiety, where it comes from, and what it wants for you.
It helps you communicate the truth about your growing abilities — your growing capacity to make healthier, more intentional choices.
Honesty protects you from falling into fearful and unhelpful interpretations in times of uncertainty.
When you seek honest appraisals of situations and in the way you talk to yourself, you’re better equipped to do the right thing even when you’re afraid.
Practicing honesty means finding the right balance — not so blunt as to become self-critical or harsh, and not so restrained that you ignore what needs to be acknowledged. When you routinely speak and act from a place of truth, you continue to strengthen this admirable quality of character in anxious situations.
GIVING YOURSELF WHAT YOU NEED FOR GROWTH
Generosity in the Face of Anxiety
Generosity, as the final quality, is expressed when you give freely, not out of guilt or obligation.
This includes how you treat yourself.
Listening to your body's needs builds a habit of healthy generosity, key to a flourishing life.
We don't seek to be extravagantly generous, as too much of a good thing can drain our resources. But neither are we stingy, ignoring messages from the body and withholding care when we need time to rest, sleep, play, be alone, or enjoy time with others.
✸ Closer Look: To understand how your past can affect your present experience of anxiety, see The Slow Pathway of Fear: How Your Brain Uses Memory and Logic.
BUILDING ENDURING TRAITS
Practicing the Virtues that Strengthen You
As you continue facing difficult moments, look for ways to live out these virtues — compassion, honesty, and generosity — in your daily actions.
Reflect on each and practice them regularly until they become strong habits of your character.
If you notice one is missing or underdeveloped, don’t be harsh with yourself. These aren’t inborn traits, but cultivated strengths—always available for you to pick up and start practicing at any time.
Jason Peruchini, LMFT
Jason Peruchini is a licensed psychotherapist and anxiety treatment professional who helps people address issues in mental health to live better lives.
