The best way to deal with anxiety about tasks/obligations or generally anything that you have to do but dread doing....is to do it. Anxiety is actually a normal healthy emotion. Why pay rent if you're not worried about being homeless for example. The problem with anxiety isn't the anxiety itself...it's the behaviors we engage in in attempt to avoid feeling the anxiety (procrastination, substance use, etc). That's when it becomes pathological or a "disorder". The siren call of Avoidance is in reality just fuel to feed all your anxieties, and the only way to overcome them is to eliminate avoidance behaviors. I find it works even with generalized worry about "bad things" that could happen. When I'm stuck in a downward spiral of "what if", I sit down and consciously detail the worst actual possible outcome. Put it in words. Then tell myself that's exactly what will happen, and make a concrete plan of how I will respond to deal with it. 99% of the time worst case never happens...but by facing my worry head on instead of seeking ways to avoid it, the anxiety goes away even when things are going wrong.
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