How Important Is It?
"Anxiety is the price we pay for playing God"
One of the great things about the 12-step fellowship which I attend is that it gives me the tools to understand my own feelings and behavior. But it often takes some trial and error, and remembering and forgetting, to pick them up.
For instance, we have a slogan in our group that goes “Anxiety is the price you pay for playing God,” ie playing at the delusion that you can make the world cooperate.
It makes sense: in trying to control ourselves, other people, situations, or even world politics, we can become anxious, especially if the other entities are really beyond our control.
If you have ever experienced a powerfully traumatic event in the past, you may be feeling the old fight/flight/freeze response in your body again, stirred up as a result of the Trump Administration’s violence.1
Not everyone in America is feeling stressed by the politics of 2025, and so I have wondered if the stress I have felt may be linked to having survived various traumas in my life, and whether 12-Step principles can help deal with it.
Anxiety Is The Price We Pay For Playing God
The slogan works best for me not as a reminder but as a tool for reflection, asking me
· FIRST to notice when I’m feeling anxious, and I mean really notice the sensations in the body and the mind, and
· SECOND to notice where I might be trying to “play God,” and
· THIRD to stop (if possible) those behaviors, because they cause me and all around me to suffer.
Some days ago, I found myself making long, impossible lists, on which were items like “reply to New Yorker article re Laura Loomer … write essay on Quakers (and who?) ... put up mindfulness map on Substack because … create Project 2029… oil change … cut expenses ... Swiss/German pain clinics … family reunion… finish proposal and send to Mamdani…” and found it slow-going and anxiety-producing. Oh, I conveniently forgot to include “Write next post for other blog on how the TikTok deal is connected to Trump wanting to develop property in the Mideast.”
From other life situations - when I would write long lists on paper plates in my car, reminders, to-do’s, and so on - I might have recognized that this was a sign of trying to manage the things that felt so unmanageable, because I was in a stressful situation.
The anxiety built and built into a kind of agitated depression, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I could barely bring myself to finish some of my self-designated-urgent tasks.
I scrolled the internet; I binge-watched a few episodes of “The Beast In Me;” I had a slug of Irish whisky in my morning coffee (and I’m no Hemingway). I went to the thrift store and bought a classical guitar for ten bucks (so I can teach myself how to play, someday), and a Christmas cap and some elf ears. I ate a bunch of chocolate.
Then driving yesterday, as some random thought popped into my head (“It doesn’t matter if I die because the self that thinks it dies has already been reborn 1000 times already in this life,” or something of that ilk), something clicked, and I went:
“Ohhhhhhhhh … That’s it! I’ve been trying to influence world politics and 1000 other things this past week! That’s why I’ve been so anxious.”
I’ve wanted to correct people …
I’ve wanted to show that I’m right …
I’ve wanted to get people to understand me, or themselves …
I’ve wanted others to commit to a plan, to do it the way I want it done …
trying, trying, trying (to force solutions).
In Buddhist terms, I was actively practicing the Second Noble Truth, in all the ways that wanting something (or not wanting something) can cause such inner and outer turmoil.
And I asked myself:
What is really important?
What can I realistically have an impact on, or not?
And, does it matter?
So our slogans aren’t merely for our OWN benefit … they’re for the benefit of all beings around us.
Like any spiritual path, it can really only be walked in companionship with others.
And when I recognize how much stress is self-inflicted, I can try to recognize the places where I am really just trying too hard, and if I can remember that, then I can let that struggle go, and let the real “God” take charge of things that I can’t manage.2
Fight, Flight, or Freeze: Normal Reactions to an Abnormal Situation: Strategizing the Fight Response, an article by Athena’s Brother, on Aircraft Blue here on Substack, April 29, 2025
In 12 Step programs, we place a lot of emphasis on the first step, which states, “Admitted we were powerless, that our lives had become unmanageable” (ie made long lists of impossible tasks, effectively immobilizing us).
Step Two states, “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” (ie this list-making is making me crazy, I need help).
The third step introduces the word “God,” in stating “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him” (ie I’m stopping these lists and tasks and focusing on what’s important, and asking for help directly).
Many people have come from damaging religious experiences, and hesitate at using the word “God.”
So we make sure that “God” is understood as some form of “higher power” to which we can turn for help and guidance, such as nature, a group, or even just the relaxing feeling of letting go of the things we really cannot control.