Not only are we living in an era of particularly high anxiety, but according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety-related disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting more than 40 million adults aged 18 and older. And anxiety disorders also affect more than 25 percent of teenagers ages 13 to 18. Robbins’ story offers hope and inspiration to individuals trapped by anxiety disorders.

Food for Thought:

• Anxiety is a self-imposed prison with walls that close in overtime.
• Avoiding triggers that provoke panic attacks is not a cure for anxiety, but an imperfect anxiety-management strategy.
• It is possible to free oneself from the prison of anxiety through self-compassion and the hard work of introspection.

About our special guest: Wendy Tamis Robbins, author of The Box: An Invitation to Freedom from Anxiety, is a lawyer by day, writer by night, and a “professional panic attacker.” Despite near-crippling anxiety, she worked her way through Dartmouth College and law school before, in her 30s, she set her mind to overcoming the anxiety and panic attacks that increasingly limited her life.

Wendy Tamis Robbins’ anxiety, obsessive-compulsive and panic disorders started when she was a young child growing up in a volatile household. Anxiety controlled her life well into adulthood, to the point of agoraphobia. Though she dabbled in treatment from time to time, it took many years and an unsuccessful marriage before she finally took hold of her mental health and, through introspection, meditation, re-parenting, and self-administered exposure therapy, escaped from her self-inflicted prison.

For the past 20 years, she has worked in corporate finance, creating and preserving affordable housing and lending to underserved communities. Learn more at www.WendyTamisRobbins.com.

Contact the host Kristie Kennedy at www.queenfidence.com