Your Response to Anxiety is Shameful Submission
You manage anxiety by hiding it — but it leaves you feeling ashamed.
Anxiety has done a number on you and If your inner voice sounds like “You should have this sorted by now…” or “You’re just too much for people”… then you have started submitting to it. And feeling shame about it too.
Please note! This is not who you are. It’s who anxiety has convinced you you are.
Shameful Submission happens when anxiety wraps itself in self-judgment and tells you that the reason you feel this way… is because you’re the problem.
You might find yourself believing thoughts like:
- “No one wants me around when I’m like this”
- “I should be stronger than this”
- “Why can’t I just get over it already?”
- I’m so weak.
...These aren’t truths.
They’re anxious thoughts wearing the mask of your own voice and they’ve been repeated so many times, they start to feel believable.
But let me be clear:
Anxiety has made you feel small. That doesn’t mean you are.
What This Might Look Like:
Avoiding people or situations because “you’re too much”
Feeling embarrassed, weak, or broken for struggling
Keeping anxiety a secret because of shame
A New Way Forward
The antidote to shame isn’t strength.
It’s self-compassion and taking anxiety along with you as you engage with the world around you.
This is where the fourth step of the E.A.S.E. Method comes in: Engage.
Not the passive kind of acceptance, but the empowered and engaged kind.
The kind where you stop fighting yourself and start accepting yourself with kindness.
Here are two ways to begin:
1. Ask: “Is This My Voice or Anxiety’s?”
When a harsh thought pops up, “You’re pathetic” or “You’ll never get this right”, pause.
Ask yourself: Would I say this to someone I care about?
If not… it’s not your truth. It’s just anxiety, trying to protect you by shrinking you.
2. Say This Instead:
“This feels hard because I care, not because I’m weak.”
That tiny reframe softens the shame and reminds you: there’s nothing wrong with feeling things deeply and you can take that anxiety out into the world with you.
You don’t have to shrink to survive anxiety.
Inside the EASE Method, I’ll guide you step-by-step to respond to anxiety in a way that’s empowering, not defeating — so you can finally stop believing the lies it tells about you.
Created by Clinical Psychologist
ABOUT DIANTE FUCHS, CLIN. PSYCHOLOGIST
Diante Fuchs is a Clinical Psychologist, international anxiety coach, and author of The Gift of Anxiety. She’s been helping people heal from anxiety and panic since 2010 — not by managing symptoms, but by changing the way they understand and respond to anxiety altogether.
Through her signature EASE Method (and a refreshingly honest approach to mental health), Diante helps high-achieving, insightful people reclaim their confidence and feel like themselves again — without medication or endless coping strategies.
Her work is grounded in neuroscience, clinical expertise, and over a decade of experience, but what sets her apart is her belief that anxiety isn’t a disorder — it’s a message. And when we learn how to listen to it, everything changes.