Is This a Fact, or Is This a Feeling?

Fact or Feeling? · Part 1

It’s 4:47pm. An email lands from your boss. One line: “Can we talk tomorrow morning?”

Before you’ve even finished reading it, your brain is off. I messed something up. It’s the project from last week. They’ve been unhappy for a while and I missed the signs. What if this is the beginning of the end?

By dinner, you’ve had the whole conversation in your head three times. By bedtime, you’ve mentally updated your résumé. And you still don’t know what the meeting is about.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not dramatic. You have a brain that’s trying very hard to keep you safe. It’s just moving faster than the facts.

Anxiety Is Fast

Anxiety’s job is to spot danger early. When something feels uncertain, it fills in the blanks, and it almost always fills them in with the worst version. One vague email, one “call me when you get a sec,” one note from your child’s school asking you to call the office, and anxiety has written a whole story before you’ve had a chance to breathe.

The story feels true because the feeling is real. Your heart is actually racing. Your stomach actually dropped. But a real feeling doesn’t make the story a fact.

The Question I Keep Coming Back To: “Is This a Fact, or Is This a Feeling?”

It doesn’t argue with the anxiety or tell you to calm down. It just helps you slow down long enough to sort what’s actually happening from what your mind is predicting.

When you notice the spiral starting, pause and ask yourself three questions:

1. What do I actually know?
2. What am I feeling?
3. What am I guessing?

Here’s what that looks like with the email from your boss:

• What I know: My boss wants to talk tomorrow morning. That’s it. That’s the whole email.
• What I’m feeling: Scared. Tense. A little sick to my stomach.
• What I’m guessing: That I did something wrong. That I’m in trouble. That this is bad news.

When you write it out, the “know” list is usually very short. The “guessing” list is where anxiety has been doing all the work.

The Feeling Still Deserves Kindness

This isn’t about telling yourself your feelings are silly. They aren’t. The fear makes sense. You care about your work, your family, and the people around you, and anxiety shows up loudest around the things that matter most.

So be gentle with the feeling. You can say to yourself, “Ok, I’m feeling nervous. And that’s okay.”

But the story, this anxious narrative, doesn’t get to make the decisions for you.

The Next Step Is Usually Small

Once you’ve sorted fact from feeling, the next step is almost always smaller than anxiety wants you to believe. It’s usually one of these:

• Reply to the email. “Sure, does 9:30 work?”
• Ask the question. “Of course! Is there anything I should bring or prepare?”
• Wait for real information. Not forever, just until you know something you don’t know right now.

You don’t have to solve the whole imagined future tonight. You just have to take the next real step.

Whatever Is True

There’s a verse I come back to often. In Philippians 4:8, Paul writes: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable... think about such things.”

In other words, Paul is telling us we get a say in what we let our minds dwell on. We don’t have to follow every thought wherever it wants to take us.

And notice where the list starts: whatever is true. Anxiety lives in what might happen. It’s always asking “what if?” This verse gently brings us back to what is. Not the worst-case story, not the imagined conversation, but what we actually know right now.

Father Mike Schmitz has a homily where he talks about how most of the things we worry about never actually happen. Research backs that up. In one study from Penn State, people with anxiety kept track of their worries, and more than 9 out of 10 of the things they worried about never came true.

So much of our energy goes into carrying things that will never arrive. Coming back to what’s true isn’t about pretending everything is fine. It’s about setting down the what-ifs, and trusting that you don’t have to carry them alone.

Try It This Week

The next time a text or email sends your brain spiraling, grab your phone’s notes app or a scrap of paper and write down three short lists: Know. Feel. Guess.

It might feel awkward at first. That’s okay. The goal isn’t to make the anxiety disappear. It’s to give yourself a little space between the feeling and your next move.

This is the first post in a new series, Fact or Feeling?, where I’ll walk through the everyday moments that send anxious minds spinning, and how to find your footing again.

You Don’t Have to Sort Through It Alone

If your mind spirals like this more often than not, and it’s starting to take up more of your days than you want it to, you don’t have to sort through it alone. Anxiety is something I help women with every week, and I’d love to hear what’s on your mind.

Or explore more about my work with Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout.

With care, Christina

Christina Chong is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Miami, Florida. Florida LMFT License MT5468. She specializes in matrescence, motherhood identity, pregnancy and postpartum anxiety, anxiety, life transitions, and self-esteem for women throughout Florida.