Since You Asked: Uncommon Advice from Cary Tennis

May 12 to 22, this year, 2022, I will be hosting another of our fabulous writing workshops here in beautiful Castiglion Fiorentino at lovely Le Santucce. The Amherst Writers and Artists method we use in the workshops has been a godsend to thousands around the world who want to have a richer, fuller experience writing. Whether you write to sharpen and enlarge your experience of life or you do it for a living, this is a great way to boost your strength as a writer, to go deeper, to feel greater confidence, to build motivation and have a good time in Italy while you're doing it. Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

The moment  has come to tell our unvaccinated friends and relatives the truth: Their refusal to be vaccinated is killing people. It is morally wrong. The moment has come to get in their faces, to reveal ourselves passionately, how deeply we care about this, to plead, to beg, to negotiate, to use whatever strength we have left to do our part to help mankind stop this pandemic. Like it or not, each of us has a moral responsibility to speak out, to engage passionately with others, to try to turn the tide, to try to stop this awful pestilence, one person at a time, one conversation at a time, one vaccination at a time. So I made this podcast. Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Today I respond to the below comment from someone who identifies himself as "Ugly hunchback," posted on last week's column, as though it were a question.  It expresses suffering for which I propose an antidote. The author of the comment was apparently alerted to this column by my 2006 Salon.com column on suicide which after 15 years still attracts fresh readers and comments as recent as April 2021.I don't quote the whole comment here, only mainly the part that concerned me. The commenter says, "I ask mankind — at least all who believe in Christ — to kneel down and ask Him what the point of this horrible world and existence is. We only exist because of a rather disgusting, wicked drive, a drive that has no place in Heaven or even a Platonic ideal sphere, as Andy Nowicki rightly noted in “Confessions of a Would-Be Wanker”.A pipe dream, I know, God won't answer. I rather see sex as a result and curse of the Fall. There is no better explanation. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Weininger et al all understood that sex poses a deep existential problem. It is indeed “forbidden knowledge”, changing one's outlook on existence forever and to 180 degrees.* https://www.salon.com/2006/03/06/suicide_23/Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Hi Cary,I have huge trust issues and it's affecting my relationship with my partner of 3 years. My trust issues have stemmed from my childhood for many different reasons and to top it off, last year I found out my step dad had been abusing me.My partner has never given me a reason to not trust him. He says he has his morals and knows deep down he has never done anything wrong. His dad cheated on his mum and he has a suspicion his ex cheated on him.But there is something lingering over me and I am struggling to know whether to believe my partner or not. I have had suspicions about him and a girl from work. ... Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

In 2004 I was finishing up an article for Salon.com about George W. Bush and the upcoming presidential election, when I thought I was having a heart attack. I hit “send” and then I dialed 911. I called my wife from the ambulance. I spent the night in the hospital. Tests showed I was not having a heart attack. I was having a panic attack. That whole episode got me thinking: Maybe I was a little too stressed out. I needed to find a more humane approach to creativity, that would stress community. So I read Pat Schneider's book Writing Alone and With Others. By 2007 I was leading Amherst Writers and Artists style workshops, using the method describe in her book. And that kind of saved me. But I was still driven to write for publication and that meant finishing big projects, and putting pressure on myself.  So I came up with a workshop style that was a twist on the AWA method, and also borrowed from something I'd had experience with called Artists Anonymous, which was a 12 step knockoff. This workshop I created kept a humane foundation but it focused not on creating work in the present but focused on finishing writing projects and for that matter finishing all kinds of projects. I called it Finishing School. And it got results.  Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Hi everybody this is Cary Tennis, it's Thursday, April 22, 2021 and I'm exhausted.I gotta tell ya. What a week. What a few weeks. Living in Italy but I'm watching CNN and the news constantly and I gotta tell ya, I'm full of hope for the possibilities of police reform in the United States and I'm also just emotionally exhausted.  And I have to tell you it's not just the political situation in the US, it's also some sad news I received on Sunday when I was incidentally celebrating 32 years of continuous sobriety, abstinence from alcohol and drugs which were pretty much killing me when I quit. Yeah, and after surviving 5 weeks in the hospital here in Italy, and I'm feeling great, and I get the news on Sunday morning from my friend Nick Tedford, he texts me and says, “In case you haven't heard, Alfeo died last night.”Alfeo Tanganelli was a huge presence in our lives here and also in the town of Castiglion Fiorentino. He was also an incredibly handsome, dashing man. He and Miranda Raffaelli, whom he married and raised three kids with, they're like movie-star beautiful, generous and kind, and a big part of life here in Castiglion Fiorentino. And they were so helpful, Alfeo and Miranda, when I was in the hospital for five weeks, from November to December 15, they took care of my wife Norma all the time. They were so giving and caring. And then I came home and I survived and then Alfeo got sick and died just like that. And it's tragic and so we're all very sad.So I thought this week I would offer my friends out there just some amusing things, if I could find some amusing things on the Net. I did hear some useful comments from people on Facebook about last week's post about leaving San Francisco. It's an excerpt from the book (I'm writing) called The Stones of le Santucce, which is all about Le Santucce, the (former medieval) convent that was bombed in World War II by American flyers and was rebuilt by Alfeo Tanganelli. It's just another of the things that he did that made him such a remarkable and beloved figure here in town.OK, so that's it for now. Let me see, maybe … I think I'll suggest that you just look at the newsletter, which will contain all these, you know, humorous links … and if you're not getting the newsletter, you can go to the site www.carytennis.com and you'll probably get a little popup window and it'll ask you to subscribe and then you'll the newsletter and hopefully it'll be amusing and full of what we like to call “news”.So ciao for now. I'm sticking to the Thursday schedule but every now and then it'll be like this.OK? So, glad you're out there.Good to be in touch.Ciao.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said this Friday about the fight for voting rights:"Hope is a little different from optimism. Hope is the recognition that, yeah, we are in a serious fight for what is good, what is true, what is righteous, and evil is well financed and determined. I understand that. But you know, as bad as this bill is, and it's terrible, it would be worse if it were not for the fact that people stood up, and made noise about it. So I don't want people to underestimate the power of their own voice."And this: "A change that we don't think is possible, when it happens it almost feels like all of a sudden, but it wasn't all of a sudden at all. Dr. King used to say that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. It's our job to keep bending the arc."And this: "I believe in democracy. I believe that democracy is, as I said a couple of weeks ago, the political enactment of a spiritual idea, this noble and amazing idea that all of us have within us a spark of the divine, the imago Dei, some sense of the image of God, and that therefore we ought to have a voice in the direction of the country and our destiny within it."And here are a few things I said:"While misfortune is random, so is the occasional gift; so is the occasional turnaround. And we're not in control of either one."I also say this: "Hope and optimism fuel action. Despair fuels depression and giving up. ... It's incumbent upon us to feel hope, because hope springs from the observed world. It is a component of the world."And then, around the 29:20 minute mark, I start playing the blues on my Takamine parlor-style guitar and I don't stop for nine minutes. So if you get bored of me talking you can skip right to the blues or, if like my friend Larry Rubin, you don't care one iota about the blues, you can skip the musical interlude entirely the minute I stop talking. Ciao!Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I hate my family of origin.  I recently discovered that I grew up in a mostly narcissistic family, with a narc mother who subtly but persistently projected her own guilt and shame and anger about her situation onto us, her six children.  ...As children, we knew we were poor, were ashamed about it, and felt something was terribly messed up about this situation.  As a result, we - especially the youngest three kids (ages 8, 14 and 16 at that time) felt such a degree of responsibility to help that whatever money we made at our little jobs would go straight to our mother, from our hearts, without a single second thought.  The financial help continues to this day.Fast forward 20 years later and our mother has become a massive pain in our side. She never moved on from our father and all the other “betrayals” of her past, and now subtly accuses us of abandoning her.  Trying to Avoid Being Bitter in CaliforniaDear Trying to Avoid Being Bitter,She's never going to give you what you want.That's a hard thing to take. But that's the way it is. She's never going to give you what you want and she's never going to change. Accepting that fact is hard.What you need, my friend, is distance. Not physical distance but psychological distance, emotional distance, the ability to not respond emotionally, which means not asking for the thing that you're never going to get. I t doesn't mean not having any emotions. It just means not responding with those emotions, not making demands on those emotions, not looking to her as someone who can make things better because she's not going to make things better, she's only going to make things worse. And if you put yourself in her hands as you have many times over your life because she's your mother, you're just going to get hurt again. ...Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

David Talbot, founder and former editor in chief of Salon.com, has a  new site called TheDavidTalbotShow.com,  and he asked me to write for him a piece about my stay in the hospital in Arezzo and my crazy adventures recovering from Covid-19. You can read that piece on his site, where you can find the full, unexpurgated tale of my incredibly strange delusions and hallucinations, the result of the drugs I was taking, the isolation, etc. This podcast started out to be about that, and is a sort of homage to David, who I unabashedly name as my hero, but it ended up being not so much about David as about my own journey as a writer, how I ended up at Salon doing the best work of my life, and how David and I ended up being friends and brothers in spirit. So enjoy!Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

This is not an advice column. This is commentary.Robert Aaron Long, 21 years old, of  Woodstock, Georgia, was arrested Tuesday in the murders of eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent working in massage parlors.Initial media reports indicated that he claimed he did it because he was a sex addict.Sex addiction is not a trivial matter. But right now his claim feels like a distraction. So in keeping with my practice in the Since You Asked advice column, I would like to offer one piece of concrete action to take in response to an event like this. I direct your attention to an opinion piece by Jennifer Ho on KAKE.com, the ABC affiliate in Wichita, Kansas, titled "To Be an Asian Woman in America."Ms. Ho asks the question, "What can we do? What can you do? Do not look away. These are not one-off stories. There is a whole history of sexualized violence against Asian women in America. Learn about the history of Asian Americans. Take a Hollaback Bystander training so that all women, including Asian women, don't have to feel so afraid and vulnerable."That sounds like good advice to me.--Cary T.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I've loved the same boy since I was a teenager, knowing that for lots of reasons we would never end up together. Our love has endured and we've had decades of meaningful time together for its own sake, without the pressure of everyday partnership. The pandemic has brought us far closer to one another, but, in doing so, has led me to a painful realization: I never let go of my teenage hopes for him.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Hi Folks!Wow, was I insane! This week's podcast dives deep into the fantastical delirium I experienced in the intensive care unit of San Donato hospital in Arezzo, Italy.I'll be publishing a longer prose version soon and will let you know when that is available. But for now, take a listen to this. It's pretty wild! I mean, I was living in a completely unreal world, and as I gradually pulled out of it, I felt a new and urgent compassion for people with schizophrenia and psychosis. Now I know what it feels like to be out of touch with reality and not know you are out of touch with reality.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

I wrote this song a few weeks ago and sang it to my wife on Valentines Day. Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

I was still thinking about the reasons senators would find it impossible to act on their conscience when it comes to decisions that might threaten their chances of reelection, and I just thought, well, the job should have less perks, be less of an ego trip, more of a sacrifice, like the armed services. The operative word being service.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

It's been a crazy couple of weeks but it just occurred to me that all I need to do to get more questions for the column is invite people on social media to send me questions! And also, I almost forgot, also starting up an online Finishing School session!Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

This podcast is an exhortation to keep your guard up during the next few weeks as conditions improve  and the temptation will arise to relax on the coronavirus protocols, and also just a kind of rambling commentary on Italy, on myself, and on the future of the column, that is, an advice column without letters is not an advice column, it's just commentary. And though today is gorgeous and I'm happy as a kitten in the sun, it's been a kind of sucky two weeks.  As explained in the podcast, I was kind of blocked creatively and very cranky and so walked up to Antica Caffè la Posta hoping to have a cornetto and a caffè doppio and sit and look out through the arch at the Val di Chio but of course the chairs were on the tables and I couldn't hang out inside because we are a zona arancione ... and etc. All I can say is: Every episode can't be pure genius! But I'm trying to keep to a schedule!Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

I am watching the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump and so my podcast asks, "How do you reach a point where your conscience is overwhelming and you must make the leap? How do you get to that point? How do you get to that point? How could these senators get to that point, where the conscience ... blooms, where all the fear subsides, and the conscience floods the spirit, floods the mind, floods the brain, and gives one the courage to just do the right thing. Just do the right thing!"Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

In Castiglion Fiorentino, in the beautiful Tuscan hills, I'm looking out across the continent, I'm looking out at the country that I love, that I was born in, the country that my father fought for and my uncles fought for, my grandparents fought for, I'm looking out, and I cry for my country. I cry for the people suffering, I cry for the people who suffered for four years under this fool of a maniac named Donald Trump, I cry for those who've died of COVID-19 who didn't have to die … I cry for that country because I love that country, it's the country I was born in and raised in. I put my hand over my little 10-year-old heart and said the Pledge of Allegiance all through elementary school and raised the flag and folded the flag and it was a country of majesty and beauty … and now … I look out at America and I listen to Rachel Maddow interviewing Cory Booker talking about the Capitol policeman lying in honor in the Capitol and it tears me up, it tears me up and brings tears to my eyes … there's tears running down my face, and these are salty American tears, tears for that country that somehow just got off the track. …Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

On a lighter note, my friends, let's talk about Foods That Are Good for the Kidneys! Having been out of the hospital for six weeks now, having spent five weeks in the hospital with Covid-19 and another disorder which was life-threatening—I was critical, I was near death for a while—I'm back and it's just dawning on me now, as I read the medical reports, that  I had acute renal failure, and so I have to change my frame of reference now, to integrate the fact that I am now a post-renal-failure person. So I have been looking at diets for the kidneys, what foods I should avoid and what foods I should eat.One thing that's driving me nuts: I thought bananas were like the greatest thing, but I'm told by the Healthline web site to avoid bananas because they are high in potassium. Apparently it's tough on the kidneys. …Healthline has two pages, “The 20 Best Foods for People with Kidney Disease” and the aforementioned “17 Foods to Avoid If You Have Bad Kidneys." I don't totally fit the category (lucky me!), because I don't have chronic kidney disease and I don't have end-stage renal failure. What I do have is damaged, freaked-out kidneys coming out of the hospital. I think once my kidneys get their bearings, they will come back good as new! That's what I think! But  I want to follow the best possible diet for my kidneys, to give them the best possible chance of recovering as quickly as they can. Of the twenty best foods … the first one up is cauliflower! …Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Do you feel like life will never return to normal? Does the future seem like a dim, unending nightmare of isolation? Do you fear that the habits we have acquired will forever dampen the bright spontaneous spirit of social life? Does despair feel like the only realistic response to world conditions?Today's podcast is a 25-minute one-take piece in which I range fairly widely, and in a very personal way, on how to maintain sanity through the pandemic. I decided to record it all of a piece, not stopping to use audio editing tools to cut or tighten, but just letting it roll, 25 minutes of me musing on this and that in a way that, I hope, will reach you in a personal way, as one friend talking to another. If this method seems to work, if it is not too embarrassing, or too diffuse and meandering, I may just adopt it as my permanent method. It would certainly save time! -- Me, out on the tightrope, trying not to look down. --CTSupport the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Right-wing violence, insurrection, irrational fury: President Trump stirred the flames. But he didn't create the pain and disillusionment underneath it all.  Why are so many Americans in pain? Why are so many Americans angry? What is underneath it all?Support the show

How to balance our grief about the pandemic with the desire for happiness and normalcy? How to remain whole and vital and strong when the world seems to be falling apart? Where is the line between staying informed and obsessive news-watching?  I ponder these things and offer some tips in this third episode in a series of podcast-only "Since You Asked" posts.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

I continue to heal from my hospitalization, and realize what there is in this moment to be thankful for  ... regardless of how  crazy the world has gone ...Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Hello Friends, This is a short podcast-only edition just to let you know that I am now home after five weeks in the Italian hospital, that I am recovering slowly, expecting to be good as new eventually, but also thinking it's time to make some changes. --CTSupport the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I have a question about apathy. For years it has been my most loyal companion. I have dreams, visions, I have talents – all of which fall short because I simply do not get around to anything. Most days are spent wandering in a haze. For a long while I thought I was simply lazy and beat myself up terribly, but I don't think that is the issue. I think fear is the thing on which my apathy feeds, fear of both failure and success. For a few years I struggled with depression, but I no longer feel depressed. Yet my apathy is still around.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Reader,In 1997, Norma and I were standing in the garage of the house we'd recently bought, out on 48th Avenue and Ortega in San Francisco, a foggy, flat, sea-washed landscape of mid-20th century row houses, bland, bleak, ordinary, but safe, inexpensive, and near the beach. So we're standing there in our garage and this guy walked in. He just walked in and started looking around like he was interested in the merchandise—of which of course there was none. He looked around and said, “This would make a good polling place.” Then he introduced himself as an official in the San Francisco Department of Elections and gave us the pitch.That's how we became poll workers in the 2000 Bush vs. Gore election.  Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

This is the audio track I published on Salon.com in November, 2000, about hosting the election in our San Francisco garage.--CTSupport the show

Dear Listener,Usually I write an advice column and then I make a podcast from it. But this week, what I needed to say was better just spoken. I could get into it better. I could feel it in my chest and put it out there, and it wasn't complicated. It was just this: If you care about your life and the lives of those around you, if you want history to judge you kindly, if you want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem, there are certain things you have to do no matter what. So this podcast is called No Matter What. Listen up.CiaoCary T.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I'm wondering if I should leave America as soon as possible to avoid whatever may happen during and after the election in November.It feels like Fascism.I would love to know what you think.A fan Dear Fan,I spent a lot of time thinking about fascism.But finally I remembered who I am. I am not a political person. I cannot predict the future. I love 538.com but odds are not my bag. What I do is try to help people cope with the situation they are in by taking steps that can be taken regardless of what's going on out there, or what might happen, or who might do what to whom. So after writing like five thousand words about the political situation, I finally calmed down and resolved to try to help you, an individual, cope with your own situation.So let's focus on the fear and anxiety first. ... Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear reader,This week I have received no letters asking for advice.So instead of a column, here is a scene from the novel Famous Actress Disappears. Which I started writing on the N-Judah streetcar in San Francisco in 1995. And which I seem to be still working on. It starts 6 minutes into the podcast if you want to skip my always amusing prelude.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I'm writing about a frustration that no one I know--including my spouse, family, and friends--seems to understand. I have my dream job. My current work might be the thing I was put on this Earth to do. It's emotionally fulfilling, it satisfies my interests, it has social gravitas, and it pays well. It's in a field of work where positions are notoriously difficult to get. I've been lucky.The problem: It took so long to get here that something in me feels broken. Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I have spent the past several-plus years drawing and painting and finally acquiring enough discipline and self-regard to give myself time to make art.I have been pleased with my progress. I've been posting my work on Instagram, getting good feedback and building followers. I live in a small town in the South, so social media is my link to the larger world. I look at a lot of art online (maybe too much) and follow the feeds of artists, galleries and museums that I admire. I follow a very popular critic who has a large online following. He posts a wide variety of artwork from up-and-coming artists. His followers freely comment on these works.I commented on a piece that I didn't particularly like and this critic EVISCERATED ME. The bottom line is that this experience has CRIPPLED me artistically. I haven't finished a thing since this happened, and the mean voices that live inside MY head are going full tilt. I know my work is not Blue Chip “turn the art world on its ear” kind of stuff.  I don't even hope to move in those lofty circles but I do aspire to make solid, interesting work that people like to look at, and that has a place in this world.  It sucks that just when I am FINALLY coming out of such a long period of darkness and self-doubt, I get punched in the face by a famous critic? Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,You get a lot of unusual letters so perhaps you will not be shocked to receive one from me. I know you quite well, well enough to know there are many things that you conceal from me. But rather than talk about my problem, as most of your letter writers do, I would rather like to talk about your problem. Or problems. I know you have them. And I am in a privileged position to know about them, and perhaps be of some service to you. For I am, as it were, in your head. Not figuratively but literally.Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

“Dear Cary, When I was divorced and single, I took weekly writing and music classes and I learned how to be completely independent. Eventually I found my true soulmate, we married and we are very happy. But there is not enough time in the day to do all of the things I used to enjoy doing. I miss writing and the ukulele. How can I fit it all in? Am I silly to miss the things I enjoy doing? …”Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,What do you think about Covid and Black Lives Matter in terms of historical perspective? I think that the Black Death in the Middle Ages paved the way for the Renaissance. Is what we are going through (radical changes to social protocol) likely to result in a similar revolutionary change, and if so would future historians regard this change as a good or bad thing?Just WonderingDear Just Wondering,Pardon me while I hyperventilate into a paper bag. Seriously, you overestimate my abilities. In a nice way, I mean. But really. It hurts my brain. I mean, did the 1918 flu epidemic permanently alter human civilization? Did Joe Strummer and Mick Jones ever find their way out of the supermarket?Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I didn't know who my father was until I was 44. The “father” I had was a man who married my mother when I was 2, and adopted me when I was 6. I found out at 14 that he wasn't my father, but my mom still didn't tell me about the real one. She made up yet another story, and that was all I had until age 44.So I'm 55 and I still want a father. I joke that my mother-needs are filled by my therapist, and that I just need a male therapist to take care of my father longing, but my question is, how do I find a father? Not an actual one, I don't think; but how can I learn to function as a good father to myself? What would that even mean? What do I do with this long absence of a father? I think I look for one in every man I've dated or been close friends with. Dear Hanna,You don't get to pick your father, of course.But what if you did? Whom would you pick? What characteristics would he have? What would you want or need from a father, if you could pick one? ...Support the show

Dear Cary, I am a twice-divorced 54-year-old woman entrepreneur who supports herself through the practice of her craft.  I have a 17-year-old daughter. She is bright, creative, articulate, sleeps a lot and talks to her friends and boyfriend on the phone, is an artist, cartoonist, and enjoys studying underwater hydrothermal vents. Senior year is around the corner and the world has gone mad ... Time seems to be collapsing and she appears to be clueless about what to do with her life. ... I never insisted she do anything she wasn't comfortable with and now it seems she is uncomfortable being in the real world. ... When I try to talk to her about it she becomes defensive and everything I say comes out wrong. ...Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary, I'm feeling guilty these days about how comfortable my pandemic experience is. I mean, I feel the weight of the chaos going on, for sure. But my family is healthy, our home is comfortable, we can get groceries delivered, our income is steady, etc. I see other people struggling financially, and especially those fighting the good fight for justice, and I wonder why I lucked out while others are suffering? Like another recent letter-writer you responded to, I'm dealing with my own inner struggles, so getting out and marching isn't the best option for me. But, I feel like I'm riding the coattails of the people doing the real work. I spend time in prayer and meditation, and that helps because I believe I'm contributing on that level, at least, to the overall health and goodness of the planet. We're supporting causes with what we can, and started tithing as a way to be more intentional about it. But this feeling that I should be doing more always returns, and along with it the guilt.I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Have you experienced any of these feelings? How are you dealing with them?Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,Why is it that when I tell people they need to wear a face mask, I'm the one who ends up feeling terrible? ...Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)

Dear Cary,I've been coping with an anxiety disorder for most of my life. I know and use many of the available tools: the meds, meditation, therapy, exercise, talks with good friends, chocolate chip cookies. Engagement in living in this minute, now. Random acts of kindness and shopping.For years I've managed, more or less. But This Minute Now is outstripping all my coping skills ...Support the show (https://www.carytennis.com/donate/)