Anxious? Talk is Helpful.
Pro. 12:5
Anxious? Worried? How can we not be these days? What can help?
Etty Hillesum, the Dutch-Jewish artist and author who was tragically killed by the Nazis in 1943, had many wise suggestions for how to handle anxiety - both big and small:
"Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest taken between two deep breaths.”
What are some other wise ways of handling anxiety?
Self help guide books fill multiple shelves with suggestions and options. Today’s chapter of Proverbs may be an early adopter with some suggestions that have offered mental health guidance for many generations. One way to read a single line from this chapter may also be an early form of talk-therapy - one of the best ways to deal with our over anxious minds and hearts.
Today’s chapter continues the list of contrasting phrases known in studies of Biblical poetry as “antithetic parallelism.” Some of these wise suggestions seem outright peculiar, and in some cases the sensible stuff gets lost in translation.
How, for instance, does one deal with anxiety?
Proverbs suggests that the power of speaking about our worries can be helpful:
דְּאָגָ֣ה בְלֶב־אִ֣ישׁ יַשְׁחֶ֑נָּה וְדָבָ֖ר ט֣וֹב יְשַׂמְּחֶֽנָּה׃
If there is anxiety in someone’s mind, let them quash it,
And turn it into joy with a good word.
Pro. 12:5
Another way of translating this verse makes more sense to me:
Your anxiety will cause your heart to be burdened
Yet kind words will bring joy.
The key word here is the one that could either mean ‘quash’, ‘burdened’or ‘have a conversation’ - it’s an unusual Hebrew terminology that may mean different things.
Two rabbis tried to make sense of this teaching, and this word, in two different ways, as quoted in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yoma 75:
“Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi dispute the verse’s meaning. One said: He should forcefully push it [yasḥena] out of his mind. And the other one said: "It means he should tell [yesiḥena] others his concerns, which will lower his anxiety.”
Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi are a famous rabbinic duo who present two different ways of looking at every ruling or idea -- the personification of parallelism, in the spirit of respectful debate.
In this case they both read the words differently and with different outcomes.
What’s the best way to deal with anxiety? Repress it - or talk about it?
The opinion that suggests a conversation is the pioneer of Freud and the ancient wise way that suggests removing the cause of anxiety from the confines of our inner life to be shared, listened to, and supported by others.
Will sharing our worries with others help us be less anxious? The Talmudic rabbis, most therapists, and even Etty Hillesum, of blessed memory, seem to think so.
In one of her last entries, already written during her time in a concentration camp, she writes her take on the ability to live beyond polar ends of good or bad:
"Everywhere things are both very good and very bad at the same time. The two are in balance, everywhere and always. I never have the feeling that I have got to make the best of things; everything is fine just as it is. Every situation, however miserable, is complete in itself and contains the good as well as the bad.”
Find someone with whom to share what’s on your heart and mind, even if it’s your diary. Again and again we are told by wise people -- sharing our honest truths with ourselves and others, no matter how painful, helps us live each breath, each hour, and each day with more acceptance and presence, less anxiety and pain.
Image: Etty Hillesum
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