Anxiety, like fog, has a way of settling in when the future is unclear. For many in our community, uncertainty isn’t just an occasional visitor — it’s a persistent companion.
Anxiety is often a product of faulty thinking. Instead of fighting anxiety with emotion, we can challenge it with thought, particularly through strategies rooted in awareness, perspective, and deliberate reframing.
Here are some thoughts for using thinking-based strategies to live more peacefully with uncertainty.
1. Name the Source of Your Uncertainty
The first step to reducing anxiety is naming what you fear. Specificity takes away ambiguity’s power. Instead of “I’m anxious about the future,” try: “I’m worried the anti-trans legislation might affect my ability to renew my prescriptions.”
The clearer the thought, the better it is to manage.
2. Use Cognitive Reappraisal to Shift Perspective
Humans are gifted with cognitive reappraisal: the ability to reinterpret a situation to lessen its emotional impact. For queer people living under threat, this can be survival. Reappraisal isn’t lying to yourself — it’s finding truths that empower rather than paralyze.
3. Limit Exposure to What You Can’t Control
Trying to mentally control things outside our power is a key source of anxiety. For LGBTQ people, this often means spiraling over news or online discourse, much of which is designed to provoke. You don’t need to ignore injustice to manage your mind. But you can set boundaries.
4. Build Mental Habits of Self-Compassion
Anxiety becomes less overwhelming when we treat ourselves as we would a friend. For people raised in environments that encouraged shame or silence, this can be the hardest habit to build. Start small: When an anxious thought arises — “I’ll never be safe,” “They’ll leave me,” “I’ll always be alone” — try answering with a phrase like, “My fear is valid, but it doesn’t define me.”
You can also borrow from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT): hold two truths at once. “I feel afraid, and I am also resilient.”
5. Let Uncertainty Exist Without Letting It Lead
Peace doesn’t come from eliminating uncertainty — it comes from learning to live beside it. We don’t know what laws, elections, or even family members might hold, but we do know who we are. Develop rituals that reinforce certainty in your values: morning affirmations, weekly calls with chosen family. These are anchors. Even when the waves come, you stay tethered.
Uncertainty doesn’t mean you're lost. It means you're alive in a changing world. And that’s where growth lives, too.
A writer and media strategist, and lifelong resident of South Florida, Cliff Dunn is the former Executive Editor of the Florida Agenda newspaper, Mark magazine, and Guy Magazine.
