I just got back from Bolivia, the place where I grew up. This trip was a powerful, quiet reminder of a core truth about what it means to care.

Being loving is a value, not a destination

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we learn to separate our feelings from our values. Feelings change all day long, they ebb and flow, come and go.

A value, on the other hand, is a chosen direction that you keep choosing through your actions. You never “complete” it.There is no day when you can finally cross “be loving” off your life’s to-do list.

Love and pain sit at the same table

This year, my family faced heavy health struggles compounded by aging. My mom was bitten by a mosquito and contracted Chikungunya, an infection that leaves severe joint and arterial pain. My Tía Sofía has been battling agonizing trigeminal neuralgia and recently broke her arm. My Tío Franklin lost mobility in his left arm and leg.

I’m grateful I was able to spend three full days with my tio, savoring every single minute of our time together, including every small detail of taking care of him minute by minute. As I watched him sit quietly in his wheelchair, I felt a familiar spike of fear: What if I’m not there when they need me? What if something happens while I’m thousands of miles away in California?

As I’ve said before, our fears don’t travel alone; they shift as our lives shift. To be human is to feel anxious, worried, or afraid. My fear of not being there comes from how much I love them.

Steve Hayes, one of the co-founders of ACT, often closes his emails with the phrase: “Love is not just a thing, it’s everything.” He’s so right. What hurts us most usually shows us what we care about. We don’t grieve things that don’t matter.

How “playing-it-safe” gets in our way

Most of us would love to keep the warmth of love without any vulnerability; but they are a package deal, they come together. When we try to shut down our pain in any way, we inevitably also shut down our capacity to love and to act in a loving way.

When we’re afraid of losing someone, or when our fears come up, we naturally go back to familiar “playing-it-safe” moves:

• We overthink everything that could go wrong.
• We rehash past mistakes.
• We judge ourselves harshly.
• We stay silent instead of speaking up.
• We bury ourselves in busyness.

Playing-it-safe makes complete sense. Something matters to you, it feels scary, it makes you feel anxious, so you play-it-safe to lower that discomfort immediately.

Over time, the more you play-it-safe, the further away you get from what matters most to you; the further you get from being truly present with the people you love.

What’s the loving thing you’re going to do today?

You don’t need to wait until the fear, anxiety and worries disappear before you act. You can let the fear ride and do the loving thing anyway. You don’t need to eliminate the doubt or discomfort first before stepping toward what matters. “Ready or not, here l come!” as Hank Robb, an ACT therapist, would say.

I can’t fix my family’s health from afar, but I can stay present and connected while things are hard.

I’m back in the Bay Area now. Giving my Tío Franklin un fuerte abrazo and telling him “te veo en diez semanas” was ultra hard, no doubt. I’m counting the days until I see him again. 

In the meantime, I don’t let a single day go by without showing up to him, even while we live in two different countries.

Staying connected across long distances is far from perfect, but being loving is a verb.

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Resources mentioned

• Procrastination webinar: How to Skillfully Tackle Procrastinating Behaviors → https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/webinar-act-for-procrastination/
• Playing-It-Safe Questionnaire (free) → https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/playing-it-safe-questionnaire/
• ACT Coaching for anxiety-based struggles → https://eastbaybehaviortherapycenter.com/act-coaching/
• Therapy at East Bay Behavior Therapy Center → https://eastbaybehaviortherapycenter.com/

Chapter 28: You were never meant to do this alone

I wrote this workbook in the middle of one of my worst anxiety episodes, and I didn’t finish it alone.

When anxiety takes hold, sometimes, your mind whispers things like, “no one will get it, no one gets it.” It sounds convincing, and it’s also wrong.

Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is to let someone walk beside you while you learn to deal with anxiety. Not to fix it. Not to take it away. Just to be there.

I know that asking for help feels complicated, especially when you’re a teenager. Maybe you don’t want to worry your parents; maybe you’re not sure your friends will understand; maybe you’ve tried before and it didn’t go the way you hoped; maybe your mind is already telling you that you’re too much, that no one really wants to hear it.

But, the reality is that the biggest acts of courage happen when you let others in.

Think about it: Superheroes have sidekicks. Athletes have teammates. Adventurers have guides. Asking for support is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign that you understand something important: we’re not meant to do hard things alone.

The people who care about you want to help. They just can’t if they don’t know what you need.

Your mind might be wondering, what can someone really do about my anxious moments? Here is my response to you: more than you think. Support doesn’t mean they take the anxiety away; it means they show up while you face it. And showing up can look like so many different ways, as I was reminded firsthand not long ago.

A few months ago, a life transition that should have felt like a fresh start became, instead, one of the most anxiety-provoking experiences of my life.

As this situation unfolded, my mind latched onto every possible worst-case scenario and replayed it, relentlessly, on a loop I couldn’t turn off. I found myself in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, anticipating danger around every corner, physically sick, and struggling to function in ways that felt completely out of character for me. The anxiety wasn’t visible from the outside, it was quiet, relentless, and cumulative.

I know what anxiety is. I have studied it, treated it, written about it. And it reminded me, in the most humbling way, that no amount of experience, skills or self-awareness makes any of us immune to being undone by life circumstances we didn’t choose and couldn’t fully control.

Among all the ACT skills you learned in this workbook, here is also what got me through: people who showed up. Four friends who checked in on me, each in their own way, as I navigated day by day those anxious moments.

Person One called just to hear how I was doing. They didn’t try to fix anything. They just listened.

Person Two sent me ridiculous memes at random times, I couldn’t resist laughing. Other times, they sent me links to beautiful interiors or pieces of modern furniture that had nothing to do with anything, and yet, were appealing to distract my mind.

Person Three showed up to help me deal with logistics I couldn’t think clearly about.

Person Four sat with me and helped me think through options when my anxious mind could only see dead ends. They helped me find my way back to problem-solving when rumination had taken over.

These four people showed up consistently, quietly, without keeping score. As my mind kept pulling me toward rumination, and as I worked moment by moment to stay grounded, they were the thread that helped me hold on. I’m deeply grateful to each one of them.

Now think about your own life. You might already have people like this around you, people you haven’t fully let in yet. Start there.

Ask yourself:

• Who do I feel safe talking to?
• Who encourages me when I’m struggling?
• Who would remind me of my strengths when I forget?
• Who shows up in small, quiet ways that I maybe haven’t noticed yet?

You don’t need four people. You don’t even need two. One person who truly shows up can change everything.

You were never meant to carry this alone. And you don’t have to.