Anxiety Doesn't Come From Nowhere. It Has A Reason
If we want to heal it, we need to confront the root causes
Anxiety has a way of creeping in when you least expect it. One moment, you’re living your life, and the next, your heart races, your palms sweat, and your mind spirals into chaos.
More often than not, we see anxiety as a problem, as if our bodies are turning against us out of nowhere. We think Why am I feeling this way? What’s wrong with me?, questioning our strength and wondering why we can’t simply feel at ease in our own skin. And let’s be honest: the fact that we live in a society that thinks we can prescribe our way to happiness and ignore the deeper issues doesn’t help.
But in truth, anxiety is our body’s desperate attempt to communicate something important. It’s a call to pay attention. It’s a message that something needs to change.
I’m not just speaking in theory here—I’ve been struggling with anxiety for years. When I first started experiencing physical symptoms (my heart was always racing, my breathing was erratic, and I had digestive issues that just wouldn’t go away) it didn’t even cross my mind that there was something deeper at play. I thought my body was turning against me for no reason.
It took a lot of frustrated attempts at managing my anxiety to realize that these symptoms were my body’s way of telling me that something was off. And sooner or later, it became pretty clear that if I wanted to get rid of the symptoms, I needed to address what was making me feel unsafe, instead of just trying to push through or ignore it.
Your Body Is Designed To Keep You Safe
Our bodies are wired to respond to threats, to protect us from danger. When anxiety takes hold, it’s our internal alarm system going off, urging us to stay vigilant.
But what exactly are we on the lookout for? Often, it’s a lack of safety, and that lack can come from a myriad of sources—our work environments, personal relationships, or even the world at large.
It can be a demanding and insensitive boss who constantly pushes boundaries, making you feel inadequate and on edge, never sure if you’ll meet their impossible expectations.
It can be a toxic relationship where you’re always walking on eggshells, afraid of triggering someone’s temper or emotional manipulation.
It can be financial instability, where the constant pressure of making ends meet creates a sense of unpredictability that gnaws at your peace of mind.
It can be unresolved trauma from the past that lingers in the present, where certain situations or people trigger old wounds, making you feel unsafe even in seemingly neutral environments.
It can be a personal boundary repeatedly crossed by a friend or family member, leaving you feeling drained and disrespected.
It can even be the constant barrage of overwhelming news, creating a sense of helplessness and fear about the world around us.
These situations are real threats to our emotional well-being, and they manifest as anxiety. Our bodies are responding to the chaos, preparing us for a fight or flight we never wanted to engage in.
If we really think about it, we should be thanking our bodies for signaling that something isn’t right. They’re doing exactly what they’re meant to—alerting us to threats. But we’ve become so disconnected that we see anxiety as the enemy, rather than understanding that our bodies are simply responding to an unhealthy environment.
When The Threats Are “Not Real”
Sometimes, it’s not really clear why we’re feeling anxious. There’s no obvious threat, nothing immediate we can point to. But that doesn’t mean the fear isn’t real—it just means the threat might not be happening right now.
The truth is, we’re often conditioned to remain hypervigilant because of our past.
To give you an example of how this plays out for me: when someone raises their voice, I immediately get tense, my breath shortens, and I feel like the ground is falling out from under me. Why? Because growing up, a raised voice meant chaos was coming. Conflict, yelling, and everything falling apart. So now, even if someone’s just being loud or expressing frustration over something minor, my body reacts like it’s preparing for war.
Is there an immediate threat? No, but my body doesn’t know the difference. It’s wired to respond based on what it learned in the past.
We carry these old patterns with us, and sometimes we don’t even realize how deeply they’re rooted. Maybe it’s a small disagreement with a partner, or a sudden noise at work, but suddenly we’re thrown into that anxious state, feeling unsafe without understanding why.
It’s not that we’re broken or weak—it’s that our bodies are still trying to protect us from threats we’ve been trained to expect, even when they aren’t really there.
The important part is… Whether the fear is real or imagined, it exists, and it matters.