A Guide to Understanding the Messenger
Sweating palms during a meeting, a heart pounding in your chest before a presentation. That tight, unsettling feeling that something is terribly wrong, even when you’re told it’s “just a panic attack.” The physical experience of anxiety can be overwhelming, making you feel as though your own body has turned against you.
This feeling is real, and it’s exhausting. It’s a primal sense of alarm that can make you feel broken or out of control. We spend so much energy trying to fight it, suppress it, or wish it away, hoping to one day be free from its grip.
But what if your anxiety isn’t out to hurt you? What if, beneath the noise and panic, it’s actually trying to help? This guide offers five transformative truths that will help you reframe this relationship. Instead of fighting a monster, you will learn to listen to a messenger.
1. Your Anxiety Isn’t a Flaw—It’s a Messenger
At its core, anxiety is your body’s built-in alarm system, designed to protect you from perceived threats. It’s an ancient survival mechanism that floods your body with chemicals to prepare you for “fight or flight.” This is why your heart races, you start to sweat, and your hands might shake—your body is gearing up for battle.
The problem is that this system can become overactive. It can’t always tell the difference between a life-threatening danger and a modern-day stressor like a high-pressure deadline or an overflowing email inbox. It triggers the same intense physical response for both.
Understanding this is crucial because it reframes anxiety from a personal failing into a biological function. You are not broken; your alarm system is just sensitive. This internal battle is often amplified by a society that misunderstands anxiety, leading to shame and self-judgment. This shift in perspective allows you to move from self-judgment (“What’s wrong with me?”) to compassionate understanding (“My body is trying to keep me safe”).
2. Fighting Anxiety Only Makes It Stronger
When an uncomfortable feeling like anxiety arises, our natural instinct is to push it away. We try to ignore it, suppress it, or fight it head-on, believing that if we resist hard enough, it will eventually disappear. However, this approach often has the opposite effect.
There is a powerful paradox at play: the more you try to suppress anxiety, the louder and more persistent it becomes. Fighting it only validates its message that there is, in fact, a threat worth fighting. This creates a cycle of resistance and amplification, leaving you feeling more exhausted and anxious than before.
The path to transformation isn’t through resistance, but through understanding. By turning toward the feeling with a sense of gentle curiosity, you can begin to loosen its grip.
What you fight will persist. What you understand can be transformed.
3. The Goal Isn’t to ‘Get Rid of It’
A common goal for anyone struggling with anxiety is to “get rid of it” completely. While this desire is perfectly logical, it sets up an unrealistic and often counterproductive expectation. Anxiety is a normal part of the human experience; it’s a signal that something needs our attention.
A more productive and compassionate goal is to learn how to understand, regulate, and respond to anxiety with care when it arises. The true problem isn’t the feeling of anxiety itself, but the act of constantly avoiding it. This avoidance shrinks our world, reinforcing the false belief that we can’t handle discomfort and causing us to miss out on life. By learning to sit with the feeling and listen to its message, we reclaim our power.
4. You Can Build Tools, Not Just Walls
Instead of building walls to block out anxiety—a strategy that rarely works in the long term—you can focus on building a toolkit to help you navigate it. These tools don’t eliminate the feeling, but they help you manage the physical and mental response, allowing you to move through it with greater ease.
Here are a few simple, actionable tools you can start using today:
- Practice Breathwork: Simple breathing techniques can quickly reset your nervous system. Try “Box Breathing”: Inhale for a count of 4, hold your breath for 4, exhale for 4, and hold again for 4. Repeat this cycle for a few minutes to signal to your brain that you are safe.
- Use Natural Supports: Gentle, natural aids can help calm your system. Consider sipping on herbal teas like chamomile or using calming essential oils like lavender or vetiver to create a sense of peace in your environment.
- Name Your Feelings: The simple act of identifying and naming an emotion like “anxiety” or “fear” separates you from the feeling. It moves it from an overwhelming internal state to an observable experience you can begin to process. You can use an app like How We Feel or simply pause and ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now?” to begin this practice.
5. Curiosity Is Your Superpower
Perhaps the most powerful tool of all is a shift in mindset: from judgment to curiosity. When anxiety rises, our minds often jump to judgmental thoughts like, “Here we go again,” or “I can’t handle this.” This only adds another layer of stress to an already difficult experience.
Instead of fighting the feeling, try getting curious about it. Stop and ask the fundamental question:
“What is this anxiety trying to tell me?”
This simple question shifts you out of panic mode and into an observant, problem-solving state. Journaling can be an excellent way to explore this further. Write down your anxious thoughts and then gently question them: “Is this thought 100% true?” You must ask this because anxiety, in its effort to protect you, often fabricates or exaggerates threats. Curiosity allows you to see the thought for what it is—a story, not necessarily a fact.
Your Path Starts with Understanding
You are not broken for feeling anxiety; you are human. The intense physical sensations and persistent worries are signals from a body that is trying its best to protect you. The more you understand your anxiety, the less power it will have over you.
By seeing anxiety as a messenger, building a toolkit to support yourself, and approaching your feelings with curiosity, you can transform your relationship with it. You can learn to listen to what it’s telling you and respond with care instead of fear.
The next time you feel anxiety rising, what if your first response wasn’t fear, but curiosity?
