ANXIETY ISN'T THE PROBLEM. IT'S THE MESSENGER

That tightness in your chest. The racing thoughts that won't shut the fuck up at 3 AM. The constant worry about shit that hasn't even happened yet.

Anxiety has become our collective shadow, the uninvited guest that's somehow crashed at everyone's place. We medicate it, distract from it, analyze it, and try every breathing technique in the book to make it go away.

But what if we've been asking the wrong question this whole time?

What if anxiety isn't something to eliminate, but something to decode?

THE BODY DOESN'T LIE

Let's get something straight: Your body isn't trying to sabotage you. It's trying to save you.

That anxious feeling is your nervous system's smoke alarm. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do, alert you when it senses danger. The problem isn't the alarm. It's that most of us never bothered to check what's actually burning.

We're so busy trying to silence the alarm that we've missed the whole point of having one.

Think about it. When your body sends pain signals, it's telling you something needs attention. When you're thirsty, your body is communicating that it needs water. These aren't random malfunctions; they're intelligent communications.

Anxiety works the same way. It's not random. It's not a glitch. It's information in physical form.

THE SHADOWS YOU'RE AVOIDING

In my experience, anxiety almost always points to something you're avoiding.

Carl Jung called this shadow work, facing the parts of ourselves we've disowned, denied, or pushed into the darkness. The emotions we've deemed too messy, the truths we've decided are too uncomfortable, the parts of ourselves we've labeled unacceptable.

These shadows don't disappear just because we turn our backs on them. They follow us, growing larger and more ominous the longer we pretend they're not there.

Until they announce themselves through our bodies.

That relationship you know is draining you but you're afraid to leave? Anxiety.

That conversation you've been putting off because it feels too hard? Anxiety.

That creative project you're not starting because you might fail? Anxiety.

That part of yourself you're denying because you were taught it's wrong? Anxiety.

Your body is just trying to get your attention by any means necessary. It's saying: "Hey asshole, there's something here you need to look at."

AVOIDANCE: THE HIDDEN ADDICTION

I spent years of my life actively avoiding anything uncomfortable. Difficult conversations, emotional pain, uncertainty, my own shadow sides. I became a master of distraction, a professional postponer of the inevitable.

And I paid for it with constant, low-grade anxiety that occasionally exploded into full-blown panic.

Here's the fucked-up part about avoidance: it works in the short term. You do temporarily feel better when you sidestep the hard stuff. The relief is real.

But it's like taking a payday loan against your mental health. The interest is astronomical, and eventually, you'll pay far more than what you borrowed.

Avoidance doesn't just give you anxiety about the specific thing you're avoiding. It trains your entire system to see discomfort as dangerous. To see emotions as threats. To see difficult situations as emergencies.

And that programming bleeds into everything:

You avoid small conflicts, so your relationships stay superficial

You avoid financial reality-checks, so money becomes increasingly stressful

You avoid creative risks, so your work never reaches its potential

You avoid feeling your emotions, so they intensify until they're overwhelming

Most insidiously, you avoid looking at the parts of yourself that don't fit your ideal self-image. The selfish parts, the angry parts, the parts that want things you're not "supposed" to want. Jung called this your shadow, and he wasn't fucking around when he said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

WHERE IS YOUR ANXIETY COMING FROM?

So how do you figure out what your anxiety is actually trying to tell you?

Start by asking these questions when anxiety shows up:

1. What was I thinking about just before this feeling arrived?

Often, anxiety follows a thought. Not always a dramatic one, sometimes just a subtle reminder of something you've been avoiding.

2. If this feeling could speak, what would it say?

This sounds woo-woo as shit, but try it. Personify the anxiety. "I'm afraid of..." "I need you to..." "I'm trying to tell you..."

3. What's the smallest action I've been avoiding taking?

Not the whole overwhelming situation, just the next tiny step. The text you haven't sent. The appointment you haven't made. The decision you've been postponing.

4. What truth am I not letting myself acknowledge?

This is where shadow work gets real. What do you know deep down but aren't admitting to yourself? What reality are you refusing to accept?

When I started actually answering these questions instead of just trying to make the anxiety go away, patterns emerged. My anxiety almost always pointed to one of three things:

A boundary I wasn't setting

A truth I wasn't speaking (often to myself)

A part of myself I wasn't accepting

The anxiety was never the problem. It was the messenger trying to bring these things to my attention.

EVERY ACT IS A RITUAL

Here's something I've been thinking about a lot lately: Every single action we take is a ritual. A practice that trains our system to respond in certain ways.

When you avoid the hard conversation, you're performing a ritual that teaches your body and mind: "Difficult emotions are dangerous. Run away."

When you numb out with a substance instead of feeling what's coming up, you're performing a ritual that programs your system: "These feelings are intolerable. They must be chemically altered."

When you distract yourself from anxiety with endless scrolling, you're performing a ritual that wires your brain: "Discomfort must be immediately escaped."

These rituals aren't random. They're ceremonies that shape who you become.

Jung understood this. He saw that our daily actions, conscious or not, form the thoughts, beliefs, and principles of our personal religion. The question isn't whether you're performing rituals. The question is whether your rituals are intentional or unconscious, whether they're serving your growth or causing you to be stagnant.

THE RITUAL OF TURNING TOWARD

So what's the alternative to avoidance? A different kind of ritual. One I've been practicing (imperfectly) for the past few years. I call it the ritual of turning toward.

When anxiety rises, instead of automatically trying to make it go away, I turn toward it.

Physically, by placing a hand where I feel it in my body

Mentally, by getting curious about its message rather than trying to eliminate it

Emotionally, by allowing the feeling to exist without judging it as "bad"

Then I ask those four questions from earlier. And here's the key part: I take one small action based on what I discover.

Sometimes it's having the conversation I've been avoiding. Sometimes it's making the decision I've been postponing. Sometimes it's simply acknowledging the truth I've been denying.

But it's always an act of facing what I've been turning away from. Of bringing light to what's been in shadow.

Here's what I've discovered through this practice: Anxiety doesn't want to torture you. It wants to guide you toward wholeness by showing you where you're fragmented. It wants to point you toward freedom by highlighting where you're confined.

It wants to lead you home to yourself.

THE SHADOW THAT HEALS

Jung said, "The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality." But he also recognized that integrating our shadow, facing and embracing those disowned parts of ourselves, is essential for wholeness.

The parts of yourself you're most afraid to face are often the very parts that hold your greatest gifts. The anger you suppress might contain your boundary-setting power. The "selfish" desires you deny might hold the key to your authentic path. The "negative" emotions you avoid might carry your deepest wisdom.

This is the paradox at the heart of shadow work: What we resist most fiercely often contains what we need most desperately.

When you stop treating anxiety as the enemy and start seeing it as the messenger, it transforms from tormentor to guide. From something to eliminate to something to decode.

And in that shift, something remarkable happens. The anxiety doesn't necessarily disappear, but it changes form. It becomes information rather than interference. Direction rather than distress.

THE PRACTICE

Next time anxiety shows up, try this:

Place a hand where you feel it in your body. Physical touch activates your parasympathetic nervous system and creates a feedback loop of safety. (Sometimes I rub my legs or hands softly to calm me down, in a nurturing way)

Say to yourself: "This is information, not danger." This simple reframe helps shift from reactivity to receptivity.

Ask what this feeling is trying to show you. Not intellectually, but as if you were speaking directly to the sensation. Then listen without judgment.

Identify one small action that addresses the root, not just the symptom. Not another avoidance strategy, but a step toward what you've been avoiding.

Take that action, no matter how uncomfortable. This is how you begin to rewire your system. By showing it that facing what you fear doesn't destroy you; it strengthens you.

This isn't a quick fix. It's a practice. A ritual of its own. One that gradually transforms your relationship with anxiety from adversary to alliance.

Remember: Your anxiety isn't trying to fuck with you. It's trying to guide you toward wholeness by showing you where you're divided against yourself. By highlighting the spaces between who you're pretending to be and who you actually are.

The only way out is through. Through the discomfort. Through the shadow. Through the very things you've been desperately trying to avoid.

Jung put it this way: "There is no coming to consciousness without pain." But on the other side of that pain is something worth the crossing: a life where anxiety no longer rules because its messages have been received. Where your actions are rituals of integration rather than avoidance.

Where the shadows no longer follow you, because you've finally turned to face them.

And in that turning, found that they weren't enemies after all.

They were just parts of yourself, waiting to be reclaimed.