The Shape of Anxiety

Anxiety doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it hums — low and constant, like something just beneath the surface that won’t let you settle. It tightens the chest, fills the stomach with static. It wakes you at 3 a.m. with thoughts you didn’t invite.

It tells you to keep going, keep checking, keep preparing — as if, if you just try hard enough, stay in control, you might stay safe, because somewhere deep down, safety has never felt guaranteed.

But anxiety isn’t just a nuisance. It isn’t just “overthinking.”  It’s an experience. A signal. A way the body says: something matters here. That you care.  That you fear losing something.  That you long for something.

Sometimes, anxiety is personal. A body remembering what the mind has forgotten — a place where things once felt out of control.  A moment when you had to grow up too soon.  A silence that felt like abandonment.  A presence that wasn’t safe. And it shows up now — in your body, in your breath, in the way you scan a room before you enter, track every shift in someone's tone, replay conversations long after they've ended.

Or it could be a response to the world as it is. To the pressure to perform. To the disconnection of modern life. To the speed, the noise, the constant demand to be better. To the subtle violence of systems that reduce people to parts, and worth to productivity. In that sense, anxiety can be a fully human response to social, cultural and political conditions that so often feel inhuman.

It can be the shadow side of freedom and choice — the tremble that comes with being alive in a world where nothing is certain and everything eventually ends.

It can show up when your internal experience is split — when part of you is reaching forward, and another part is holding back.

It can stir when something inside is trying to surface — a truth, a knowing, a memory — something that asks to be felt, but feels too much to name.

And sometimes, the work isn’t to soothe it, to solve it, or push it away.  It’s to stay with it.  To listen.  To let it speak.

In therapy, we don’t try to banish anxiety.  We get curious about it.  We listen to what it’s been protecting you from.  And slowly, we make room for something else — not certainty, but contact.  Not control, but connection.

And in time, anxiety won’t just disappear — it’s part of being human.

But, when it's understood, it doesn’t have to be in charge anymore.

If you would like to read more, Anxiety: A Philosophical guide by Samir Chopra offers a thoughtful exploration of anxiety as a deeply human experience — not simply a problem to solve, but something to understand, make space for and live alongside.