Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
No one likes anxiety…but what if rather than a nuisance, we can see it as a messenger guiding us toward our highest good?
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Hey, Anxiety Ally,
Let’s be real, most of us don’t wake up and think, “I can’t wait to be anxious today.” Anxiety always ends up feeling like an unwelcome guest, one that overstays, overanalyzes, and overshadows every moment. But what if anxiety isn’t an enemy at all? What if it’s the guide we’ve been ignoring? What if the racing thoughts, tight chest, and restless energy aren’t punishments, but portals?
That’s what I came to realize after years of fighting my own mind. Anxiety used to feel like a malfunction, something to fix, suppress, or heal. When I stopped treating it like a flaw and started treating it like a messenger, everything changed. Today, I see anxiety as one of the greatest spiritual teachers on the planet. It’s a divine alert system, an energetic whisper (and sometimes a scream) that is trying to tell us something. By reframing anxiety as a whole, we begin to work with it in completely different ways. Let’s go ahead and break down anxiety so we can begin working with it, and not against it.
Anxiety Isn’t a Symptom It’s a Signal
We are taught that anxiety is a problem to manage, but I’ve come to realize it’s actually an extera-sensory ability, just like your intuition is. In my book, Your Anxiety Is Giving Me Anxiety, I call this the “Spidey Sense”, your intuitive alarm system that picks up on subtle energetic shifts before your conscious mind can label them. This sense evolved to keep us safe, but now, in a hyperconnected, overstimulated world, it’s ringing nonstop. We scroll, swipe, consume, compare, and our nervous systems can’t tell the difference between a tiger chasing us and a text we haven’t answered.
Anxiety isn’t telling you that something’s wrong with you, it’s telling you that something’s off around you.
The goal isn’t to silence the alarm, it’s to ask, “What is this trying to tell me?” That question, simple as it sounds, is revolutionary. It shifts you from being the victim to becoming the observer.
Anxiety makes us uncomfortable on purpose; it’s trying to get our attention so it can deliver an important message. Yet in Western culture, we’ve been conditioned to distract, numb, or disconnect from discomfort. When anxiety shows up, sitting with it is the last thing we want to do, but it’s the one thing that truly helps. If we ignore the signal, the alarm only gets louder. The symptoms intensify until we finally stop and listen. By tuning in to anxiety as a signal rather than a symptom, we create real,
lasting change. But when we distract ourselves or push it away, the anxiety doesn’t disappear, it simply returns later, often stronger than before.
From Enemy to Ally
When I first began reframing anxiety, I realized I’d spent years treating it like the enemy, a force to conquer or sedate. I realized that medication helps us cope, therapy gives us tools, but neither addresses the root — we’re not listening. Every panic spiral is trying to show us something: a truth we aren’t ready to face, an emotion we haven’t processed, or a boundary not set. Anxiety isn’t punishing you, it is trying to protect you.
That’s when I created a practice I now call ReNU, short for Recognize, Neutralize, and Utilize.
- Recognize: When the anxiety hits, name it, feel it, don’t run from it. The moment you bring awareness to it, you’ve already taken its power away.
- Neutralize: Remind your body you are safe and breathe slowly. I like “box breathing”: inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four, hold again for four. This resets your nervous system and quiets the storm. Try to focus on objectively observing the uncomfortable sensation of anxiety rather than reacting negatively to it. This empowers us to question it with curiosity rather than with accusations.
- Utilize: Once the energy settles, ask, “What is this trying to show me?” Every wave carries wisdom. Anxiety often points to where we are resisting growth, betraying our truth, or staying small when our soul wants to expand.
When we start using anxiety as a compass instead of a cage, we stop being at war with ourselves. Stopping during a moment of anxiety and sitting with it, is the first big step in overcoming it. My technique isn’t always the quick fix or dopamine hit we sometimes look for, but by putting in the work, we start to reprogram our brains and bodies to react differently in the presence of anxiety. Once we begin to apply ourselves and see long-lasting, tangible results, we empower ourselves to change other reactions we have that no longer serve us.
The Oversaturated Sponge
We live in an age of overstimulation, where silence feels unsafe and stillness feels impossible. Every time we scroll through other people’s lives, our subconscious absorbs their energy. Every time we multitask through meals, meetings, and
messages, we dilute our own focus. No wonder we’re anxious, our souls are oversaturated. I call this the Oversaturated Sponge Syndrome: when we’ve absorbed so many emotions, energies and expectations, that one more drop makes us overflow. The biggest symptom in being an oversaturated sponge is your level of calm versus reaction.
Life can be triggering and challenging, even on the best of days, so how do you respond to those triggers? If your toddler has a full-blown melt down in the middle of grocery shopping, do you respond reactively by yelling or pulling them out of the store? Or do you have the capacity to keep your composure and support them through it? By examining our own reactions to everyday life, we can gauge whether we have become completely oversaturated or not. The cure isn’t to toughen up, it’s to wring yourself out, energetically, emotionally, and spiritually.
That might look like:
- Decluttering your physical space to clear mental space.
- Limiting consumption: whether it’s news, social media, or caffeine.
- Taking intentional pauses between obligations, even for two minutes of stillness.
- Asking, “Is this mine?” every time you feel an emotion that might not belong to you.
Empaths (those of us who feel deeply) are especially prone to this kind of energetic overload. But sensitivity isn’t weakness, it’s intuition in high definition.
The key is learning to regulate, not repress. Like the title of the book suggests, Your Anxiety Is Giving Me Anxiety, anxiety, and other strong emotions like it, are contagious. Most of the time we are so busy in our own lives that we don’t even notice what we’re picking up until it’s too late. By taking the time to set healthy boundaries or just simply do a deep clean of your space, you are making the statement that you are ready for clarity and peace. Don’t try and tackle all the overstimulation at once, it might just make you feel more overwhelmed, start small and work your way through your digital, physical and emotional spaces.
The Present Is the Portal
Anxiety lives in the “what if” and healing happens in the “what is.” When we stop worrying about the future and start witnessing the moment, we come back into alignment with our soul’s highest timeline. You don’t have to “fix” yourself to be peaceful, you simply have to show up and be here. Because here, in this breath, in
this heartbeat, is where anxiety loses its grip.
Try this: next time you feel your chest tighten, don’t push it away. Place your hand over your heart, close your eyes, and whisper, “I am safe in this moment.” Feel how the body softens under acknowledgment. That’s the energetic reset, the bridge back home.
Once again, when we perceive anxiety as negative, we want to either fight it or run from it. By showing up for it in the present moment, you listen. For many of us, our deepest wounds come from not being seen or heard in the past. By showing up for yourself in the present, you begin healing those deep wounds, not by externalizing your needs through someone else, but by listening and showing up for yourself in the now. This creates a sense of self-worth, inner love and deep trust; it creates a sense of ease which will diminish any anxiety you may feel.
The Age of the Empath
Something profound is happening on the planet right now. The energy of Earth itself is shifting. We are getting hit by a massive amount of solar flares which is increasing the amount of electromagnetic frequency on the planet. Humans are inherently energy beings first, and material beings second, so this uptick of frequency is affecting us at a subtle, yet deep level. Many of us are feeling it as heightened intuition, emotional intensity, or yes, more anxiety, but this is not a regression, it’s an awakening. Time seems to be accelerating and with that, we have a sense of falling behind. Like, no matter what we do we aren’t where we need to be. Or no matter how hard we try, it just simply isn’t good enough. But not to worry, this feeling is natural and completely temporary.
These new energies make us all more sensitive and give us a heightened sense of awareness.
Through my own deep-dive into anxiety, I realized that the ones who suffer the most are the ones who seem to feel the most. Being an empath sounds cool until you walk away from the grocery store carrying the weight of everyone else’s day. In the past it seemed that empaths were few and far between. But recently, the increasing vibration means more and more people and even young people are feeling the exchange of energies on a daily basis.
The collective rise in anxiety is not a sign that humanity is breaking down, it’s a sign that we are waking up. Anxiety is the byproduct of consciousness expanding.
A New Relationship with Anxiety
So how do we start relating to anxiety as a messenger, not a monster? Here are three grounding principles I live by:
- Anxiety speaks the language of energy. Before you ask “What’s wrong with me?”, ask “What’s off around me?”
- Don’t silence the signal. When you numb the symptom, you mute the message.
- Gratitude dissolves fear. Every time you feel anxiety rise, name one thing you’re grateful for. Gratitude instantly shifts your vibration and calms the nervous system.
Anxiety isn’t a detour on your spiritual path, it is the path.
Final Thought
The world doesn’t need less anxiety, it needs more awareness. It needs more people who understand that their sensitivity is sacred. When you make peace with anxiety, you stop living in survival mode and start living in freedom. Freedom is knowing that no matter what happens externally, you have the internal tools to navigate it. There is no “solve” to anxiety, but there is a way we can show up to work with it, so that it doesn’t work against us. Remember that you aren’t broken for feeling anxious, you are attuned, you are connected, you are alive, and the very energy that once paralyzed you can become the energy that propels you.
So the next time anxiety knocks, don’t hide; open the door and say, “I’m listening” because when you listen deeply enough, anxiety doesn’t scream anymore. When you stop and learn to listen, it becomes your greatest spiritual messenger, the one that leads you back to alignment, authenticity and, ultimately, freedom.
You may also enjoy reading Your Gut-Brain Connection Might Explain your Anxiety… and Much More, by Sweta Vikram.
