Anxiety is not a thought.
It is a feeling, a state, a presence that moves through the body long before the mind finds words to explain it. It lingers in the tightening of the chest, in the restless shifting of hands, in the breath that stays shallow without us even realising.
And yet, when anxiety arrives, we try to think our way out of it. We search for the right thought, the right logic, the right reassurance. We convince ourselves that if we analyse it enough, understand it deeply enough, we will find the exit.
But what if the mind was never meant to be the way out?
What if thinking only pulls us further in?
When we feel anxious, the mind races to make sense of it. What’s wrong? What does this mean? How do I fix it? The questions come fast, the answers never quite satisfying. The more we think, the more tangled we become, trapped in an endless loop of worry and logic that only feeds the very thing we are trying to escape.
Because anxiety does not live in the mind alone.
It lives in the nervous system, in the body, in the unconscious places we rarely tend to. It is not just a puzzle to solve; it is an experience to move through.
Long before we learned language, we learned sensation. As infants, we knew safety not through words, but through warmth, rhythm, touch. Before we could think, we could feel. But somewhere along the way, we forgot. We learned to believe that healing happens in the mind—that if we just think hard enough, we can reason our way into peace. But the body does not respond to logic. The body responds to movement. To breath. To presence.
This is why anxiety cannot be solved by thinking alone. This is why, when the mind spins in circles, the answer is not in another thought, but in the body itself.
Anxiety is energy—energy that needs somewhere to go. When it stays stuck, unexpressed, it builds. It tightens, it contracts, it pulls us inward until we feel trapped inside ourselves. But movement offers another way. Not movement for achievement, not movement for appearance, but movement for release.
The shaking of the hands after a stressful conversation. The deep sigh that comes after crying. The sudden urge to run, to stretch, to dance, to throw your arms up and let something go. The body knows what it needs. The body has always known.
Anxiety does not always come from the present moment. Sometimes, it is old. Sometimes, it is the echo of something buried, something stored deep in the body and the unconscious mind.
The memories we do not consciously remember, but still feel. The fears we learned before we even had words for them. The patterns of tension and bracing that we do not question, because they have always been there.
The unconscious does not speak in logic. It speaks in symbols, in sensation, in dreams and sudden emotions that seem to come from nowhere. And when anxiety rises without a clear cause, it may be the unconscious calling for attention—not through words, but through the body.
Instead of fighting it, we can listen.
- What happens if, instead of resisting the feeling, you let yourself notice it?
- What if, instead of trying to understand your anxiety, you simply feel where it lives in your body?
- What if, instead of pushing it away, you moved with it—let it rise, let it release, let it move through you rather than staying stuck inside you?
If you have spent years trying to think your way out of anxiety, if you have analysed and explained and reasoned and still found yourself trapped—maybe it is time for a different approach.
Maybe the way forward is not more thought, but more feeling.
More movement.
More breath.
More trust in the body’s wisdom, in the knowing that lives beneath the mind.
Because healing does not always come from understanding. Sometimes, it comes from releasing. And sometimes, the way out is not through thinking at all—but through allowing yourself to feel what has been waiting to be felt, and move in the way your body has always known it needed to move.
