The Truth About Anxiety: It’s Not What You Think It Is
We all have anxiety. Every single one of us. It lives on a continuum.
Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress. It’s a feeling of fear or apprehension about what’s to come. And we’ve all felt it — think about the first day of school, a big job interview, giving a speech. All of those moments can bring anxiety.
But what we’re not talking about — and what I really want to highlight here — is that underneath anxiety is fear.
Fear of the future. Fear of something going wrong. Fear of failing. Fear of being rejected. Fear of looking stupid. Fear of not being good enough.
And that fear — that’s what gets buried and left unprocessed.
Unprocessed Fear + Grief = Anxiety
I see this with clients all the time. They’ll come in and say, “I don’t know why I’m anxious. I’m just worried all the time. I’m afraid something bad is going to happen. I’m afraid I’ll be alone.”
And I’ll ask, “Can we float back for a second? Tell me about a time you were afraid to lose someone. The first time you lost someone, maybe a pet, a grandparent, a parent?”
Because here’s the truth: a lot of what we’re calling anxiety today… is actually unprocessed fear and grief from childhood.
And I want to be really clear — this isn’t about blaming childhood or our parents. It’s about understanding why we feel the way we do.
Did You Learn to Trust Your Own Feelings?
Let me ask you a few questions:
- Do you trust yourself?
- Do you constantly look outside of yourself for answers?
- Do you wish you didn’t care what people think?
- Were you told things like “be quiet,” “stop crying,” “keep it to yourself,” “don’t talk about that,” or “just shake it off”?
Because if so, you might be walking around with unprocessed grief and fear that never got witnessed
And when something isn’t witnessed, it doesn’t get processed.
Anxiety = A Body Full of Unexpressed Emotions
Anxiety is your body saying, “Please pay attention.
It’s saying, “There’s something you never got to feel.”
I’ve had panic attacks. I know what it feels like when your heart’s racing, your chest is tight, you feel like you can’t breathe — like something terrible is about to happen.
That kind of anxiety is trauma-related. It’s linked to unprocessed childhood wounds — those moments when we were abandoned, ignored, or told our emotions were too much.
Let’s Talk About Generational Emotional Neglect
Our parents didn’t know how to tend to their own emotions, let alone ours. It’s not their fault. But we have to acknowledge the impact. Because if we don’t, we’ll end up passing it all down.
And I promise you — anxiety and shame are two of the most contagious things we can pass on to our kids.
If we’re not doing our own work, we’ll ask them to perform so we feel okay. We’ll expect them to be popular, to succeed, to be the star — because our inner child is still craving validation.
You’re Not Broken — You’re Holding Unfelt Emotions
I want to say this clearly: you are not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not weak. You’re not “too sensitive.” You’re not overreacting.
What’s actually happening is that you’re carrying emotional experiences — fear, grief, sadness, maybe even anger — that never got to be processed. You didn’t have a safe space for those emotions to be seen, heard, or validated. And so they got stored in your body.
That anxiety you feel now? That’s your body saying
“Please pay attention. Something inside still needs your care.”
And when you begin to tend to those parts of yourself — when you stop pushing through, when you give yourself permission to feel, when you start getting curious instead of critical — that’s when things start to shift.
It doesn’t happen all at once. This isn’t about quick fixes.
It’s about building emotional awareness. It’s about learning how to sit with what’s real, and responding with compassion instead of shame.
This work isn’t easy. But it’s deeply transformative.
When you do it, not only do you start to feel more grounded and connected to yourself — you also stop passing on what was passed down to you.
That’s the power of doing this work.
Not with fixing it, not with pushing it down — but with listening to it.
It’s trying to lead you somewhere deeper. And you’re allowed to go there.
You deserve that kind of care. You really do.
- Kristen D Boice M.A., LMFT, EMDR Trained
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