The Wisdom of Anxiety – Natural Solutions for Anxiety
More and more of us are feeling the pressure and stress of daily living. The 2024 results of the American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll show that American adults are feeling more and more anxious. In 2024, forty three percent of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022. (1)
Anxiety can manifest as mental symptoms including pervasive thoughts and worries, excessive fear, and avoidance of certain situations. However, anxiety appears through the physical body as well. Anxiety and stress can manifest as insomnia, nausea, shortness of breath, difficulty concentrating and muscle pain or tension, to name just a few. (2)
When most of us experience symptoms of overwhelm, we are eager to make them go away – as soon as possible. Because this is often an uncomfortable experience, we want to get as far away from it as we can. We can turn to prescription or over the counter medications, natural therapeutics like herbs or amino acids, mindfulness techniques like meditation or breathwork…and what these diverse interventions have in common is our underlying intention – MAKE IT STOP!
But what if anxiety and related symptoms were actually here to help you?
Let’s assume for a minute that the body is truly wise. (I personally am astounded at the miracles the body performs without me even being consciously aware – from regulating breathing, to coordinating an immune response, to growing fingernails…)
If the body carries its own innate intelligence, we can assume that when it manifests symptoms, that there is a reason behind it. Knee pain tells us that there’s an injury and we need to slow down. Thirst tells us we need more water. Rumbling in the stomach tells us we need to find a bathroom.
Why would anxiety be any different?
Culturally, we have a negative bias towards mental health disorders. There is a common belief that mental health is something that we can simply overcome by deciding to do so. Therefore, if we’re still suffering from mental-emotional symptoms, we must not be trying hard enough to address it. Or we’re judged as stubborn because there are medications that can “fix that”. If those suggested treatments don’t work, there is a deep sense of fear that we can experience – this must mean I truly am “broken”.
When people get cancer or have surgeries, friends and neighbors pour out to make meals, walk the dogs, sit with us or help with chores.
When we are dealing with a mental-emotional condition, many of us find that the phone stops ringing; we are met with judgment, and we feel a distance opening up between ourselves and our community. Doors often slam shut as people feel fear of something they don’t understand.
In addition, living in a dominant medical model which only offers solutions that move us away from the body’s expression – anti-depressants, anti-inflammatories, anti-hypertensives – we find ourselves bombarded by stories that there’s no reason for our symptoms to continue.
These experiences and cultural biases serve to solidify the myth that some of us are “normal” and simply do not deal with mental-emotional ups and downs. Or if these unicorn humans do experience hard times, they have superior coping skills and simply aren’t affected like we are.
If it were as simple as taking a medication, doing yoga (3), using supplements, or chanting (4) to have worries and anxieties fall away, this would be a different conversation. But the body doesn’t manifest symptoms unless there is a specific reason. In the case of anxiety, it is trying to bring your attention to patterns or choices that simply are not working for you.
When the mind is creating repetitive thoughts, it’s to bring our attention to something we’ve been avoiding or don’t want to look at. When patterns of perfectionism and self-criticism come in, it’s typically to prevent us from being hurt (again). When we can’t sleep because we can’t stop chewing on something that’s happened, the brain is trying to make sure you have learned the lesson so you won’t find yourself in the same place again. These are all learned behaviors that come from our families, our teachers, our communities as a whole.
That means that we can learn a different way to be with these thoughts and feelings!
The first step is to notice the resistance you have to being with what you are feeling or thinking. There is probably some belief living within you that you can’t handle this emotion or you don’t have what you need to really be present with all that’s here. It is also possible that the part that feels resistant or stuck on problem-solving is worried that letting you be with whatever it is will hurt or cause you pain, so they show up to distract and protect.
So take a breath and let yourself notice all the different points of view – and offer them some appreciation. “I see you and I get what you’re doing. It’s ok that you’re here.”
Once the parts who are feeling resistant are able to take a step back, you can show up with curiosity from your heart – “I wonder what’s going on here? How are you feeling right now?”. And you breathe with that too. (Reminding the problem-solver part that it can take a break – for now we are simply showing up and making space.)
This process helps us to differentiate what we’re thinking or feeling from who we really are. When we can stop identifying our thoughts or emotions as ourselves, we can disrupt dysfunctional thinking patterns and have less physiological impact from stress and thoughts.(5)
These beginning steps will start to create a place of acceptance rather than resistance, which is the cornerstone of change.(6) It seems really simple, and it’s not always easy. The key here is choosing to continue to practice this new way of relating to yourself. It took years (or decades) to form the pattern as it’s showing up. Give yourself some time to drop into something radically different!
When we begin to be truly present for ourselves, the healing begins. When we are willing to show up and tell ourselves “I am here, no matter what”, our relationship to self changes. There is less need to use protections like over-thinking, hyper-managing, and incessant thoughts or worries to avoid being with whatever is here.
Learning to listen to the body includes appreciating it in all its expressions. Having the courage to listen to what anxiety is telling you will change everything.
References:
- Psychiatry.org
- Penninx B, Pine D, Holmes E, Reif A. Anxiety Disorders. Lancet. 2021 Feb 11;397:914–927.
- Black DS, Cole SW, Irwin, MR, et al. Yogic meditation reverses NF-kB and IRF-related transcriptome dynamics in leukocytes of family dementia caregivers in a randomized controlled trial. Psychoneuroimmunology. 2013; 38(3): 348-355.
- Perry G, Polito V, Thompson WF. Exploring the Physiological and Psychological Effects of Group Chanting in Australia: Reduced Stress, Cortisol and Enhanced Social Connection. J Relig Health. 2024 Dec;63(6):4793-4815.
- Daubenmier J, Hayden D, Chang V, Epel E. It’s Not What You Think, it’s How You Related to it: Dispositional Mindfulness Moderates the Relationship between Psychological Distress and the Cortisol Awakening Response. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2014 Oct;48:11-18.
- Schwartz R. Moving from Acceptance Toward Transformation with Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS). J Clin Psychol. 2013 Aug;69(8):805-16.

By: Dr. Nicola Dehlinger | Durango, CO
I love what I do for a living. My deepest desire is to help you connect more to who you are. After two decades in practice, what I have come to know beyond a deeply shadow of a doubt, is that the only medicine you really need more of is YOU!
This is why I created a space to share the essence of Pura Vida.
Through my own journey of healing and reflection, I have experienced what it means to be kind to myself.