Anxiety as a Messenger: what is it telling you?

What if anxiety isn’t a malfunction of the mind - but a signal from within, asking you to slow down and reconnect with what the body and soul know to be true?

Like many, I struggled with anxiety earlier in my life. Over the years, it seems that this experience has become more and more common as the pace of life changes and we are faced with the pressure to keep up in so many ways. For some, anxiety has a way of creeping up quietly, but it can also crash in very unexpectedly in the form of panic or the sense that our system has become so overwhelmed it can't function anymore.

My experience with anxiety was the catalyst for studying counselling and I later developed and ran a counselling and group support service called 'The Panic Room SA', which continued for about 7 years. During this time, I met hundreds of amazing people who had been 'visited' by anxiety in different ways and I tried my best to share what I had learned, both personally and professionally.

In turn, the experience re-enforced within me the power of our feelings being 'witnessed' and validated. That, when we actually look at it - anxiety is a valuable teacher - and when we talk about it and better understand it's meaning, we transform fear and powerlessness into movement.

Anxiety, in all its forms, shapes how we feel, think and move in the world. It can be incredibly debilitating and all-consuming as we try to work out how to move forward with this giant boulder in the way. It's no surprise that we come to think of anxiety as something to get rid of or control. But what if, instead of pushing it away, we got curious about what it’s trying to tell us? What if anxiety isn’t a malfunction of the mind - but a signal from within, asking you to slow down and reconnect with what the body and soul know to be true?

The Spiritual Language of Anxiety

Anxiety often arises when we are out of alignment with our truth. It can appear as a tightness in the chest, racing thoughts, or an unshakable sense of dread - but at its core, it’s an invitation. It asks us to come back to ourselves, to return to the moment, and to examine what’s no longer serving us.

In spiritual terms, anxiety may be the soul’s way of saying: “Something here is not in harmony with who I really am"

Rather than seeing anxiety as the enemy, we can begin to view it as a sacred messenger—one that is encouraging us to become curious and more self compassionate.

The Wisdom Within

When we bring spiritual awareness to anxiety, we begin to ask different questions:

• Where in my life am I living out of fear instead of love?

• What am I trying to control that is not mine to carry?

• What emotion or truth have I pushed down that is now surfacing to be healed?

• What would it mean to trust more deeply that my life is unfolding exactly as it should be?

  
  

These questions can open the door to a more intuitive, embodied understanding of our anxiety—one that honours it, rather than suppresses it.

The Role of Energy Work in Releasing Anxiety

From an energetic perspective, anxiety often shows up as stuck or chaotic energy in the body’s energetic field. If we look at the body in an anxious state, we might see that the heart chakra is blocked, the third eye (located at the centre of the brow) is hyper-alert, or there is over-activation in our solar plexus. This is where our personal power and sense of control live. We might also find a blockage in our root chakra at the base of our spine, which is the home of safety, security and a sense of 'groundedness' or our throat chakra - when the ability to express ourselves is stifled. It's interesting to reflect on my own journey with anxiety and note that I was very much stuck in all of these areas - and that this 'stuckness' left me feeling frozen in many aspects of my life.

Energy work can help to support our body to do what it knows to do, returning us to a state of flow and gently calming fear and nervous system over-activation. Helpful techniques include:

• Chakra balancing - especially the root, heart, solar plexus and throat chakras.

• Emotional stress release (ESR) - holding particular points on the forehead to gently calm the nervous system

• Essential oil sprays or crystals - to bring grounding and clarity

• Affirmations - to help rewire the energetic patterns tied to fear

• Hands-on healing - or working with various 'polarities' to realign scattered or overactive energies

  
  

These approaches aim to restore harmony and flow where things may have become blocked or fragmented. They help us come home to ourselves—not just mentally, but energetically and spiritually. Sometimes energy work practices may be incorporated into a session to help integrate what has come to the surface, or they can act as useful practices that can be continued at home, or in-between sessions.

The body knows how to re-align when we make space for it to do so. This is the subtle, but powerful wisdom of the energy body: we don't need to do more, we need to do LESS.

Returning to the Sacred Self

Practices such as meditation, breathwork, and grounding also help us anchor into the present moment and reconnect with our higher self. When paired with energy healing, this becomes even more powerful. We’re no longer just managing anxiety—we're decoding it, learning from it and working with it.

Moving from Control to Trust

I used to talk about anxiety in terms of 'recovery', but there is really nothing to recover from - we are just out of sync with our own heartbeat. True healing comes from learning to sit with the anxiety we feel, ask it what is needed, and to reconnect with the parts of ourselves we’ve rejected or ignored. When we view anxiety as a portal—one that leads us into our truth, our needs, and our own inner wisdom—we shift from control to trust. From here, something beautiful begins to unfold: peace that doesn’t rely on circumstances, but arises from deep within us.

Anxiety doesn’t have to be your stuck place—it can be the start of a deeper dialogue with yourself. If you’re ready to discover what it’s guiding you toward, I’d love to connect. Reach out here.