Anxiety: Why We Can’t Eliminate It and Why We Shouldn’t Try

Anxiety serves many important purposes. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to recognise when we are in danger. Can you imagine how big of a problem that would be for our survival?

Imagine that anxiety is like an alarm system in your home. This alarm exists to warn you when someone is trying to break in — in other words, to protect you from danger.

But what if this alarm went off every time a dog passed through your garden, or whenever a strong wind caused a few leaves to fall? The alarm would be triggered far too often, and at moments when you’re not actually in danger, right?

That would be unpleasant, exhausting, and overwhelming.

But would that be a reason to turn the alarm off completely?
If we did that, how would we detect real threats?

Anxiety Is Not the Enemy

The same applies to anxiety. We cannot get rid of it, because it plays a vital role in keeping us safe. The goal is not to eliminate anxiety, but to adjust it.

We don’t want the alarm to go off all the time, we want it to activate only when it truly needs to. Anxiety works in the same way.

Remember: anxiety is trying to protect you.

The physical symptoms that come with it — even when they feel uncomfortable, intense, or frightening — are also part of that protection system.

Thoughts and Emotions Are Not Who You Are

It’s important to remember that thoughts and emotions do not define who we are. They are more like clouds passing through the sky.

No matter how strong an emotion feels in the moment, it will pass.

Anxiety is often triggered by future-focused thoughts — thoughts that tend to overestimate danger and underestimate our ability to cope with challenges. These thought patterns can dysregulate our internal alarm system.

So stay mindful.

We often give our thoughts a lot of power, but most of the time, they are just thoughts. The strength we feel in them doesn’t come from the thoughts themselves — it comes from us.

And that means we have more power than we think.