"If you feel like something's wrong, then everything's ok. If you feel like everything's ok, then something's wrong"
I'm not sure where I've heard this aphorism, or whether I even recall it correctly, but there's something interesting about it.
The mind-body communication is of great interest to me, which means that right up that alley is the topic of anxiety.
Anxiety... like the feeling that something isn't quite right, though specifically in a high alert and "pay attention to this" mode.
Anxiety has an energy and alertness to it... unlike the feeling of depression, sadness, withdrawal, which are also feelings that point to something not being right, but not with the same level of physiological energy.
Anxiety can be good, when in the context of getting the self to pay attention, respond, and change something worth changing, whether inside or outside the self.
It's an excellent signal telling the self that something ain't right.
Surely, the signal can go astray and misfire and make the self concious when it doesn't need to be, or perhaps, fail to make the self feel anxious when it should be... So how does one calibrate?
I explored similar topics in previous thought pieces, and there is a typical initial response that jumps to mind: conscious, slow, methodoical, and calm analysis. It means unpacking the anxious feeling, trying to understand when it came up, why, where, and what I can possible do about it.
Though on the same token, simply lowering the anxiety without doing anything about it or dismissing it could be a mistake, as one would love the physiological energy and drive to move forward and take action. Sometimes, full out physical movement forward is the most correct action to be taken.
So here we are once again, at the topic of balance... something something about it being nuanced and requiring deeper analysis...
Let's start at the fact that one can be at perfect homestasis where the call to anxiety is appropriately timed and dealt with. Perhaps, the word anxiety itself needs to be looked at and reframed. "Anxiety" can be good or bad, though it is most often used to refer to negative and unwanted states of mind... and that appears to be correct. You don't want to feel anxious at the moment, though feeling it and taken action on it is retrospectively the exact way you should've and would've wanted to feel.
Therefore, feeling anxiety can indeed be good. That's a good start to the analysis.
So if we call anxiety something different, it's about being in a heightened, ready, moving forward state of mindbody, which can be conducive to actually addressing and tackling tasks, events, stimuli.
Ideally, you have a rough idea of what the correct actions are to take, and correct as in they achieve the best possible outcome that is necessary for greater good. Ideally, the actions fit into the broader goal and vision set for the self, which has already been thought about and included, both consciously and unconsciously (e.g. unconsciously moving towards food acquisition when feeling hungry).
If one just starts acting sporadically and out of control, without a proper plan, that's more chaos, more anxiety, and a recipe for the ultimate downfall.
A simple example, yet again referring back to cleaning the house, which is a common shared experience where the goal is straight forward and the outcome is measurable. If I feel anxious by a messy house and my actions look like doing 1/10th of every single task simultaneously and bouncing back and forth, that will feel chaotic and anxiety inducing even further.
If I channel that same "move forward" energy towards one particular task, perhaps even one that requires high energy and movement, it will feel really good in the moment and in hindsight, almost like flow state.
Another example is the job of an air traffic controller, or any job that resembles it. It may feel "anxious" at a distance, but surely an experienced worker feels like time is flying (no pun intended) and the job is being conducted productively with tangible outcomes (flights safely landing.
And so, it appears that when there is this anxious energy created in the mindbody, either from the personal interaction with the environemtn, the processing of information, memories, thoughts of the future (all which require deep analysis on their own right), moving forward with proper action to resolve the anxiety and cause positive change is the beautiful dance of life itself.
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