From Managing Anxiety to Resolving It

I had a session recently that brought something into focus for me in a very clear way.

A client named Burt was telling me about an event he had planned to attend. It mattered to him. He wanted to go because he wanted to feel connected and experience a sense of belonging.

When the time came, he found himself overwhelmed. As he talked it through, it became clear that what he was experiencing wasn’t just anxiety about the event itself, but the amount he was trying to carry internally as he moved toward it.

What Anxiety Is

I’m not a trained clinician. I don’t know what a therapist would say about anxiety or how it’s defined in the research. What I do know is my own experience of it, and this is how I’ve come to understand it.

When I have a concern and I don’t address it, it doesn’t go anywhere. It stays with me. And now instead of resolving it, I have to manage it. I might try to hide it, suppress it, ignore it, distract from it, get someone else to take care of it, or find some way to take the edge off. I’ve done all of it at different times. The concern is still there, but now I’m carrying the added effort of managing it.

The same is true with needs. If I have a need and I don’t meet it, it doesn’t disappear. It stays in me, and now that has to be managed too.

So now I’m not just dealing with life as it comes at me. I’m carrying what hasn’t been addressed and what hasn’t been met.

If I’ve got one concern and one unmet need, that’s something. If I’ve got three concerns and five unmet needs, now I’m carrying all of that. And all of it requires some level of attention, energy, or control to keep it from spilling over. Some of that I’m aware of, but a lot of it happens automatically, without me realizing it. Either way, it’s drawing on the same limited capacity.

At a certain point, I start to feel it. By midday I’m drained. By later in the day I can feel overwhelmed. Not because something new just happened, but because I’ve been using my energy to manage what’s already there.

My capacity to hold and manage unresolved concerns and unmet needs is limited. When that capacity gets used up, there’s nothing left for anything new.

That’s what I experience as anxiety.

It’s not coming out of nowhere. It’s what shows up when I’m carrying more unresolved concerns and unmet needs than I have the capacity to hold and manage.

Back to the Session

As we looked at Burt’s experience through that lens, what he was describing started to make more sense.

He wasn’t just anxious about the event. He was carrying multiple concerns into it, and at the same time trying to manage how those concerns showed up.

He was thinking about how the event might go. He was concerned about what others might make it mean that he was there. He also felt a sense of guilt, worried that his presence might make other people uncomfortable.

And layered into all of that was the effort to manage his anxiety itself. He didn’t want it to be visible. There was a concern that if it was seen, it would be judged, and that judgment would reflect something about him that he didn’t want others to see.

So he went into the event not just to be there, but to manage everything he was carrying.

The Breaking Point

At a certain point, what he was managing became more than he could hold.

His anxiety increased as he tried to stay present, monitor himself, and manage how he was coming across. The more he tried to hold it together, the more there was to hold.

Eventually, his capacity was exceeded.

He pulled back. Disengaged. Left.

Afterward, there was embarrassment. Then shame. And from there, a familiar shift into blaming the situation and other people for how it had gone.

From the outside, this can look like self-sabotage.

From the inside, it’s what happens when the amount of what we’re carrying is greater than our capacity to manage it.

Managing vs Resolving

What shifted in the session was a simple distinction that had a big impact.

We separated managing from resolving.

Managing is what we do to get through something. It’s how we try to calm the anxiety, keep it contained, or prevent it from being seen. It can help in the moment, and sometimes it’s necessary.

But managing doesn’t reduce what’s there. It just keeps it from spilling over, at least for a while.

Resolving is different. Resolving means addressing the concerns that are present. It means taking those concerns seriously enough to understand what they’re about and what they’re trying to prevent. It also means recognizing when there are needs that haven’t been met and finding ways to respond to those.

When concerns are addressed and needs are met, there is simply less to manage.

And when there is less to manage, there is more capacity available for whatever comes next.

A Different Approach

It makes sense that we try to manage anxiety. When that internal state shows up, there’s a natural pull to do something about it. Most of us aren’t interested in sitting in that level of discomfort if we can avoid it.

Management has a role. There are times when calming yourself, grounding, or getting through something is exactly what’s needed.

But if management is the only approach, the underlying concerns and unmet needs remain. They don’t go away. They continue to accumulate, and over time they require more and more capacity to hold.

A more sustainable approach is to combine the two.

To manage what’s present when needed, and also take the time to resolve what’s driving it.

That means working with the concerns that are there, even the ones underneath the first layer. It means recognizing needs when they show up and responding to them directly.

As that happens, there is less internal load. And with less load, there is more capacity to be with what life brings.

What Changes

When this starts to shift, the pattern changes.

It’s no longer just a cycle of building anxiety, trying to manage it, and eventually becoming overwhelmed.

Instead, there’s more awareness of what’s being carried. Concerns can be noticed earlier. Needs can be recognized before they build up. There’s more opportunity to respond rather than react.

That doesn’t mean anxiety never shows up. It does.

But there’s less of it, and it doesn’t build in the same way.

There’s also more capacity. Not because you’ve gotten better at controlling yourself, but because there’s less inside that needs to be controlled.

What used to feel like something you had to push through starts to feel more workable.

Closing

Anxiety isn’t something I try to get rid of anymore.

I see it as a signal.

It tells me that I’m carrying concerns that haven’t been addressed, needs that haven’t been met, or both.

And it also tells me something about my capacity in that moment.

If I only try to manage it, I may get through what’s in front of me, but I’m likely adding to what I’ll have to carry later.

If I take the time to understand what’s there and respond to it, I reduce what needs to be managed going forward.

That’s the shift.

Not from anxiety to no anxiety.

But from managing it to resolving what creates it.