Driving to dinner, I found myself stuck in a loop of anxious thoughts.
My dog had just undergone foot surgery, and I’d tied a bandana around his bandage before we left to protect it from getting wet. My mind began to spiral. What if I tied the bandana too tight? What if he tries to get it off, but tightens it further? What if he loses circulation? What if his leg falls off?
(That escalated fast!)
When I shared my concern with my husband, he calmly assured me that the likelihood of such a disaster was extremely slim. Despite this, the anxious thoughts lingered. I tried deep breathing to calm myself, and that’s when a question rose in my mind:
What are you anchoring into?
Are you anchoring into the belief that everything will go wrong unless proven otherwise? Or are you anchoring into the belief that everything will work out unless proven otherwise?
I realized that in this situation, I had anchored into the belief that everything would go wrong. My dog’s recovery, in my mind, was fraught with complications, and it was entirely on me to anticipate every possible disaster and troubleshoot it before it even happened. My anxiety was rooted in a sense of fear—and an assumption that I alone carried the burden of ensuring everything was okay.
(Sound familiar?)
So, I made a conscious choice. Instead of holding onto the belief that disaster was inevitable, I let myself anchor into the belief that everything would work out unless I had concrete evidence to the contrary.
In that shift, something profound happened.
The cyclone of anxious thoughts quieted. My body, which had felt tight and on edge, softened. My mind, which had been spinning in overdrive, found some stillness. In that quiet space, a new thought surfaced—a simple truth that I hadn’t been able to access before.
I remembered how knots work. The only way the bandana would get tighter if my dog tried to bite it off was if I had tied a slipknot. And I don’t know how to tie a slipknot.
It wasn’t logic or analysis that brought me this clarity. It was the spaciousness that opened up when I stopped letting anxiety drive the car. Only then could intuition find its way into my awareness.
I realized that leaning into anxiety, versus trusting intuition, are two sides of the same energetic coin.
Anxiety is rooted in fear. It thrives on the belief that everything will fall apart unless you, and only you, hold it together. It feeds on itself, creating exhausting toxic spirals.
When I’m anxious, an interesting thing happens. I lose my appetite completely. I feel nauseous. My body literally begins to eat itself for sustenance, mirroring what my mind is doing as anxiety feeds off of anxiety, growing bigger and bigger.
This is not sustainable.
In contrast, intuition is rooted in trust. It carries the belief that the information you need will arrive when you need it, and that others—or the universe—will step in to help. It doesn’t demand constant control. Instead, it creates space for clarity, insight, and calm.
If you find yourself caught in an anxious doom cycle, ask yourself this: How would it feel to believe that everything will work out unless proven otherwise?
What happens to your body when you let go of the need to control every possible outcome? What happens to your mind?
Anxiety eats itself alive. Intuition trusts the process.
The next time anxiety tightens its grip, see if trust and intuition can step in to guide you. Notice how it changes your experience.
Notice how it changes you.
