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if you've got cells, you've got anxiety


It's come to my attention that people don't know that anxiety is a naturally occurring state of being. It's emergent from cells and if you are made of cells, you have anxiety.

This isn't to get non-anxious people freaking out but rather to get anxious people knowing anxiety isn't a rare and special and deforming thing -- if you have cells, you have anxiety.

Early Buddhist texts link anxiety with the attachment reflex in cells -- cells are made to hold onto life, until life is no longer possible for the benefit of all (and "all" for a cell is not anything we can imagine). With this attachment comes clinging, clinging brings fears of loss, fear of loss brings concerns, concerns brings anxiety. If you look at anything you are bigly attached to (e.g. for me, sometimes it's my surfboard coffee mug, other times my peaceful morning alone time) the thought of it makes me greedy. This greediness reminds me I could lose my cup or my morning time; the realization of the fragility of both makes me concerned and thinking of preservation, and preservation makes me anxious.

This emergent anxiety happens a few hundred times a day: with time, with parking spots, with driving, with food, with "how dare they", with newsfeeds, with everything -- our cells (singly) and our cellular being (collectively) emerges layers of anxiety that is annoying, but natural.

Anxiety is natural.




It means your cells are working well. What isn't natural is not knowing this, not being taught this, and not being given tools to self-regulate. Notice I said tools: what works for one person may not work for another. One person may do fine with a single tool, and another person may prefer a multitude of tools. It's all fine -- every approach to self-regulation should be self-determined and as unique as the person.

So anxiety is natural. Using tools to manage anxiety = natural. Now, how healthy are your tools? There's a sliding scale of healthiness when it comes to tools. See what tools you are using mindlessly to self-regulate your innate anxiety. Just see.




Once seen, processed, contemplated -- it can happen suddenly or take a year or two -- if you can start swapping out one tool for another, go for it. If you can't, just know: anxiety is natural, self-regulation with tools is natural, tools can be healthy or unhealthy approaches to managing your anxiety, and you are in charge.




(tools = smoking, meditation, exercising, drinking, walking, crafting, drugging, talking, sketching, painting, building, gardening, pharmaceuticals, strawberries, candy, movies, social media, worrying, avoiding, arguing)


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