Anxiety and Panic disorders
What's living with general anxiety like?
General anxiety is a term describing a sort of state of living in which you somehow get stuck in. It’s a feeling that your body is constantly aware of some impeding danger, while you can’t really work out with your mind where this danger is coming from. This puts you in a state of stress, as you worry that you might not be aware of something that your body is signaling you. It creates a split between your mind and your body, a sense of distrust and of loss of control. Every activity of everyday life becomes complicated because of this sense of danger, and every thought accompanying this activity multiplies itself into doubts and questions that breaks down simple activities to which we should really be giving minimal thoughts, into complex mathematical problems of the mind, body and spirit. This is exhausting. This exhaustion can sometimes cause a lot of grief. sadness and frustration over our outlook on life in general, wondering who to trust, and why there always seems to be something wrong.
The additional weight of lurking panic attacks
Because our general levels of anxiety are much higher—let’s say 8/10—while they should really be at about 3 (a bit of anxiety is healthy), we are always closer to reaching states of panic. Panic is an overwhelming, sudden surge of intense fear or anxiety, triggering a "fight-or-flight" response with strong physical (racing heart, shaking, shortness of breath) and mental (impending doom, loss of control) symptoms. Panic, as an intense fear response (fight/flight/freeze), is useful for immediate survival against real, sudden threats, like escaping danger or reacting fast to avoid a car crash, but it becomes a problem (a panic attack) when it's an exaggerated "false alarm" for non-life-threatening modern situations.
Living closer to the « panic floor » is like living under very loud neighbors. You never feel quite at peace in your own home, because you can hear the banging and slamming and moving of furniture upstairs through the ceiling: when you live with general anxiety, you never quite feel at home in your own self because you always sense the state of panic close by.
Getting back to a regulated way of life, what psychotherapy does
Therapy thus needs to help lower the general levels of stress. That’s the number one goal. We want to get back from 8 to 3/10 as a form of baseline. How do we do that? It’s a real generalized intervention.
On one level, we work on coping strategies to manage the moments when things “begin to spin”. That’s not just damage control, that’s actual therapy, because by learning to cope differently, people also realize there was nothing to fear in the first place. We learn grounding, breathing, and trying to understand the triggers: their nature, where and when they happen etc.
The deeper work though, and the ultimately life changing one, is no less than working out changing how we perceive things.
Anxiety is an issue with the way we perceive danger, or more generally, interpret reality.
A philosophical note on the topic
Most of the time, we who suffer with anxiety and panic attacks, have created without our intention, a bit of an alternative reality which does not necessarily reflect true danger… and is certainly not the most operational kind of reality (it doesn’t serve us very well!) . Here we talk about phobias for example, and that exaggerated sense of impending doom at the gaze of wiggly spider legs. Familiar?
Jokes aside, it is about re-thinking certain beliefs to help us live more in peace, especially negative beliefs.
Therapy is thus also a lot about connecting with the feels… and learning not to be scared from them. In a way, we detach ourselves from our own feelings and thoughts a little bit.. we learn to give them a bit less importance.
We learn to accept that our bodies give us sensations which are not always comfortable… and that does not necessarily mean anything…we learn that some intrusive thoughts always happen and are a product of a subconscious that works under an entirely different logic with no practical implication into our actual daily lives…
Anxiety is very tight to control. Not in a bad sense. It’s not that we are bad for wanting control ! it’s simply that we think that control is what is going to make us ok. When really, it’s the opposite. But for that, we need to learn to trust, that most of the time, the imperfections of life are just that.. imperfections.
Panic does not mean something is wrong with you, it just means you need to feel safe in this world... or maybe you just need to get to know this world a little better.
It is the nervous system’s urgent attempt to protect you from a danger that feels imminent, even when no visible threat is present.
In this sense, panic attacks are not madness or loss of control. They are an alarm system stuck on high alert — a soul and body that have learned, often through past overwhelm or shock, that vigilance is necessary for survival.
From a Chassidic perspective, panic can be understood as a surge of raw vitality without containment. The life force moves too quickly, without vessels strong enough to hold it, and the experience becomes frightening rather than enlivening. The light is not dangerous — it is simply unregulated.
Healing does not begin by fighting the panic or forcing calm. It begins by restoring safety, rhythm, and trust in the body. Through understanding, grounding, and compassionate attention, the nervous system can slowly learn that it no longer needs to sound the alarm.
As safety returns, panic loosens its grip. What once felt like terror becomes information. What once overwhelmed begins to settle. With time and care, the body remembers that it is allowed to rest — and the soul learns that it is no longer alone with its fear.