The Undeniable Weight of Anxiety

A personal reflection from a clinician who lives what she teaches

There’s a particular weight anxiety carries; one that isn’t metaphorical but physiological. It lives behind the ribs, in the jaw, between the shoulder blades. It sharpens thoughts into fragments, pushes the heart into a faster rhythm, and steals the ability to focus long enough to finish a sentence. It narrows the world until all that exists is the next fear, next what-if, next imagined catastrophe.

If you’re wondering who I’m describing, it’s me, right now, this moment, today.

People often assume that expertise grants immunity. That if you’re a clinician, especially one trained in data-driven CBT, anxiety rolls off your back like water off stone. But knowledge doesn’t shield you from being human. What it does is sharpen your awareness of what’s happening internally, and what it means. And these last five years, especially the long, grinding climb toward full licensure, have reminded me that I don’t float above the tools I teach. I use them. They help. But they don’t eliminate life’s weight. They help me carry it.

Anxiety Isn’t Just a Feeling; It’s a System on Overload

Anxiety is rarely singular. It’s a cluster:

• racing heart

• rumination

• irritability

• emotional sensitivity

• mental fog

• difficulty concentrating

• sleep disruption

• that sense of being slightly outside yourself

• the quiet question beneath everything: How much more can I hold?
  

Some of those symptoms are classic cognitive load. Some are physiological. Some are trauma-linked. Some are simply the result of too many demands layered over too many expectations. But the truth is simple: Anxiety is data. It tells us what’s being asked of us, and what our current capacity is.

My Past Five Years: A Slow Erosion of Margin

There is no need for dramatic retelling here. The last five years have held enough weight without embellishment:

• Master's completion while running a business, losing a business, all during COVID

• Bureaucratic delays.

• A false allegation that forced me to hire an attorney and fight for my credibility.

• Constant fear of what will happen next (yes, trauma symptoms)

• Applications sent, corrected, and resubmitted.

• Emails unanswered, deadlines unclear.

• A system that treated practitioners like liabilities rather than colleagues.

• The financial pressure of building a business while navigating uncertainty.

• The emotional pressure of showing up for clients when my own footing was unstable.

• The slow, grinding emotional erosion of “not yet,” “not enough,” “not approved,” and “wait.”

  
  

This is not a tragedy. It’s endurance. And endurance has a cost.

Even Clinicians Hit Their Threshold

I know exactly what my anxiety is doing when it ramps up:

• My racing heart? A sympathetic surge, my body preparing for threat.

• My rumination? A cognitive attempt to solve an unsolvable system.

• My irritability? An indicator that the load has exceeded a typical threshold.

• My emotional volatility? A sign that the pressure valves are overdue for release.

Anxiety doesn’t mean I’m failing. It means I’m interpreting strain accurately. The challenge isn’t the symptoms. The challenge is how long they’ve been sustained.

When the Tools Only Help Partially

I’ve spent decades practicing CBT, not as a passive observer, but as a practitioner who believes in the work because it rebuilt my life. I’ve taught reframing, regulation, exposure, pattern interruption, and meaning-making to hundreds of clients. And yet, here’s the truth that clinicians don’t always say out loud:

Sometimes the tools help 10%.

Sometimes 60%.

Sometimes they simply hold you together long enough to get through the week.

They work. But they do not erase the human condition. They don’t make you immune to fear, grief, or uncertainty. This is where surface-level therapy does damage; it promises transformation without acknowledging the cost of endurance. “Use the skill, and you’ll feel better.” Not always. Sometimes the win is using the skill and not falling apart. Sometimes the victory is still being here.

A Philosophical Reality: Anxiety and Meaning Travel Together

Viktor Frankl understood the human condition long before neuroscience could map it. Antonio Damasio has shown, through decades of research, that emotion is not an inconvenience; it’s the architecture of survival, decision-making, and meaning itself. Anxiety isn’t a flaw. It’s evidence of investment. We fear losing what matters. We feel pressure when the outcome is meaningful. We react because we are wired to preserve what has purpose.

If the licensure process meant nothing to me, I would not feel its weight. If the work I do carried no moral, professional, or spiritual significance, I would not feel the anxiety that accompanies responsibility. Anxiety and meaning are linked. One reveals the presence of the other.

The Five-Year Gauntlet: What It Asked of Me

This process did not simply test my qualifications. It tested:

• my perseverance,

• my clarity,

• my boundaries,

• my faith,

• my patience,

• and my willingness to keep moving through uncertainty.

  
  

It asked whether I could keep showing up for clients while being stripped of the illusion of stability behind the scenes. It asked whether I could tolerate the indignity of waiting without losing my center. It asked whether I could trust what I know to be true, even when institutions acted as if it wasn’t. And at times, it asked more than I wanted to give. But I kept going. Not because I am endlessly resilient. But because the work matters.

Anxiety as a Companion, Not an Enemy

Symptoms are uncomfortable; today, they are absolutely relentless. But they signal something more fundamental:

I haven’t given up. I haven’t disengaged. I haven’t stopped caring.

The same goes for you. You are still in the fight. This is the shift most people never learn:

Anxiety is not the enemy. Misinterpreting anxiety is the enemy.

When we believe anxiety means “I’m not capable,” we shrink. When we believe it means “I shouldn’t be feeling this,” we isolate. When we believe it means “I’m failing,” we freeze.

But when we interpret it accurately, anxiety becomes information:

• What matters most?

• Where am I overextended?

• What needs support, structure, or boundaries?

• What is the meaning beneath this pressure?

  
  

Anxiety becomes a guide, not an indictment.

So, Where Am I Now?

The truth is simple: I’m tired. I’m still waiting. My body is showing the signs. Some days the tools help more than others. Today, everything feels uphill. But that's the truth. Not the myth of a life without anxiety. Not the false promise of emotional neutrality. Not the illusion that clinicians transcend the human experience.

I teach the reality:

We endure.

We grow.

We adapt.

We find meaning.

We keep moving.

If You’re Carrying a Weight Right Now

Let me leave you with this, something I’ve had to remind myself often:

Anxiety doesn’t show up where there is nothing to lose. It shows up where there is something worth fighting for.

If your chest is tight, if your mind is spinning, if your focus is shot, if you’re carrying more than feels fair, you are not broken. You’re human. And you’re standing in a place where what you value is being tested. The weight is real. And so is your strength. Wow. I needed to read this.