Rollo May on anxiety

“Anxiety occurs at the point where some emerging potentiality or possibility faces the individual, some possibility of fulfilling his [sic] existence; but this very possibility involves the destroying of present security, which thereupon gives rise to the tendency to deny the new potentiality. Here lies the truth of the symbol of the birth trauma as the prototype of all anxiety—an interpretation suggested by the etymological source of the word anxiety as “pain in narrows,” “choking,” as though through the straits of being born…If there were not some possibility of opening up, some potentiality crying to be “born,” we would not experience anxiety. This is why anxiety is so profoundly connected with the problem of freedom. If the individual did not have some freedom, no matter how minute, to fulfill some new potentiality, he would not experience anxiety…In whatever way one chooses to illustrate it, this discussion points to the positive aspect of Angst [German word with no clear English translation but which is generally translated as anxiety and shares etymology with the word anguish]. For the experience of anxiety itself demonstrates that some potentiality is present, some new possibility of being, threatened by nonbeing.”—Rollo May, in The Discovery of Being

One of the things that first drew me to existentialist psychology was the positive aspects it found in the experience of anxiety and the connecting anxiety to the process of being and thus not recommending that one seek to eliminate anxiety from one’s life the way many psychologists and doctors do; this is seen as impossible because to eliminate anxiety would mean ceasing to be. This is not to say that anxiety cannot become so great that it more closely resembles anguish than Angst (I’ve been there on many occasions) or that such anxiety should not be eased. Rather, existentialists would posit that the blanket judgement of anxiety as universally unhealthy may be unhelpful to those experiencing it, as it does not take into account the positive aspect of it—the opening of potentiality. This was something that was very helpful for me in learning how to better manage my anxiety as it made it something that I was less afraid of and being less afraid helps me when I am in a cognitive loop of anxiety-fear of anxiety-increased anxiety-fear-and so on. Seeing the “positive aspect of Angst” also helped me fight the stigma I felt around having anxiety, helping me reframe it as indicating that I was experiencing the possibility of some new way of being.

I offer this passage above, because it helped me at a point in my life when I was struggling with anxiety. As always, if it does not speak to you or is unhelpful, please don’t take it as an Absolute, rather it is one perspective among many which may be helpful to some and not to others.