If you’re someone with a big vision, a sensitive nervous system, and a mind that doesn’t stop thinking… anxiety might feel like an unwelcome companion.
But what if it’s not the enemy?
What if anxiety is actually a form of creative pressure, a build-up of energy asking for expression?
Today, I want to share how I see anxiety through the lens of microdosing, psychology, the body, and Carl Jung, and how you can transmute it into clarity, creativity, and aligned action.
Let’s dive in.
Anxiety is often a build-up of unexpressed energy
(Emotion = energy in motion)
One thing I see again and again, in myself, in my clients, is this:
Anxiety often shows up when something inside us wants to move… and we don’t let it.
This applies to emotional energy and creative energy.
Silvan Tomkins’ Affect Theory explains that emotions are biological activation patterns.
When they cannot complete their natural cycle (expression → completion), they generate pressure in the system, experienced as tension or anxiety.
In Chinese medicine and Taoist philosophy, this is the principle of qi stagnation.
When life-force energy is blocked, the body experiences restlessness, irritability, nervous activation, and pressure in the chest or solar plexus.
Carl Jung saw this exact phenomenon through his concept of psychic tension, the internal pressure that builds when unconscious material or creative energy is blocked.​
In The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, he writes about how unintegrated parts of ourselves generate anxiety until they are expressed, acknowledged, or transformed.
This is why anxiety often feels like “something wants to come out.”
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What helps?​
Small forms of expression:
- Move your body (walking, shaking, stretching)
- Free-flow writing (one of the fastest emotional release valves)
- Breath + sound (gentle voice activation)
- Micro creative bursts (drawing, doodling, voice notes)
Expression liberates energy.
Suppression compounds anxiety.
Befriend your anxiety (instead of fighting it)
This changes everything.
One of my favorite conversations on the Microdosing Stories podcast was with Susana. She described anxiety as:
“Not a malfunction, but a messenger.”
Carl Jung said the same thing decades earlier.
- Jung’s view: anxiety is a call from the unconscious
Jung explains that anxiety is often a sign that unconscious material wants to become conscious.
Not pathology.
Not failure.
Not weakness.
But communication.
He wrote:
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”​
(Modern Man in Search of a Soul)
For Jung, what we resist becomes stronger,
and what we turn toward becomes integrated.
This is the heart of learning to meet anxiety with curiosity.
Anxiety is often a part of you that wants your attention, not your rejection.
This is difficult work, but it is transformative.
Susana explains her process of befriending anxiety in this episode of Microdosing Stories Podcast ↓
"Why do I feel anxious when microdosing?”
A question I hear often.
Sometimes the reasons are simple:
- anticipation
- sensitivity
- fear of the unknown
- worry about what might come up
We are biologically wired to stay alert in unfamiliar terrain.
But here’s the important part:
Jung believed anxiety is strongest at the threshold of transformation.
This aligns with the microdosing experience.
The unknown is not danger, it’s expansion.
Microdosing often brings you into deeper presence with yourself, which means you may feel sensations you usually outrun.
But once the body feels safe, that same energy often turns into clarity, calm, or creative flow.
If you ever feel anxious before or during a microdose, pause and remind yourself:
“This is just energy moving. I am opening. I am safe.”
Always listen to your body.
It is wiser than we think.
December openings
So, if you feel called to try microdosing and connect with your inner rhythm, I have 2 open coaching spots this December. Click here and fill in the form.
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Also, the next Slow Remembering Circle
happens on November 19, 2025 at 6:45am PST // 9:45am EST // 4:45pm EEST
Get my workbook on anxiety with 21 powerful tools and guided worksheets.
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