Freedom from anxiety

Acharya Prashant
5 min readDec 31, 2020

Especially in the modern world, unfortunately, a degree of constant anxiety has become an almost normalized state for us. A large portion of our mental health problems as a collective is very much about anxiety and fear. Burn-outs, career pressures, problems with self-esteem, fear of others, stress about studies, etc. — all of this is anxiety at its root and very commonplace.

It is actually a good sign if you see that anxiety rides your mind because then you can do something about it. Most of us probably do not even realize how tense and insecure we are within.

Read these five points and see that freedom from anxiety is possible — if you choose it.

1. If anxiety troubles you

Question (Q): How to deal with anxiety?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Well, there is a part of anxiety that is related to facts, and there is a component of anxiety that rests upon imagination.

What is purely imaginary will lose its sting the moment you see it is merely imaginary. There is no end to the self-inflicted anxiety you can cause to yourself if you go on imagining.

The factual component is bound to cause and effect. If the arrow has left the bow, it will travel the distance. Why not say, “There is no point worrying now”? What is bound to happen will happen.

In either case, what is the point in remaining anxious?

2. If anxiety persists

Q: How to ease anxiety?

AP: It is not anxiety that bothers you but your anxiety about anxiety.

Let anxiety come and go. Why must you plan to kill it or react to it? You energize the anxiety by giving it undue importance. You have given it a bad name! Why can’t you let anxiety be?

You cannot have depth in your life until you have gone through the entire rainbow, the whole spectrum. You need to experience maddening…

Acharya Prashant