Anxiety: Stop arguing with this moment

By Evangelos Diavolitsis

We have become very good at worrying.  I have personally mastered the art of worrying about almost anything and everything: money, relationships, health, climate, politics, children, parents, the health of my body, my career and whether anybody actually likes me. This worrying is exhausting and perhaps you don’t know this scientific fact but 99% of what we worry about never comes true. 

Young people seem especially burdened. They have even been called the anxious generation. Unfortunately for them, they were born in a world where they are constantly exposed to danger and distorted messaging about what it means to live a successful life. Happiness has become something we seek externally but happiness has and ALWAYS will be an inside job!

But anxiety is hardly confined to the young. I believe we all know this territory regardless of age? My kind and generous 85-year-old mother recently told me that she worries about everything all the time and feels anxiety about what kind of world people are going to live in the next 20 years. Imagine you get to that age, and you have conquered many worries and fears as my mother has, only to find more things to be anxious about? I asked her: What does it cost you to be anxious all the time? She laughed and said, are you trying to teach me something now? And I said Yes. I am not your son now; I am a meditation teacher. She paused for a long moment and she wisely said: It costs me today.  I have a sagacious mother but sometimes, like all of us, she forgets her innate wisdom. 

For years, some of my anxiety disguised itself as ambition. Achieve more. Become more. Make more. Prove yourself. Get somewhere. I looked productive from the outside. Inside, there was often something much simpler underneath it: Am I enough?

Achievement can become a sophisticated defence against anxiety. If I can construct the right life, become successful enough, spiritual enough, beautiful enough, financially secure enough, admired enough—perhaps, finally, I can relax. There is only one problem. Life refuses to sign that contract. Everything changes. Bodies age. People leave. Money comes and goes. Careers change. Children grow up. Plans collapse. People misunderstand us. Someone gets sick. Someone dies.

And even when we finally get what we wanted, the mind whispers: Yes, but what about tomorrow? What if I get what I don’t want? 

THE SECOND ARROW

There is an ancient Buddhist teaching about two arrows. Imagine walking through a forest and suddenly an arrow strikes you. It hurts. Now imagine that, instead of attending to the wound, you pick up another arrow and shoot yourself. The Buddha taught that the first arrow is the unavoidable pain of being human. The second arrow is what the mind adds. It’s the story we create about the reality we are experiencing.

— The first arrow might be: I'm lonely tonight. The second arrow might be: No one will ever love me.
— The first: I feel awkward at this party. The second: Everyone can see there is something wrong with me.
— The first: My life is changing. The second: This shouldn't be happening.

Anxiety often lives in the distance between the first arrow and the second. We experience uncertainty, and then the mind begins manufacturing a future. And what a talented screenwriter it is! Give it one unanswered text message and by midnight it can produce an entire three-season tragedy.

THE STUBBORN REFUSAL TO BE HERE

At the heart of anxiety there is often a remarkably stubborn refusal to inhabit the present moment. The eternal now! Not because the present moment is necessarily terrible but because we are very busy trying to secure the next one.

In meditation classes we often talk about clinging—to sensory pleasure, to becoming, and even to non-becoming. We want to become somebody, get somewhere, achieve something. Or we want something uncomfortable to disappear. Both movements say: This moment is not enough so we fantasize. One day I will finally be successful, I will find the perfect relationship, I will be enlightened, I will have enough money, or I will become the person I was supposed to be.

Fantasy can be a wonderful human capacity. But it can also become a cover-up for insecurity. Even spiritual fantasies can do this. We imagine some perfected future version of ourselves floating peacefully through life, completely unbothered by traffic, taxes, family or mortality. Good luck with that my friends. 

Stop trying to become someone who never feels anxiety. Become curious. Maybe anxiety isn't the enemy. Usually, when anxiety appears, our first reaction is, how do I get rid of this? But that question already contains aggression. What if we asked instead: What is actually happening right now? Can I allow this experience to be here without immediately trying to change it? These two questions can open an enormous door.

Feel anxiety in the body before turning it into a story. Where is it? The belly? Chest? Throat? Jaw? What does it feel like? Pressure? Heat? Trembling? Contraction? Energy? Become interested. Investigate! Curiosity and anxiety have difficulty occupying the same psychological space. Curiosity opens; anxiety contracts. The clear, radiant mind does not necessarily require perfect circumstances. It requires enough space to perceive circumstances without immediately turning them into a problem. This is where meditation becomes profoundly practical.

We aren't learning to escape life. We are learning to stop fighting with life long enough to experience it.

There is no ideal life. Perhaps one of our greatest modern sources of anxiety is our obsession with creating an ideal life. Social media certainly hasn't helped. Everyone else appears to be travelling, succeeding, healing, manifesting, exercising, falling in love and eating astonishing breakfasts. Meanwhile, you're standing in your kitchen wondering why you're anxious. But there is no ideal life. There are only moments. This breath. This cup of Italian coffee I am drinking right now. The difficult conversation. This disappointment. The astonishing sky. My aching body. The walk through the forest. We keep sacrificing these tiny, living moments for an imaginary destination called “my life”. But these moments are your life.

That is why I increasingly believe one of the great medicines for anxiety is ridiculously simple: Spend time in nature. Walk without headphones. Look at trees. Feel your feet. Watch water move. Let the nervous system remember that it belongs to something vastly older than your résumé. A forest doesn't care about your LinkedIn profile. A mountain is spectacularly uninterested in whether you are getting ahead. Stop trying to arrive.

We have a cultural obsession with achievement—the voice constantly telling us: Become more. Get more. Prove more. I spent years listening to it. What a relief to discover that I don't have to obey it.

Make money. Create things. Build something beautiful. Fall in love. Take risks. Do meaningful work. But don't ask these things to establish your worth. And don't ask tomorrow to finally give you permission to be here today.

No one can promise you that difficulties will not happen. There is nowhere to hide from difficulties.  It begins with the recognition that change, uncertainty and loss are woven into existence. Freedom comes from loosening our grip. Perhaps anxiety is sometimes life asking us to release our demand for certainty and to stop rehearsing existence and begin participating in it. You don't need your entire life figured out to feel the ground underneath your feet. And you don't need to become fearless. You might simply need to become more curious.

A SIMPLE PRACTICE FOR ANXIOUS MOMENTS

Sit somewhere comfortably—or better yet, somewhere in nature. Feel your feet touching the earth. Take one slow breath without trying to make yourself calm. Then ask: What is actually happening right now? Notice sensations before stories. Tight chest. Warm face. Fast heartbeat. Restlessness. Let them be there. Then notice what the mind is adding: What if...? I should have... What will happen...? This shouldn't be happening... Don't fight those thoughts either. Simply recognize: Second arrow. Return to the body. Feel your feet. Listen to the sounds around you. Take another breath. Then ask: Can I allow this moment to be exactly as it is for ten seconds? Not forever. Ten seconds. Then another ten. And perhaps, somewhere between the breath, the earth and the relinquishing of the argument with reality, something unexpected appears. Not certainty. Something better. You stop arguing with the moment you are living right here and now. The result is that anxiety loosens its grip in the body. This is the path to peace.

Retreat with Evangelos and Nishta at Mandali in Italy Dec 13-18, 2026 for Silent Solstice Digital Detox- A Meditation and Healing Reset  a journey into presence, purpose, and the freedom of living with an open heart.