When Your Intellect Likes to Play Horror Movies on Repeat

Hello friends,

There’s a lot of anxiety around me lately.

My teenage daughter, deep in the middle school years, says it casually now:
“Everyone has anxiety, Mom.”

I see it in friends who have been working on it for years — reading, practicing, trying to manage it — and still feel caught.
I see it at work, where the pressure doesn’t really turn off; it just changes form.

And I recognize it in myself too, when the mind starts running ahead of the day, already imagining what could go wrong.

Anxiety, I’ve learned, is very good at storytelling.

It takes a small uncertainty and turns it into a full-blown horror movie — dramatic lighting, worst-case scenarios, plot twists you didn’t ask for.
And the intellect, brilliant as it is, loves to press play.
Again.
And again.

For a long time, I thought the solution was to calm the body.

I had a strong yoga practice. Later, breathing and meditation helped settle my nervous system. These practices do help — they absolutely keep anxiety in check.

But at the peak of it, they weren’t enough.

What I didn’t understand yet was this:
practices become far more powerful when anxiety and thoughts are treated as a part of us — not all of us.

That understanding didn’t come from another technique. It came from a realization — one that didn’t arrive all at once, but when it landed, it flipped the story.

Looking back, I can see that this knowing had been quietly present for a long time, a soft ache, a pull toward depth and quiet I somehow knew was possible, even when my mind felt crowded and loud.

Then, during a wild trip with yogi friends, someone said casually:
“We’re all going back to boring same old Monday anyway. Why not just believe in this stuff for the weekend?”

Something shifted. Not dramatically. Not magically. But clearly.

In that moment, I knew what had been true all along:

I am not my body.
I am not my emotions.
I am not my intellect.

I was more than that.

And whatever we call it — soul, essence, spirit — that part of me held the creative rights to the movie of my life.

That realization didn’t erase anxiety. But it changed my relationship to it forever.

I began to see how much agency I actually had. How often I had let my intellect direct the movie, casting anxiety in a starring role, season after season.

The intellect is incredibly useful — it helps us plan, organize, remember what matters. But it’s meant to serve something deeper. To be an ally. Not take over. Not run the show alone.

There’s a difference between being aware of what needs to be done
and obsessing over it. Between thoughtful preparation and replaying the same fearful scenes on repeat.

Over time, anxiety loosened its grip. Not because it never showed up again — but because it no longer got to decide the story.

So if anxiety has a tight hold on you right now, I want you to know:
I see you.
I have been you.

If you’ve tried many things and nothing seems to truly shift, maybe the invitation isn’t to try harder. Maybe it’s just this — for a brief moment:

What if you are more than your thoughts?
What if anxiety is just one character — not the director?

You don’t have to believe it forever.
Just long enough to see what changes.

Sometimes, that’s enough to choose a different show.

With care,
Mathilde

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