My biggest revelation in recovery did not come all at once. It unfolded slowly. Two things were happening at the same time that led me there. I was practicing hot yoga with deep meditation, and I was listening to neuroscience lectures that helped me understand the autonomic nervous system.
In hot yoga I noticed that the physical sensations matched the symptoms of anxiety. Standing in the heat, holding difficult postures, the mind would spiral into negativity, distraction, and resistance. Yet through breathing, I could shift the dialogue between body and mind. My heart rate slowed. My breath deepened. My exhalations brought relief. This was the moment I understood that anxiety had been with me my whole life. I simply had not known how to name it or trace it to chemistry and brain function.
I realized that consistent breathing practice trains the nervous system. The body learns to respond with a deep breath, to release tension in the diaphragm and bring calm. My revelation was that anxiety had been shaping my choices, my free will, and my lack of free will.
At first I was embarrassed to admit it. Anxiety felt like a label for someone defective or weak. But I knew I was neither. I was rational, disciplined, and courageous to a fault. My stunts such as skydiving and walking ledges on skyscrapers were not courage but recklessness, fueled by anxiety.
So I looked deeper. I am not a scientist. I speak only from experience, but I believe every creature with a brain is wired with anxiety. Nature designed us to move between anxious states and relaxed states. Science calls them the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. In anxiety the amygdala fires, in calm the frontal cortex lights up. When the frontal cortex is active, compassion, clarity, and intelligence come forward.
Fear and anxiety often loop together. A fear triggers anxiety, anxiety amplifies the fear, and they feed each other until they feel like one. That loop can turn into depression, compulsions, conflict, withdrawal, or obsession. The way out is awareness. Identify fears, write them down, scan the body and the mind, and face what is actually there.
This is the work. Observing, breathing, writing, and training the mind and body until anxiety no longer runs the show.