Anxiety is....

'We may believe we're anxious about this or that, body image, the state fo the world, relationship issues, the weather but no matter what story we weave around it, the anxiety just is. Like addiction itself, anxiety will always find a target, but exists independently of its targets. Only when we become aware of it does it wrap itself in identifiable colour. More often we repress it, bury it under ideas, identifications, deeds, beliefs and relationships.

We build above it a mound of activities and attributes that we mistake our true selves. We then expend our energies trying to convince the world that our self made fiction is reality. As genuine as our strengths and achievement may be, they cannnot but feel hollow until we acknowledge the anxiety they cover up.' ~ In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. Gabor Maté.