It’s Just You

The email argues that the sinking feeling of anxiety comes from within, not from anything physically tying you up. It uses Marcus Aurelius to show that even under extreme pressure, anxiety can be treated as a matter of perception and discarded.

Reading notes

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• The sinking feeling in the stomach is described as something you can feel in your gut, even though nothing physical is causing it.
• The response offered is to stop, take a breath, and ask where the feeling is actually coming from.
• The text says the source is not outside you; it is something you are doing to yourself.
• Marcus Aurelius is presented as someone who faced assassination attempts, coups, wars, a troubled son, and the stress of power.
• His private diary is used to show that he treated anxiety the same way, as something to examine directly.
• The quoted line says he escaped anxiety by discarding it because it was within his own perceptions, not outside.
• The closing instruction is simply to discard it and let it go.