I didn’t want to write this book.

For nearly five years, I resisted it. Not because I didn’t want to write a book about anxiety—I absolutely did. I just wanted to write a different one. A cleaner one. A more skills-based one. A “here’s how to manage anxiety and keep going” kind of book.

But here’s what I kept running into—both personally and professionally:

You can’t truly treat anxiety if you never go back to where it began.
And the root is often further back than we expect.

When I started therapy in my early twenties, my counselor said something that stayed with me: “You’ve been carrying anxiety longer than you realize.”

At the time, I didn’t fully understand what she meant. I thought anxiety showed up in adulthood—stress, worry, pressure, performance, responsibility.

But anxiety rarely starts where we think it does.

In the introduction of my upcoming book, I share about the first time I remember feeling anxious. It involves something surprisingly ordinary: a carbon monoxide detector.

When I was a child, that small white box lived in the hallway between my bedroom and my younger brother’s. My mom worried a lot about carbon monoxide—how it was invisible, odorless, and deadly.

One night, the alarm went off.

I remember flashing lights, sirens, firefighters, my mom’s panic as she held us on the curb. My dad was out of town. The house was eventually cleared. We were safe.

Nearly thirty years later, sitting around the dinner table with my family, my brother casually admitted something we had never known: he had set off the alarm on purpose. He was afraid to go to sleep that night and, in his child’s logic, the alarm felt like an escape.

We laughed—hard. But underneath the humor was something heavier.

That moment helped me see how anxiety is often relational, inherited, and reinforced—how fear can quietly pass from parent to child, how control can feel like safety, and how unspoken experiences can shape us for decades.

And how early anxiety doesn’t always look like panic (and it's not always loud).

Sometimes it looks like vigilance.
Responsibility.
Being “the good one.”
Staying alert so nothing bad happens.

Which brings me to my thoughts about high-functioning anxiety.

High-functioning anxiety is often rewarded, not treated.
It gets praised as dedication, reliability, leadership, maturity.

But anxiety that performs is still anxiety.

When we reward productivity and over-functioning without addressing the fear driving it, anxiety doesn’t disappear, it just gets better at hiding. And eventually, it costs us a regulated nervous system, healthy stable relationships, our ability to rest.

This is why I couldn’t write the book I originally wanted to write.

Because anxiety isn’t just something we manage, it’s something we have to understand, journey with, and (eventually) befriend. And healing begins when we trace it back to its roots with compassion instead of judgment.

Takeaways

Anxiety doesn’t start where it shows up, it starts where safety was first learned or disrupted.
Being high-functioning doesn’t mean being well-regulated. Some of the most successful and high functioning individuals I know wrestle with anxiety. And I mean wrestle.
What you were praised for surviving may still need healing.

Tools to try

➜ Notice what your anxiety gets you. Approval? Control? Safety? Success? Awareness is the first step.

➜ Track the “firsts.” Ask yourself: What’s my earliest memory of feeling responsible, afraid, or hyper-aware?

➜ Practice slowing down. Once a day, do something with no outcome attached—no productivity, no optimization.

What parts of your anxiety were once protective, but no longer need to be in charge?

I’ll be sharing more stories like this in the coming weeks as we get closer to my book launching on April 21.

My hope is that, piece by piece, you begin to recognize yourself in these pages, and feel less alone in the process.

I speak to leaders, parents, and (small and large) organizations about emotional endurance, work-life blend, high-functioning anxiety, and sustainable leadership.

If this reflection resonates with your team or community, you can learn more about bringing this work to your organization here:

BOOK ME TO SPEAK

Thanks for reading! Want more writings and resources?

Here are a few blog posts you might enjoy:

001. Read me if you want more vision casting tips and tools

002. Read me if you're struggling with anxiety

003. Pre-order my debut book now!

004. Join the weekly newsletter for resources, essays, and encouragement.

Disclaimer: This blog is not intended to substitute professional therapeutic advice. Talk with your healthcare provider about your health concerns and before starting or stopping therapies. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct professional advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.