Anxiety as Fire

When Anxiety Becomes Fire

Today my anxiety is not a whisper.

It is a flame that has burned for days without rest.

It lives in my chest, tight and restless,

in my breath that forgets its own rhythm,

in the quiet exhaustion that settles into my bones

before the day even asks anything of me.

This isn’t panic that crashes and leaves.

This is the slow kind.

The kind that hums beneath everything.

The kind that convinces the body it is never safe enough to sleep.

I try to name it.

I try to reason with it.

But anxiety does not speak logic.

It speaks sensation.

So today, I stop trying to win.

Instead, I tend the fire.

I lengthen my exhale like I’m cooling embers,

breathing out longer than I breathe in,

teaching my nervous system that the threat has passed

even if it doesn’t believe me yet.

I press my feet into the floor

and remind myself where I am.

Here.

Now.

In a body that has survived more than it should have had to.

I place one hand on my chest, one on my belly,

anchoring myself to something solid,

something real,

something mine.

When the air feels scarce, I don’t force it.

I let the breath be shallow if it needs to be.

I let my body know I’m listening,

not demanding.

I name small truths:

I am safe in this moment.

The feeling will move.

I am allowed to rest without earning it.

Sometimes coping doesn’t look like strength.

Sometimes it looks like sitting still

and letting the wave pass through instead of fighting it.

Sometimes it looks like lowering the lights,

turning down the noise,

choosing softness over solutions.

Today I drink water like it’s medicine.

I wrap myself in warmth.

I do one thing at a time,

and when that is too much,

I do less.

This is Crow & Flame territory.

Not the roaring blaze,

but the steady glow that refuses to go out.

The kind of fire that survives by being tended,

not conquered.

If you are reading this with a tight chest,

with tired lungs,

with a nervous system that has forgotten how to rest,

know this:

You are not weak.

You are not broken.

Your body is protecting you the only way it knows how.

And even now,

even breathless,

even exhausted,

there is still fire in you.

Not the kind that destroys.

The kind that endures.