Imagine a hundred spiders. All crawly and hairy. Now imagine them all over your body, and then realize that no one else can see them, so you have to act all cool despite the fact you see the hundred spiders who clearly want to destroy you and everything you’ve ever loved.

That's anxiety in a nutshell. This invisible force that taunts and torments your soul, especially when you are trying to go to bed. When people sense that you are tense they often say, “Hey just don’t be anxious.”

Right.

But what is it really? Our good friends over at Merriam-Webster state: “painful or apprehensive uneasiness of mind usually over an impending or anticipated ill.”

Whatever you call it, in order to deal with it, we need to understand its root. Until a weed is uprooted, it will always grow back. We must also understand that our anxiety developed and rooted itself over years and years, so it will take time to undo these patterns.

1. Fear.

I’m a guy so naturally I have no fear. But, if I did have some fears, they would probably be around the fear of losing something. In a world where commitment is almost non-existent, we are constantly being left with holes in our hearts. 23.6 percent of children are without a father, and that doesn’t include a physically present but emotionally absent father.

Children grow up with a fear that those they love will leave. Often this isn’t a conscious feeling, but an underlying fear that surfaces as anxiety, especially around romantic relationships. If you find yourself in an almost infantile state, clinging to people or things, you may have this root.

2. Doubt.

The slippery slope of doubt. This can come from any angle. Doubting that good things will happen, that you’ll escape the bad, that you can become this, that and the other thing. It's paralyzing!

It's active cynicism. Half of people today are cynical about trusting others. This doubt of others leads to isolation and of course, fear. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t be realistic, but we need to catch ourselves before we snowball.

3. Control.

When we control we feel great, but change is the enemy of control. As we grow older we learn that the things we can control, we can make well. We often tell ourselves that “such and such” person/thing can’t hurt me if I don’t let it.

That works pretty well (not).

The thing about control is that often the very thing we are trying to control becomes us. I often said that I would never be like my father, and I vowed to control my life to not be like him. Guess what? I became a lot like him.

Not in the sense that we are the same, but I adopted his flaws as I tried so hard to not have them. For example: he was lazy due to fear of failure. I was overactive in fear of failing to not fail.

I'm learning that my flaws don't define myself, just as my father's flaws don't define him. We are broken people in a broken world.

In the end, anxiety is rooted in selfishness. Anxiety says that my problems are more important/worse/big/life-changing than yours, and that is the real danger.

But take heart!

Breathe. Talk to someone about your life. Invest in the lives around you. You can’t dig out the roots until someone first shows you how. Then you’ll be able to find others and get them out yourself, but you can always ask for help if you need it!