Anxiety, Control, and Learning to Let Go

In this vulnerable episode of Note 2 Self, Saskia reflects on high-functioning anxiety, control as a coping mechanism, and the childhood experience that shaped her relationship to safety.Growing up in the remote Daintree rainforest, a devastating flood destroyed her family home when she was just four years old. This was a moment she only recently began to understand as formative. What does it mean to learn, so young, that home can be taken away?Saskia shares what therapy has taught her about anxiety as unprocessed trauma, why it doesn’t always stem from one singular event, and why the goal isn’t to eliminate anxiety, but rather, accept it.She also reflects on aging parents, anticipatory grief, and the universal reality of loss. Because maybe anxiety isn’t something to outrun. Maybe it’s something to sit beside while choosing presence anyway.