When Anxiety Eats You Up

Burnout, stress, anxiety, depression— yes, I’ve experienced all of them. The modern-day illnesses.

Like the flu, sometimes they’re subtle. You don’t even realize you have them. Other times they hit brutally, break you down, pin you to the ground for an entire week. Then they retreat—only to return again, like a seasonal pattern.

Burnout, stress, anxiety, depression—they’re close friends. When one shows up, the others tend to follow. Like how, in grade 3, I never went to the bathroom alone—I always went with my closest girlfriends. One moves, everyone moves.

Work, Ambition, and Quiet Exhaustion

Working for companies where the tasks were repetitive, boring, and tedious drained me slowly. A dissatisfied mind amplified my stress. Organizations that showed no interest in my potential—no curiosity about how to use my abilities fully—felt deeply unsatisfying.

My ambition and ego fed my unhappiness.

While building a mindfulness startup in South Korea—ironically—my life was not mindful. I was burned out, struggling with insomnia and anxiety almost every night when the burn rate climbed, operational costs crossed 700K, and debt from a parent company kept mounting.

While managing people, recruiting, laying off, competing in an aggressive startup ecosystem filled with heavily fast, tech-savvy, masculine energy—I slowly sank into a thick mud of anxiety and depression.

At night, I had to listen to Yoga Nidra just to fall asleep. I even became terrified as bedtime approached, knowing the consequences and domino effects of struggling to fall asleep—the miserable productivity afterward, my grumpy temper toward people and situations, and its impact on my work and business. Yet my mind wouldn’t stop: to-do lists, decisions, what’s next, how next.

Up until recent years—closing one startup, rebuilding new entities in Canada—I often woke up gasping for breath.

How am I going to handle this?
How will I manage this financially? Logistically?

My teachers would have called me out, scolding me for having delusional thoughts.

And they wouldn’t have been wrong. Because all of those seemingly work-related thoughts stemmed from deep emotional insecurity, fear, and greed.

Past, Future, and the Mind’s Trap

When the mind clings to the past, regret arises.
When it clings to the future, anxiety arises.

Yes, I’ve always had to think about the future.
What next. How next. Where next. Who next.

But there is a crucial difference between being strategic and being delusional.

When we think strategically, the future doesn’t keep us awake with fear. It activates curiosity. An experimental mind. We plan, try, execute, let go of outcomes, respond to feedback, revise, and repeat.

But when greed sneaks in—
I want all opportunities.
I must be better than others.
I have to win.

—or when unrealistic expectations attach themselves to strategy, thinking turns toxic.

The mind overheats. Stress multiplies. This is especially true when I hold delusional, idealistic expectations of myself. There’s a saying: ‘If a crow-tit tries to walk like a stork, it will break its legs,’ meaning we should tailor our ambitions to the measure of our abilities.

Yet a delusional mind, fueled by greedy emotions, often blinds us.

Thoughts Are Not Your Friends

In the suttas, the Buddha once described thoughts as being like ‘wearing a necklace made of chopped heads of dead dogs.’

Why would anyone wear that? Buddha considered thoughts to be THAT bad, period.

Most thoughts are useless. They don’t clarify. They stimulate. They intensify feeling—pleasant or unpleasant—and keep the nervous system activated.

Overthinking is exhausting. It traps us in loops of what-ifs, should-haves, and worst-case scenarios. But here’s the truth:

The mind thinks. That’s its job. The problem is believing every thought.

The Three Common Thinking Traps

1. The “What If” Spiral
You keep asking: What if this happens? What if that happens?
Your brain tries to solve problems that don’t exist yet.

Feels like: anxiety about the future.
Truth: most of those scenarios never happen.

2. The Perfect Answer Hunt
You refuse to act until you find the 100% perfect, risk-free option.

Feels like: endless research, asking ten people for advice.
Truth: perfection never arrives—so you stay frozen.

3. The Replay Button
You replay past conversations: I should’ve said this. Why did I do that?

Feels like: regret and self-blame.
Truth: you can’t rewrite the past, but you can change the next step.

The more you think, the less clear everything becomes. Overthinking is like quicksand—the harder you struggle, the deeper you sink.

It’s a sign your mind is overprotective and exhausted.

Observing the Mind, Not Becoming It

In Buddhism, this is called observing the mind, not identifying with it.

In the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Buddha taught us to watch thoughts the way we watch clouds pass through the sky.

The problem isn’t thinking.
It’s clinging to thought.

When we replay conversations, worry about the future, or rehearse decisions endlessly, we’re no longer thinking—we’re gripping.

Try this: when a thought arises, label it gently.
“Worry.”
“Planning.”
“Judging.”

That single act creates space.

You are not the thought.
You are the awareness of it.

Anchor yourself in the body. Overthinking pulls us out of the present. Feel your feet on the ground. Take one slow breath. Touch something solid.

You don’t have to eliminate overthinking.
Just loosen your grip on it.

Give the mind something steadier to rest on—the breath, the body, this moment.

The goal isn’t to control every thought.
It’s to be free from their control over you.

If anxiety has been living in your body lately, I recorded a short guided practice below. It’s not to stop thinking — but to stop being dragged by it.

Audio Guide: When Anxiety Takes Over (A 7-Minute Reset)

📢Exciting News!: Dear Dharma (ebook/prints) & Online Course

Ever since I left the monastery last summer, I’ve felt more committed to living in alignment with my true self — with clearer vision and less hesitation.

I began sharing more openly about Dharma, Buddhist teachings, and philosophy. I stepped even onto TikTok! (which I definitely cringed at in the beginning…) simply to offer something steady in a space that often feels noisy — for those who might be looking for healthier, more reflective content.

I gathered those reflections, stories, and lived lessons into something slower — a simple handbook of practical insight.

Dear Dharma is something you can return to whenever you need grounding. Something you can read at your own rhythm, pace, and depth — alone, quietly, honestly.

💻E-book on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPLTYB3X

📕The print edition is now available for a signed copy (Shipping to the U.S. and Canada only) https://www.wisdomwayimpact.com/category/all-products

OR the print edition from Amazon direct order.

Buddhist Philosophy & Meditation (Self-Paced Course)

If reflections like this resonate with you, I’ve created a self-paced online course on Buddhist philosophy and meditation.

The course introduces core teachings of the Buddha alongside meditation practices to help you understand the mind, regulate emotions, and cultivate clarity in daily life. Rather than presenting Buddhism as a belief system, it approaches it as a practical training for awareness and resilience with 1-on-1 coaching in a practice group chat.

You can move through the lessons at your own pace and return to the practices whenever you need steadiness or perspective. If you think someone around you could benefit from this learning, feel free to share it with them as well.