Anxiety can be seen as something not that causes us a discomfort we must alleviate, but rather a feeling of wanting to escape.
Anxiety brings out the want to escape which leads us to seek the nearest pleasure of some magnitude.
For some, the want to get rid of the anxiety becomes the path and energy for the attempt to escape.
The problem is exacerbated when the individual flees to a “pleasure” that ultimately or in a longer term creates more anxiety.
The trick or the cure here to breaking the pattern lies in facing the anxiety without trying to change it or escape it.
This is what is so hard for the unsettled individual to do. To be able to observe anxiety without immediately escaping from it.
When we do this, it is called 'residing in the present moment' because anxiety (psychological!) is always attached to the past or from the future.
When we observe our anxiety and do not try to rid ourselves of it we are no long attached to the psychological notions of the past or the future.