In the rising tide of the COVID-19 pandemic, an existential threat to life has captured the minds of many; a threat superseding the manufactured moral panics of crime, immigration, and terrorism. We live in uncertain times — an age of anxiety1. Our ability to navigate anxiety has become a central feature of everyday life. Is there any meaning to the widespread experience of anxiety, however?
The purpose of this paper is not to analyse anxiety as a clinical condition, but to reframe it as a natural extension of our humanity. In doing so, I will explicitly dismiss the line by which anxiety crosses from our human condition facing uncertainty, into a debilitating state which some might label a ‘disorder’. Dismissing the clinical significance of anxiety is not to ignore anyone’s experiences or diagnosis.
Rather, the purpose of this paper is to simply reflect on the possibility that anxiety is intrinsic to everyone, the experiences of which differs between individuals. Please note this paper does not serve as an overview of any given psychological theory, nor does it really exemplify my full opinion on anxiety. Much has been simplified for brevity’s sake.
The modern world has set certain benchmarks of ‘the good life.’ Reverence for productivity, beauty, and perfection within capitalist structures produces a perpetual disdain for suffering, inadequacy, and displeasure. It comes as no surprise many view distress as a deviation of our supposed ‘natural state’ — happiness. As everyone is subject to suffering, so too has our human condition become ‘pathologised’. This has reached the point where even the editor-in-chief of the DSM-IV (the psychiatric clinical manual) calls for the need to ‘save normal’2.
“I shouldn’t feel this way,” we mutter as we desperately hold ourselves together. Unable to work, enjoy food or company—anguish may engulf all. Furthermore, as much as we speak of mental health awareness in sympathetic terms, the Global North sees ‘un-wellness’ as a hurdle in productivity3. Happiness, material success, and social status coalesce into an unintelligible jumble. Predictably, a large segment of my Muslim clients seek therapy when unable to perform at, succeed in, or find their ‘ideal’ occupation reflecting their ‘true self’.
Let’s draw on the example of a university student who complains they have difficulties focusing on their studies. Whenever they sit to study, their skin begins to crawl and they feel restless. On cue, they find themselves immediately drawn towards social media, Netflix, video games, or friends for distraction and relief. They accomplish little until the pressure of the impending exam becomes too overwhelming. Sometimes this occurs a few days before the exam—sometimes only hours.
“I’m anxious,” they tell me. “I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”
There is no denying their anxiety. Indeed, procrastination, their chief complaint, is often just the outward appearance of this anxiety.
But is anxiety the prime culprit, the destroyer of worlds we make it out to be? Is there a better life somewhere ‘beyond anxiety’, where we feel endlessly confident in our ambitions and relationships?
Conjuring a fictional intervention, the following is an overview of how our discussion might proceed.
Example Case: The Student Who Couldn’t Study
The student and I discuss their experience studying. They admit feeling a great discomfort, an intense tension in their chest and back. Exploring this further, we discover the student is petrified of failure. Here, we might broach the subject of expectations, and in many cases, societal pressures and family relations. We discover their parents have always raised scholastic performance as a condition for love and validation. But that’s only half the story.
The father was always travelling for work, and when he returned, he ‘checked in’ to see how the child was doing in school. The student, as a child, was desperately afraid of failure for fear their father may never return. Here, the student may come to appreciate how, though living alone with no one to check on their performance, they still relate to their studies as if it exists beneath their parents’ gaze. On the surface, this observation proves useful for the student, who realises they have to rethink why they’re seeking further education beyond their parents’ invisible gaze.
Going a little further, however, we then also discuss the underlying angst hinted at earlier: the reason why parental approval was so consequential. We realise that the student has had a deep-rooted fear of loneliness since childhood — in relation to their father’s intermittent presence — but of which they were unaware. We see how this desire for ‘perfection’ underlines every aspect of their lives; without it, they’ll feel all alone. This can be a powerful experience where the student would have to face a basic existential question: the looming presence of profound loneliness, the possibility that anyone in their lives can potentially disappear. If the student learns to confront this feeling of dread, then there is a strong possibility their relation to their studies (and indeed everything else) might change accordingly, for the embodied fear is no longer this terrible agitation taking various shapes in times of performance. While this might qualify as a monumental moment in therapy (as a modern, secular practice), its significance in relation to God can be elaborated even further.
While existential thinkers argue that one must live life in spite of the impending dread, Islamic framework finds meaning within it. One of the things I might discuss with a Muslim student, if they wish, is God’s wisdom in the anxiety. We might discover how their anguish, which serves an existential purpose, reveals their relationship to God. The uncertainty of our lives and the reality of our greatest fears (our death and the death of others around us, for example) is the foundation by which one connects with God. Humans are created weak to face the uncertainties of life on purpose. The goal, then, would not only be revealing why we feel anxious, but also entering a relationship with that revelation as it is the best means of connecting to God. As God created us weak, the closest we can reach God is through our very personal dreads. In the case of the student described above, we might discuss the significance of their anxiety in layers; the fear of failure; how the fear of rejection, and therefore the fear of being unseen, underlies a fear of failure; and how this very real, profound fear of loneliness is a reminder that one’s relation to God has been severed.
This process might prompt the student to give a different meaning to their anxiety. Now, instead of something to be ‘remedied’, it serves as a transcendental reminder to reconnect with God. When anxiety ‘strikes’ at the point of studying, the student may now experience it from a different vantage point. Now, the student might readily follow the anxiety down the rabbit hole of loneliness. Sitting there in front of their open book, they remember: in God’s omnipresence, everything shall disappear, and the test of worldly life is to act and remember God in the looming presence of death. The fear of loneliness then serves as a built-in reminder – like a thermostat – when the relation with God becomes too distant and one is left with the eyes of everyone else on Earth.
Existentialists might disagree with some of the conclusions (some, like Albert Camus, will find that turning to God while lonely is a cop out to dismiss the fear), but there are two points which must be made. First, there is an insidious ideology underlying the student’s problems (in relation to their university, their parents, etc.): neoliberalism as capitalism’s modern project. This goes beyond the scope of this article, but the Global North increasingly hinges on competition (and the associated ability to perform) as foundational to social relations and self-worth. This applies to university settings, where student success is viewed as being ahead on the bell curve of their peers (as it’s said, it’s not enough to win, it’s important for others to lose), and university success depends on students being happy to pay money to get there. The second point is directed at those who might see the example through a racialised lens pertaining to myself (assuming, for example, I’m relating to Arab students and their parents). But what I’ve discussed is a product of the modern age, and while the ‘model immigrant’ is surely at play, everything I mentioned is just as significant for the racialised white majority. Given the neoliberalisation of the Global North, this should not be surprising.
Anxiety can be likened to a hard knock on the door. We curl and wait for the knocking to end, but it doesn’t — it gets harder, louder. We use Netflix, social media, or whatever we favor, as a distraction. For a while, it works insofar as the knocking hasn’t stopped, but we’ve numbed it out. Taking from our discussion above, however, we see that the knocking may serve a purpose. Perhaps, radically, anxiety should be welcomed in.
Many promote wellbeing and non-suffering as a product of faith, but this ideology must be approached with caution. The reason for this is simple: the purpose of our creation, as stipulates in the Qur’an, is not ‘wellbeing’ but to worship God. This is not to say that those who sincerely devote themselves to God are destined to suffer on earth. For example, Allah says in the Quran:
مَنْ عَمِلَ صَالِحًا مِّن ذَكَرٍ أَوْ أُنثَىٰ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَنُحْيِيَنَّهُ حَيَاةً طَيِّبَةً ۖ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَجْرَهُم بِأَحْسَنِ مَا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ
Whoever does righteousness, whether male or female, while he is a believer – We will surely cause him to live a good life, and We will surely give them their reward [in the Hereafter] according to the best of what they used to do. (Quran 16:97)
There is clearly a transcendental link between righteousness and the ‘good life’, but this goodness is neither predicated on Western liberal-capitalist formulations of wellbeing, nor does it mean ‘wellbeing’ is life’s ultimate objective. There are many reasons for this (and a more holistic discussion on an Islamic conceptualisation of the ‘good life’ is warranted), the most obvious, however, is the other side of the coin: illness and suffering.
If wellbeing were the marker of faith, then suffering and despair would signal the opposite. This is not only false, but runs contrary to a basic theological imperative: to recognise God through our suffering. Indeed, we recognise God’s Majesty through suffering, as we find in the great example of Yaqub (‘alayhi as-salam, peace be upon him) who suffered greatly at the loss of his son, Yusuf (AS), but nonetheless content with Allah’s decree. The purpose of life then is to live meaningfully, not to seek a state of non-suffering as an end unto itself. I recommend the writings of Viktor Frankl who so wisely notes, quoting Dostoevsky, “there is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings”4.
A third wave of cognitive-behavioural therapies now focus on acceptance — a welcome change to the dominant drive towards overcoming or fixing anxiety. What sets apart the metaphysical/spiritual idea (within an Islamic submission framework) is not simply acceptance of our suffering, but rather the purpose may in fact be to suffer through our humanity fully, without escape, and recognize God through our despair. Undoubtedly, suffering also serves the purpose of questioning what the structures of our suffering may be, and alleviate them for ourselves and others, but this goes beyond the scope of this paper.
When we see anxiety as a reminder of our vulnerability towards God and a means of attaining wisdom, it may become a welcomed guest and not an admonished enemy.
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1. Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
2. Frances, Allen. Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life. Reprint edition. William Morrow, 2013.
3. Davies, William. The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being. Reprint edition. Verso Books, 2016.
4. Frankl, Viktor. Man’s Search For Meaning: The Classic Tribute to Hope from the Holocaust. Export e. edition. London: Rider, 2008.
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