Why Your Anxiety Might Be a Loneliness Problem in Disguise
There I was, standing on the Rock of the Fox, looking out as far as I could see.
Rolling Irish midlands. Green fields stitched together by old stone walls. A sky so wide it felt like it was breathing.
The land below me had once been part of my ancestors’ kingdom. The O’Sionnaigh (Foxes) had ruled this territory for centuries.
And I am not even sure how to explain what hit me next.
A feeling of belonging so strong it overpowered me. Before I could talk myself out of it, I shouted into the wind:
“I am the Fox!”
No, I did not become the Fox. To be clear.
But something in me recognized the moment. For the rest of that trip, I felt warm.
Connected, held, like I was part of something older than my own story.
Then I came home.
The feeling faded. The connection slipped.
I could not understand why. I had touched something real, so why couldn’t I keep it?
That question stayed with me for years.
The Real Problem With Anxiety
Here is what I eventually figured out.
Anxiety, at its core, is a feeling of isolation.
Not always the “I’m alone in the house“ kind. You can be in a room full of people and still feel it.
You can be surrounded by family and friends and still feel like you’re trapped inside your own head, spinning.
That spinning has a name in neuroscience. It is the Default Mode Network, or the DMN.
It is the part of your brain that activates when you aren’t focused on a task. It wanders. It replays conversations. It catastrophizes.¹
And here is the key finding: lonely people have a hyperactive DMN.²
When researchers studied nearly 40,000 people, they found that perceived social isolation was strongly linked to anxiety.
In plain English: when you feel disconnected from the world, your brain spins harder.
It ruminates more. It generates more anxiety.
And here is the part that most anxiety tools miss entirely.
They give you techniques. But they don’t give you belonging.
Breathing exercises and journaling are useful. I use them too.
But none of them answer the deeper question your nervous system is asking:
Am I alone in this?
When the answer feels like yes, the anxiety keeps coming back.
What the Celts Understood
The ancient Celts had a different relationship with the world.
They didn’t see the world as a collection of objects. They saw it as a community of presences.
Every mountain, river, and tree was considered conscious. Not metaphorically. Literally.³
This is called animism. And it matters for your anxiety because when you treat the world as alive, you are no longer alone.
The oak tree becomes a neighbor. The wind becomes a voice.
When the world feels alive and responsive, the DMN quiets. Rumination drops.
The anxious question, am I alone in this?, gets answered by the world itself.
But relationship without structure is just a feeling. It fades.
This is where the Western occult tradition adds what is missing: symbolic action.
Ritual. Gesture. Symbol. Intention made physical.
When you perform a symbolic act, you tell your nervous system: something is happening here.
This moment is different. I am participating.
W.B. Yeats understood this. He was both a Celtic animist and a practicing occultist.⁴
The animism gave him the relationship. The structure gave him the tools to participate in that relationship intentionally.
Together, they stabilized his inner world.
It is a template your nervous system has been waiting for.
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