I often reflect on how much of my life I’ve spent under the shadow of events that never actually happened. And when truly difficult moments did arrive, I survived. I coped. Yet the anxiety that preceded them often felt heavier than the events themselves. Anxiety is quietly cruel: it asks us to brace not only for the echoes of past pain but also for the imagined storms of the future, all while carrying the weight of fear itself. In a way, it asks us to battle twice—first with