The Gita on Anxiety: Why You’re Chasing Peace - and How to Find It
Riya Kumari | Apr 30, 2025, 00:00 IST
Let’s get one thing straight: inner peace is the new skinny. Everyone wants it. Everyone claims to have it. And yet, here you are, scrolling through Instagram while biting your cuticles and wondering if that weird emoji your boss used meant you're about to get fired—or promoted. Either way, you’re spiraling. But don’t worry. I’m not here to sell you a scented candle or a 21-day journaling challenge. I’m here to talk about the Bhagavad Gita—the ancient Indian text that sounds like homework but hits like therapy.
Sometimes, the loudest war isn’t outside. It’s the one you’re having in your head. Let’s be honest. Most of us don’t wake up wanting to win a war. We just want to get through the day without feeling like we’re drowning in everything we didn’t say, couldn’t do, or forgot to reply to. We want peace. And yet somehow, peace feels like this mythical creature—always two steps ahead, hiding behind deadlines, to-do lists, unread texts, and a mind that won’t sit still. But maybe peace isn’t hiding. Maybe we’re just looking for it in all the wrong places. Enter: the Bhagavad Gita. Not as a religious sermon, not as an ancient relic, but as a mirror. A brutally honest, deeply compassionate mirror that reflects something most modern advice doesn’t tell you: your anxiety doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human. But also, you don’t have to stay trapped there.
When Arjuna stood in the middle of a literal battlefield—surrounded by his own people, terrified of what would happen if he moved forward or stepped back—he did what most of us do in the middle of a life crisis: he froze. He told Krishna, “I can’t do this. I feel torn, confused, afraid. I’d rather not fight at all.” Sound familiar?
That moment isn’t about war. It’s about every choice we’re too scared to make, every decision that paralyzes us, every conversation we avoid because we don’t want to hurt someone—or get hurt ourselves. Anxiety, at its core, is the inability to move. And the Gita begins by acknowledging that stuckness. It tells you that it's okay to feel overwhelmed. But it doesn’t leave you there.
Do Your Part. Let Go of the Rest
One of the most famous lines from the Gita says: “You have the right to perform your actions, but not to the fruits of those actions.” In simple words: do your job, but don’t hang your peace of mind on what happens next. We’re not taught this. We’re taught to aim, achieve, win. We’ve been trained to measure our worth in outcomes—grades, salaries, likes, applause.
So when things don’t go as planned, we crumble. We tie our entire identity to results that were never really in our control. But the Gita gently reminds us: your responsibility is to show up fully, not to script the ending. The relief in that is immense. You don’t have to carry the world. Just your corner of it. And if you can stop obsessing over how everything should go, you might finally notice the calm that’s been sitting beside you all along.
It’s one thing to act. It’s another to act with obsession. The Gita introduces the idea of Karma Yoga—not yoga like stretchy pants and scented candles, but the practice of doing what you must, without clinging to ego, reward, or fear. In modern terms: Write that email, but don’t write a narrative around how they’ll respond. Say what you feel, but don’t spiral about how it’ll be received.
Love deeply, but don’t lose yourself trying to be loved back. This isn’t passivity. It’s the most active kind of stillness—a mind that moves with clarity, but not chaos. Because the truth is: when you’re attached, you're anxious. When you’re present, you're free.
You Are Not Your Fear. You Are the One Who Sees It
Anxiety makes your thoughts feel like facts. That voice in your head saying, “I’m not good enough,” “I can’t handle this,” “It’s all falling apart”? That voice sounds real—but it’s not you. Krishna tells Arjuna that we are not just bodies. Not just emotions. We are consciousness—something deeper that watches the fear, feels it, but is not destroyed by it.
You are not your panic attack. You are the one who witnessed it, survived it, and is now reading this, trying to understand it. That witnessing self? That’s who the Gita talks to. That’s the part of you that is already whole, even when everything else feels like it’s unraveling.
True Peace Isn’t Passive. It’s a Practice
The Gita never says, “Stop feeling.” It says, “Don’t get lost in what you feel.” It doesn’t ask you to escape life. It teaches you how to walk through it—storm, silence, and all—with steadiness. It’s not about being calm all the time. It’s about knowing who you are even when you’re not calm.
And that takes practice. Not in a productivity sense, but in the way you treat your mind. What you feed it. What you chase. What you let go of. Peace isn’t in deleting the noise. It’s in learning not to react to all of it.
Stop Chasing Peace Like It’s a Person Who Doesn’t Text Back
You’re not “behind in life.” You’re not a failure because you haven’t figured everything out. The people who look calm on the outside are often crumbling inside. The Gita doesn’t promise a stress-free life—it promises that you can live wisely even when life is messy. And that wisdom? It’s not found in some mountain cave. It’s right here—in a text written thousands of years ago, yet somehow written just for you, on the days when your mind won’t stop racing.
So the next time you find yourself spiraling, stop chasing peace like it’s somewhere else. It’s not out there. It’s inside.
Waiting for you to pause. To breathe. To remember. And finally, to return to yourself.
The Battlefield Isn’t Always a Warzone
War
( Image credit : Pexels )
When Arjuna stood in the middle of a literal battlefield—surrounded by his own people, terrified of what would happen if he moved forward or stepped back—he did what most of us do in the middle of a life crisis: he froze. He told Krishna, “I can’t do this. I feel torn, confused, afraid. I’d rather not fight at all.” Sound familiar?
That moment isn’t about war. It’s about every choice we’re too scared to make, every decision that paralyzes us, every conversation we avoid because we don’t want to hurt someone—or get hurt ourselves. Anxiety, at its core, is the inability to move. And the Gita begins by acknowledging that stuckness. It tells you that it's okay to feel overwhelmed. But it doesn’t leave you there.
Do Your Part. Let Go of the Rest
Conclusion
( Image credit : Pexels )
One of the most famous lines from the Gita says: “You have the right to perform your actions, but not to the fruits of those actions.” In simple words: do your job, but don’t hang your peace of mind on what happens next. We’re not taught this. We’re taught to aim, achieve, win. We’ve been trained to measure our worth in outcomes—grades, salaries, likes, applause.
So when things don’t go as planned, we crumble. We tie our entire identity to results that were never really in our control. But the Gita gently reminds us: your responsibility is to show up fully, not to script the ending. The relief in that is immense. You don’t have to carry the world. Just your corner of it. And if you can stop obsessing over how everything should go, you might finally notice the calm that’s been sitting beside you all along.
Act, But Don’t Attach
Race
( Image credit : Pexels )
It’s one thing to act. It’s another to act with obsession. The Gita introduces the idea of Karma Yoga—not yoga like stretchy pants and scented candles, but the practice of doing what you must, without clinging to ego, reward, or fear. In modern terms: Write that email, but don’t write a narrative around how they’ll respond. Say what you feel, but don’t spiral about how it’ll be received.
Love deeply, but don’t lose yourself trying to be loved back. This isn’t passivity. It’s the most active kind of stillness—a mind that moves with clarity, but not chaos. Because the truth is: when you’re attached, you're anxious. When you’re present, you're free.
You Are Not Your Fear. You Are the One Who Sees It
Fear
( Image credit : Pexels )
Anxiety makes your thoughts feel like facts. That voice in your head saying, “I’m not good enough,” “I can’t handle this,” “It’s all falling apart”? That voice sounds real—but it’s not you. Krishna tells Arjuna that we are not just bodies. Not just emotions. We are consciousness—something deeper that watches the fear, feels it, but is not destroyed by it.
You are not your panic attack. You are the one who witnessed it, survived it, and is now reading this, trying to understand it. That witnessing self? That’s who the Gita talks to. That’s the part of you that is already whole, even when everything else feels like it’s unraveling.
True Peace Isn’t Passive. It’s a Practice
Hourglass
( Image credit : Pexels )
The Gita never says, “Stop feeling.” It says, “Don’t get lost in what you feel.” It doesn’t ask you to escape life. It teaches you how to walk through it—storm, silence, and all—with steadiness. It’s not about being calm all the time. It’s about knowing who you are even when you’re not calm.
And that takes practice. Not in a productivity sense, but in the way you treat your mind. What you feed it. What you chase. What you let go of. Peace isn’t in deleting the noise. It’s in learning not to react to all of it.
Stop Chasing Peace Like It’s a Person Who Doesn’t Text Back
So the next time you find yourself spiraling, stop chasing peace like it’s somewhere else. It’s not out there. It’s inside.
Waiting for you to pause. To breathe. To remember. And finally, to return to yourself.