Is Common Sense the Missing Key to Overcoming Anxiety?

Introduction to Common Sense and Anxiety

I’m John Glanvill, author of The Calmness in Mind Process for Overcoming Anxiety, OCD, and Depression.

This essay, “Exploring the Energetic Battle Between Common Sense and Intelligence,” examines why intelligent people with anxiety often act in ways that defy simple common sense. Examples include:

• Staying in a job they hate.

• Worrying about events that haven’t happened.

• Feeling lonely but avoiding new connections.

• Fearing thoughts, despite their intangibility.

• Dreading emotions, which are natural.

• Trusting science without questioning its funding.

• Remaining in toxic environments instead of relocating.

• Seeking reassurance from others with similar issues.

• Knowing change is needed but not acting.

This ironic list of behaviours fails the ‘common-sense test.’ To see this, you must detach from your intellectual ego, which obscures its own sabotaging patterns, and create space for awareness.

The Decline of Common Sense in the Information Age

What happened to critical thinking and independent thought? Before the internet, common sense was more prevalent. Today, information overload—often misleading—programmes our brains, shapes beliefs, and pulls us into a virtual world, distancing us from reality.

Why do intelligent people fear actions they know are beneficial? Why would they:

• Doubt themselves?

• Talk themselves out of action?

• Obsess over others’ opinions?

• Resist change?

• Hesitate to ask for what they want?

• Feel inadequate?

• Avoid reprogramming childhood conditioning?

These questions suggest intelligence needs a practical lens—common sense—to foster calmness.

Redefining Intelligence as Common Sense

Calmness stems from practical intelligence, or common sense. In video 28, I noted that state schools, post-Industrial Revolution, were designed to produce compliant workers with uniform beliefs, valuing authority and standard science to serve employers and consumerism. This 200-year-old system persists today.

When I struggled with anxiety, I defended this education system. Now, common sense reveals its gaps: I wasn’t taught decision-making, challenging authority, self-esteem, courage, or practical skills like financial literacy or entrepreneurship.

People say my work is common-sense and should be taught in schools—but it isn’t. We must unlearn conditioned views of intelligence to embrace emotional intelligence: the ability to manage our emotions and behaviours while influencing others.

Cognitive Dissonance: Intelligence vs. Self-Sabotage

Anxiety and depression often manifest as a clash between knowing you’re intelligent yet acting in self-sabotaging ways. Reflect on your story about intelligence:

• Does academic success define you?

• Do you feel clever but lack qualifications?

• Are you street-smart yet awkward among the literate?

• Does a need to learn trap you in inaction?

As a child, I believed I wasn’t clever, so I didn’t study, failed exams, and reinforced this belief—a self-fulfilling loop. Changing this to “I am clever” sparked a love for learning, rippling into other beliefs.

Breaking Limiting Beliefs

Believing I wasn’t clever led me to hide ideas and control outcomes to avoid looking ‘stupid.’ Now, I embrace being a novice, accepting failure as part of growth. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) reduced my self-consciousness and anxiety by leaning into fear, ignoring intellectual stories, and accepting discomfort.

I once justified avoidant behaviours with logic, aiming to be liked while feeling like an imposter. Anxiety and OCD can’t be thought away—they’re fuelled by overthinking and control, trapping negative energy. Common sense and energy-based thinking offer a way out.

Common Sense as a Tool for Calmness

Common sense emerges through new experiences that challenge old stories. Consider a student I coached, pressured by his parents to excel academically for a ‘successful life.’ While intelligent, this advice lacked balance. Common sense values social skills, sports, and practical knowledge—competencies employers prioritise, like confidence and stress management.

Case Study: Overcoming Exam Anxiety

This student, in his second year of university, battled exam anxiety since age 14, worsened by exhaustion, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and perceived bladder weakness. Stress triggered urgent urination, leading to fears of public embarrassment. He secured classroom accommodations but avoided queues, sometimes skipping university by staying on the bus, using a fake stomach ache story.

I explained that stress-induced bladder urgency is common in anxious individuals, caused by adrenaline contracting the bladder. He was shocked, saying, “So I’m doing this to myself? That’s too simple!” Seeking a quick fix, he resisted long-term solutions.

I proposed intense ERP: since he’d never wet himself, standing in queues would disprove his fears. To ease anxiety, I suggested an incontinence pad for safety. He resisted, citing ‘disgust,’ revealing a belief prioritising shame over action. I challenged this: pads are safe and common, like when he was a baby.

We bought pads together, overcoming his embarrassment. He wore them for three days at university, standing in queues without incident, breaking his fear cycle. This allowed us to address social isolation and low self-esteem. Years later, he earned an economics degree, travelled, met a partner, and became an operations manager—a role unrelated to his degree but aligned with his growth.

Key Lesson: Intelligence can deter action, but common sense offers practical solutions. ERP works, and embarrassment is surmountable.

Happiness as an Inside Job

True happiness comes from within—managing your subjective experience, interpreting life, and engaging to meet your needs, regardless of external events. Common sense suggests crafting a positive inner narrative, even if it’s a ‘fabrication.’

When delayed in a queue, I accept the situation or imagine positive outcomes, making my experience pleasurable. I observe others’ frustration and wonder what stories they’d need to release. I create a high-energy toroidal field with optimistic thoughts (calibrating above 200, per video 37) and controlled breathing, either influencing my environment or conserving energy.

If a plane is delayed, it’s delayed. Things resolve, maybe not as your ego desires, but they do. Focus on what you can influence, surrender to the rest, and optimise your inner experience—perhaps by napping or trusting engineers.

The ego demands control, feeding off emotions (winning or losing). It’s a parasitic self (small s), not the true Self (big S)—the formless, detached Observer.

Thinking in Terms of Energy

The ego relies on logic and conditioned beliefs, not energy. Astrophysicists suggest the Zero Point Field (space) holds immense energy—enough in one cubic metre to boil Earth’s oceans if harnessed. Common sense says: just because we can’t measure it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Breathing deeply increases energy transfer from nature to your body in three ways:

• More oxygen re-energises cells.

• Deep inhales and exhales expand your toroidal energy field, influencing your environment.

• Higher vibrational frequencies (via positive thoughts) may repel low-energy ‘parasites’ (trapped trauma), forcing them to seek lower-density hosts.

This energy-based thinking, though unfamiliar, is scientific when viewed through quantum or holistic lenses, not just Newtonian science taught in schools.

Releasing Trapped Trauma

Happiness requires raising consciousness by avoiding drama, adopting high-energy thoughts, and releasing trapped trauma. When trauma releases, it escapes as kinetic energy, feeling like anxiety, panic, or rage but ultimately liberating. This ‘pain body’ (as Eckhart Tolle calls it) discharge increases available energy by reducing suppression effort.

These releases can be noisy and intense, like a hot air balloon’s burner transforming stored energy into motion. Initially, they feel terrifying—screaming, shaking, or rage—but with ERP, they become manageable. Instead of “I’m having a panic attack, how do I stop it?” (ego’s response), the Observer says, “Great, let’s release this trapped energy!” No need to know its source—just let it go.

Practical Example: The Hot Air Balloon Metaphor

Imagine a hot air balloon pilot firing compressed gas to lift the balloon. The noisy, intense release transforms potential energy into kinetic energy, achieving the desired outcome. Similarly, we store emotional energy (trauma) and can release it intentionally, directing it toward positive intentions with common-sense boundaries, like not overextending energy or taking unnecessary risks.

Videos 4 and 9 discussed recharging our emotional energy battery and discharging our atomic energy battery. To do this, separate the story in your head from the emotion in your body. Accept emotions (chemical or energetic releases) without engaging the ego’s stories. Sag your body, focus on breathing, and let energy flow through you, as detailed in video 15, part 2.

Finding Your Inner Stillness

Behind the Observer lies a formless stillness—your Soul, consciousness, or subjective awareness. T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets captures this in the “Burnt Norton” passage:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is.

This still point connects you to source, creativity, and oneness. Finding it changes everything, but it requires detaching from the body’s emotions and the ego’s stories.

Childhood conditioning often punished emotional outbursts (anger, crying), teaching us to suppress them. Common sense says: release these energies to discharge your atomic battery. Step toward triggers, let emotions rise and pass, and stay out of stories about unfairness or shame.

Safe Spaces for Emotional Release

If those around you can’t support your emotional venting (or it triggers their issues), consider:

• Retreats: Attend guided retreats with skilled practitioners to safely release emotions.

• Noisy Environments: Meditate or vent in high-energy, noisy places like a windy beach or harbour wall, where nature’s agitation masks your sounds and aids energy release.

With practice, releases become subtle. I now experience huge energy shifts unnoticed by others, as ERP has normalised them. Life feels less overwhelming when you don’t avoid emotions but see them as part of nature.

Common-Sense Recommendations

Here are practical, common-sense steps to overcome anxiety:

• Separate Stories from Emotions: Ask, “Do I need to separate the story in my head from the emotion in my body?” Let emotions flow without engaging narratives (see video 15, part 2).

• Use ERP: Lean into fears (e.g., standing in queues) to retrain your mind and body. Test solutions like the incontinence pad to prove fears are unfounded.

• Curate Your Environment: Surround yourself with high-energy influences (e.g., uplifting music, positive people) to raise your vibration.

• Find Your Stillness: Practise detaching as the Observer to connect with your inner stillness, reducing the ego’s control.

• Vent Safely: Release trapped trauma in supportive or noisy environments to discharge your atomic battery without judgment.

Conclusion and Call to Action

This approach works if you immerse yourself and take action. Your intellect may resist, but common sense offers a new perspective. Rewatch this essay, share it with loved ones, and find a noisy place to vent suppressed emotions. Related videos (4, 9, 12, 15, 27, 35, 37, 38) provide further guidance.

Thank you for your support. Let’s embrace common-sense perspectives and happy venting!