We recently ran a poll on Instagram: “Your client says, ‘I feel anxious for no reason.’ As an ACT therapist you say…” And the response that came out on top, by a long way, was: “Let’s notice what’s showing up right now.” Nearly 60% of 267 responses chose it. I love that, because it captures something very ACT, and very practical. It’s a simple sentence, but it gently changes the direction of the whole conversation.
Why clients get stuck on “the reason”
When someone says “I feel anxious for no reason,” they’re rarely just making an observation. Usually there’s frustration, fear, and a need for certainty packed into that sentence. They often mean something more like:
- “This doesn’t make sense, and that’s scary.”
- “I don’t know what’s causing it, so I don’t know how to stop it.”
- “If I could just understand it, I’d feel more in control.”
And honestly, that makes total sense. When anxiety feels unpredictable, the mind does what minds do, it starts searching. It tries to find the missing piece of information, the trigger, the explanation, the thing that will make it all feel manageable again.
The trap: the search becomes the struggle
The problem is that this hunt for a reason often becomes its own kind of anxiety behaviour. Clients start scanning, checking, analysing, replaying conversations, monitoring sensations, trying to “work it out properly.” It looks like problem-solving, but it usually functions as control. And once the mind is in control mode, the threshold for “feeling okay” gets higher and higher. It becomes: “I can’t relax until I’ve figured this out.” And of course that doesn’t work, because anxiety isn’t a neat logic puzzle.
What can happen is a loop: anxiety shows up, the mind demands answers, the person searches harder, the search increases a sense of threat and uncertainty, anxiety ramps up. The very thing they’re doing to get relief becomes part of what keeps it going.
“For no reason” usually doesn’t mean “random”
When clients say “for no reason,” I don’t usually hear that as “there is no reason.” I hear it as: “I can’t find a clear reason.” And there are lots of reasons anxiety might show up that aren’t obvious in the moment:
- stress building up in the background
- lack of sleep
- too much caffeine
- hormonal shifts
- pressure and responsibility
- uncertainty
- old learning histories being activated
Sometimes the body and mind are responding to a pattern before the person can name it. So yes, there might be a reason, it’s just not always visible on demand.
Why ACT often moves away from “why?”
ACT isn’t anti-insight. Understanding can be helpful. But ACT is very focused on something else too: what happens next. What does the person do when anxiety shows up? Because that’s the bit that changes lives.
A lot of clients come into therapy with the question “Why is my anxiety like this?” But underneath that, there’s often a quieter agenda: “Help me stop feeling this.” And if therapy joins them too quickly in chasing the perfect explanation, we can accidentally strengthen the idea that anxiety needs to make sense before life can continue.
Why “Let’s notice what’s showing up right now” is such a strong response
This is why I think that poll answer is so good. “Let’s notice what’s showing up right now” does a few important things at once:
- It pulls attention out of analysis and into direct experience
- It brings the client into the present moment, rather than the future-focused threat story
- It helps them start relating differently to anxiety, instead of wrestling with it
- It creates space for choice, which is where flexibility starts
In practice, it often sounds like: “Okay, let’s slow it down. Where are you noticing this in your body?” Or: “What’s happening right now as you say that?” Or: “What is anxiety pulling you to do in this moment?” That shift matters, because once the client is in contact with what’s here, they have more options than just thinking harder.
The pushback is part of the work
Sometimes clients don’t love this move at first. They want to stay in the problem-solving mindset. They might say:
- “Yes, but I want to understand why.”
- “That doesn’t help, I need the cause.”
- “If I knew the trigger, I could fix it.”
And again, that makes sense. It’s not stubbornness, it’s fear. It’s the mind trying to re-establish safety through certainty. So rather than debating it, ACT tends to validate it and then gently bring the focus back to something more workable: “Of course you want an answer, it’s hard not knowing. And just for a moment, can we notice what’s happening inside you as you say that?”
You don’t need the full cause to respond better
One of the most relieving things clients can learn is this: you can build capacity with anxiety without fully understanding it. You can practise a different response in the here and now, even if your mind is still unhappy about the unanswered questions. That might look like:
- noticing the sensations without panicking about them
- grounding in the body
- allowing discomfort without immediately trying to get rid of it
- responding to yourself with kindness instead of “what’s wrong with me?”
- taking the next meaningful step, even with anxiety in the background
That’s not giving up. It’s training.
What this sounds like in the room
Here are a few follow-up prompts that fit naturally after “Let’s notice what’s showing up right now”:
- “Where do you feel it most in your body?”
- “What thoughts are here alongside it?”
- “What is anxiety asking you to do right now?”
- “What do you notice you want to avoid?”
- “If you made a bit of space for this feeling, what would happen?”
- “What would a kind response to yourself look like here?”