You left way earlier than you should have, because you got nervous and stressed before your flight. You were harsh to them at the park because you didn’t want them to hurt themselves. You were distracted and disconnected because you have been worried about what you saw on the news, you’re worried about how you’re going to pay for this or that, you don’t know what the test results will say.

Anxiety. You know what it is? It is a thief.

It steals time from you and your family. It takes you away from the moment. Ironically, it makes you a less vigilant parent in many ways—you’re so busy thinking about what might happen that you don’t always see what is happening.

Does it sometimes serve us? Sure. It catches some things. We miss fewer planes. We dodge some bullets. But for the most part, as Seneca reminds us, we suffer more in imagination than reality. He who suffers before it is necessary, Seneca wrote, suffers more than is necessary. And really, it’s our family that suffers for this anxiety. They’re the ones who are the real victims of it (not that it is very fun for us).

As parents, we need to take ownership over our own anxiety and not allow it to steal anymore from those we love most. Fortunately, the Stoics have some answers of how we can free ourselves from unnecessary stress and worry. Marcus Aurelius put it like this: “Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.”

What Marcus understood is that anxiety comes from the inside. We are the creators of our anxiety.

Which means we can also be the ones to do something about it. We can stay present with our children even when there’s a looming deadline at work. We can take the bird’s eye view and remember how short our time is, especially the time we get to spend with our kids. And we can ask ourselves what’s bothering us so much, what’s causing all this worry, and determine whether that’s something we can control or not.

Basically, Stoic philosophy is a set of tools to help us deal with anxiety and worry and stress (all things that parents know too well). If you’ve got young kids these days or neurodivergent kids you’re probably also familiar with the idea of fidgets—little toys or gadgets to help dispel nervous energy or attention.

To better keep all that in mind, the team over at the Daily Stoic created ​the Anxiety Coin​ for you to carry around wherever you go and use as a tool whenever anxiety strikes. It has a hole at its center, unique among our medallions, as a reminder of how stress and worry can eat at us from the inside until we have nothing left to give to our families. But it’s also a great little outlet for nervous energy—you can spin it on the table or between your fingers.

Wrapping around this hole on one side of the coin is Marcus’ quote (Today, I escaped my anxiety…) to better remember what power you have to discard your anxiety, and instead focus on what—and who—really deserves your attention.

On the other side is the Greek phrase Ta eph’hemin, ta ouk eph’hemin—“what is up to us, what is not up to us,” in English—with a serpent devouring its own tail encircling the words. This image is known as an ouroboros, one of the oldest symbols in the world, and represents how anxiety often feeds on itself in an endless cycle, as worrying about something leads to more worry, and then more worry, and so on.

But according to the ancients, the ouroboros also signals our potential for rebirth and transformation—because when we confront and work through anxiety, we shed old skin and leave room for new layers to grow in their place.

Think about how much time you lost in the past week due to anxiety.

10 minutes?

30 minutes?

3 hours?

All day, every day?

What if that could be cut in half, or nearly eliminated? Imagine if you had more time to do what you love with who you love. Imagine having more energy (something any parent could use) to play on the floor all the time with your kids or take them on an exciting outdoor adventure. Imagine the newfound space you’d had for you—to hang with friends, to pursue your passions, to sit back and relax in the present moment.

That’s the goal of ​the Daily Stoic Anxiety Coin​—to serve as a reminder of what you gain once you are able to better control your anxiety. And by the way, it also makes a great fidget spinner to twist and turn in your fingers for when your thoughts and emotions get to be too much.

​Grab the Anxiety Coin over at the Daily Stoic Store​ and gain a powerful tool to win back control over stress and worry today!