Ask How do you deal with the gap between how free freelancing looks and how anxious it actually feels?

[Edward22]

From the outside, freelancing looks like the dream. You set your own hours, you choose your clients, and you answer to nobody. But the reality for a lot of freelancers is a constant low-level anxiety about where the next job is coming from, whether the current client is happy, and what happens if things slow down. That gap between the image and the reality is something most freelancers do not talk about openly. I think more people should. How do you personally manage that anxiety, especially when it comes in waves and you cannot always predict when it will hit?