Gnaw

Something may be eating away at you inside, such as conscience, worry. What is gnawing represents the source of worry. Gnawing can also mean attacking a problem or situation, or link with hunger for something. See: Eating.

This seemed to have a strong connection with a woman I had fallen in love with. I felt torn, in conflict, lost. I have not felt quite like this for many years. Gnawing away at my innards was just the same anxiety as I had experienced all those years ago with Silvia.

Gnawing images can in fact indicate deep anxieties, as follows:

I remembered the tremendous physical anxiety I had felt when searching for work. It was an actual pain in my lower abdomen, a real burning gnawing deep inside. I went right into the anxiety, and it was the fear any life form feels when exposed to danger. I remembered the film of baby turtles hatching in the warm sand. As they made the perilous journey from dry sand to the sea, seagulls swooped and ate them; alligators snapped them up; fish swallowed them. The anxiety was that of stepping out from underneath our rock into the open sky, and taking ones chance with life. If fear paralysed us we would dodge more slowly. But the seagulls might get us however fast we moved. It was the chance we took. There was no guarantee of success or failure.

My parents had sowed in me the seeds of enormous anxiety about sticking my neck out from the rock of security. Now, as I was exploring fresh pastures, I faced the agony of anxiety of the unknown, unseen seagull.