Anxiety – How to work with it?

People think that anxiety is an emotion or an overwhelming sensation, in my experience, anxiety is actually what happens when there’s an emotion we’re not willing to see.

Anxiety is our body’s response to wanting to avoid part of reality so we could say that, in a way, anxiety is the opposite of responsibility.

If responsibility is my ability to respond to the world, which means to be engaged and present.

To let in and connect with your responsabilities, being able to have this ongoing connection with all of my moment-to-moment experience.

Anxiety is the opposite, anxiety is wanting to hide from it, anxiety is carrying the past or projecting a negative future, anxiety is wanting this moment to end, it’s wanting these emotions to hide.

To retreat and close down.

Responsability can only happen in the present moment, anxiety can only happen when we’re caught up in our mind, wanting to run away from the present moment.

When you say “I’m feeling anxious” what you might be really saying is there’s an emotion that i would rather not be feeling, therefore anxiety is coming up.

Anxiety is like the middle-man for all of those emotions that don’t get a say in your heart.

Everything that you’re used to pushing, sweeping under the rock, you numb, ignore and pretend it’s not there, sometimes for years, sometimes just copying your parents.

Every time you/they felt an emotion, you/they pretended it wasn’t there, they sent you to your room, silenced you, told you to grow up or to be more mature, something along those lines.

Now you’re doing the same with yourselves, you learned to silence a part of yourself.

So all those emotions that you silence, quiet and push away eventually run out of ways to grab your attention and give you a message, so.

They hire a middle-man, anxiety, which is something that’s going to come and shake in a physical level, then in a mental level.

My invitation to you is: if you suffer from anxiety or if you know someone that suffers from anxiety, recognize that what they’re suffering is not their anxiety.

What they’re suffering is their disconnection from a part inside of them that hurts so much that it makes it difficult to look at.

If you start going through an anxiety attack or you’re feeling overwhelmed in the moment, the first thing to do is recognize that you’re trying to escape the moment.

You want to move somewhere else, you don’t want to feel uncomfortable in your body.

So you might start scratching yourself or wanting to go grab food, you may also want to think about everything that could go wrong.

This is the anxious response… “I need to do something” “I’m not safe” which is rejection of the moment and it’s an inability to feel safe in this moment, body, mind.

So the first thing to do, the best way to calm your nervous system, is to always take a deep breath, inhaling twice.

You inhale twice before filling your lungs with air in that same moment, then you exhale, your system will relax this way.

Every time you’re going through an anxiety response, breath twice fully, then exhale – you’ll see that your whole system calms down.

Now find a place where you can sit and welcome the moment – How can we welcome the moment?

Pay attention to the sounds, the smells, the sensations; What does gravity feel like? Can you feel the wind? Can you hear the cars, people, nature? Can you notice your breath, the warmth in your nostrils? Your heartbeat?

You start welcoming the present moment and reminding and understanding that it is safe for you to be there, in this moment, once you’re safe, comfortable and ready, ask yourself a deeper question:

What is it that i don’t want to feel or see in this moment? The answer is going to come up

I invite you to see that part of yourself as a little child, a younger you, have a conversation with them: “Hey, what’s happening? What do you want me to see or what do you need from me right now?“

You will see that the more you start tending to these emotions that you have banished out of your heart and body for a long time.

Once you start listening to them, then the middle-man will be gone, there’s no need fo it, anxiety receives but it will never receive by trying to control it, your enviroment, by trying to change.

“My partner makes me anxious when i’m in this situation, i get anxious.” As long as you think that something or somebody else is the cause of your anxiety, you’re gonna be enslaved by those situations.

I get it, it’s harder to be fully in tune when there’s a lot of external stimulants, especially when those stimulants are somewhat toxic or negative.

But at the end of the day, anxiety is coming from within, nobody is injecting anxiety into you and making you feel it.

Start by recognizing that your internal world is of your creation and that anxiety is just the middle for something else that you’re not willing to feel right now.

The moment you’re willing to sit and talk with that part of you, anxiety will be gone.