What to do About Anxiety~
Garden Variety or Debilitating
- FIRST, Anxiety is future-oriented. It is not Living IN THE PRESENT. You may be thinking “I am WORRIED about X”.
- Now, breathe in that anxiety, that physiological/body place.
- You should now be with the present “feeling”. The emotions are right there under the anxiety. RIGHT THERE.
- Breathe deeply past the lungs, down into the belly.
- Now, where is the anxiety in your body?
- What shape is it? What color is it?
- If it had a newspaper headline, what would it be?
- Tolerate that feeling. Welcome it. FEEL IT.
- Ideally, you are not hyper-focused, feeling flight (let’s get out of here!) or fight (up with the fists and knees!), feeling numb, or dead (“I feel like a stone”.)
- 10. Can you notice the sensation that is arising? If you stay in the moment, you can clarify what you are feeling. What are you feeling RIGHT NOW?
11. What is it like to be feeling x, y, z?
These questions are engaging your frontal cortex in relation to your feelings. You now know and can store what you were feeling, not the anxiety.
Otherwise, you are protecting FROM your feelings, they may feel too scary to feel. You are putting up your protectors from the feelings, which, feeling them, will wash away your anxiety, your worry. “I admire how courageous you’ve been in getting to and feeling your feelings”.