Anxiety

 Anxiety is like a flash flood. You’re standing in the most glorious sunshine, unaware of the rain falling high up in the mountains. Far away. You’re going about your day. Trying to stay in your gratitude for the beauty around you. And then..BAM!! Out of seemingly nowhere a rushing torrent sweeps you off of the safety you were standing in. It swells around you. Threatening. Ominous. It rips your peace away like tree roots. Until everything around you becomes a swirling mass of debris. No sight of your safe place. When it dissipates you’re left in the mud. With the muck. In the remains of who you were before it came. You’re left to contemplate the cleanup and the rebuild. What practice can you implement that will keep the flash floods away? Can you form a dam with prayer? Breathing? Yoga? Meditation? Incense? What foundation can you set that will keep you from being swept away again? Each cycle of this is a lesson. With each cycle a new you is born. A version who sifts through the rubble for answers. Lessons to lessen the threat. You have to practice peace. You have to rescue your gratitude. You have to decipher the lessons it holds for you. You have to believe that one day , while you’re enjoying the beautiful sunshine, that it will stay the way you want it to. Calm. 

You search in books. across YouTube. In podcasts. Anything you can think of that may hold a tool that will be instrumental in the architecture of your peace. Arms stretched to the heavens, you beg for a sign. That sign comes. It is the sky! You are the sky! The rest is just the weather. It passes. The mental clutter, self doubt, insecurities and worries are all just storm clouds. They’re ether. Made of vapor. Formed when the instability in the atmosphere of your brain is ripe for their formation. Push through them. Your anxiety. Your panic. Visualize them as clouds. Let them blow in. Greet them. Acknowledge them for the entities they are. Thank them for their lessons. Then release them. Let them float away. As you drift back into that turquoise sky. Calm. 

Plant your feet in the earth. Let its magnetic field soothe you. Let it reset your magnetic field: your nervous system. Focus on your breath. One at a time. Exaggerate the release of the exhale. One at a time. Centering yourself. Begin to feel your pulse returning to normal after the flood of epinephrine subsides. 

You’re born of star matter. You only happen once in this lifetime. You’re formed by a Creator bigger than anything you can ever comprehend. Your bones are matter. Minerals composed of the dust of your ancestors. Remind yourself of your power. Your worth is not tied to your emotions. Forgive yourself for your weaknesses. They make you who you are. Establish healthy boundaries with the world around you. Guard your energy field. Smudge yourself often. Hug yourself. Be good to yourself. Stay true to who you are. Floods end and life begins again from the remains. Like is a circle….