A few weeks ago, I woke up with a trembling chest, the difficulty to focus … procrastination and doubts creeping up within me. I was visited by my anxiety!
Over the years I have gotten to know it and understand its triggers, but this time, none of the known triggers were prominent and that was confusing.
It didn’t settle for 2 weeks and I got tired of it. I have been experiencing anxiety and depression since a teenager, which had never been diagnosed, recognised by medical professionals or my close environment. I just thought this is who I am – at times dark, and at times nervous.
Don’t misunderstand me. My life is full of beauty and love. I am running my passion businesses SoulBlossom and SoulSpace.
Don’t misunderstand me. My life is full of beauty and love. I am running my passion businesses SoulBlossom and SoulSpace.
I am living in a beautiful neighbourhood close to the beach. I have a beautiful community and friends surrounding me, and my family that lives overseas are devoted supporters of my life in OZ and the lifestyle I chosen.
And then there is this persistent anxiety nagging away within me.
I am managing it with the resources I have as a healer, the techniques I know work for me, and the knowledge that “I Am Not Anxiety – It’s just an experience.”
Then one Friday night, 2 weeks into my unreasonable anxiety, I am driving home after a fulfilling day of healings and counselling my partner called and dropped a bomb. He is not feeling our connection, he has been in doubt for 2 weeks.
In this moment it all made sense. My anxiety was a messenger I didn’t understand. It is a most valuable resource. I tried to own it, make sense of it with looking into the past and didn’t sense into my immediate environment.
“While my intuition is a deep knowing raising from within, guiding me and informing me about me and the choices at the time. My anxiety is informing me of shifts in my environment, it is my bodies way (my anxiety is a very physical experience) of tuning into the peripheral sphere and forewarns me of subtle changes.”
Simultaneously, I was running a 6 week program to build resources to deal with anxiety and depression. This new understanding changed the entire program.
Not only is anxiety a resource, depression too, frustration, anger, stress, guilt, shame, disconnection and so forth…
These states are actually messengers, making us aware that something isn’t quite right, that we need to stop and tune in, maybe something is shifting around us, just subtly, but its happening.
All these emotions are navigation tools, helping us to move closer to wholeness and alignment, to a deeper meaning and purpose in our life. What an eye opener and what a gift I received from an experience that I could have easily identified as unfortunate.
Here is my gift to you, 3 steps, so you can utilise ALL the resources available to you and make your greatest challenge your greatest resource.
Change Perspective
The western medical paradigm, and its interpretation of what is healthy or not, has led us to believe that if we experience uncomfortable or challenging emotions that something is wrong with us, that we are not a functional member of society. There is a sense of judgement that leads to personal shame, guilt and devaluing of those experiences.
It is time to shift this belief.
“There is NOTHING wrong with you!” The thing wrong is the conditioning and the perspective”.
Be Honest
It is very important to be honest with yourself. It took me 10 years of studying, healing and working with shamans, journeying and facing my conditioning and beliefs until I finally admitted to myself that what I had been experiencing was anxiety and depression.
I can now tell you, this admission was the greatest gift I ever gave to myself…
I felt so relieved to finally be honest to myself and to let go of the mask and illusions I had created to keep up the façade.
ADMIT YOUR PERFECT IMPERFECTION
Witness & Commit
Anxiety can become one of the best uncomfortable friends to live a soulful life, to stay true and aligned yourself. If it makes you feel anxious, its a NO. Discernment is important in the process of witnessing.
If an opportunity of growth and stepping out of the comfort zone arises, nervous energy is a normal experience to give you the necessary energy to step up and out. However if the thought of going to work creates the chronic knot in your stomach, maybe you are not in the right place.
Start to notice when and where you feel challenged and write down what is challenging you, how it makes you feel, how your body responds and any other insights and thoughts you are receiving.
The gift of witnessing allows you to step back from the emotional experience and see it separate to you.
Allow it to inform you, STOP trying to work it out and then commit.
Much love,
Gabriela
