Day 1: Soothing Anxiety

The power of being still

When you struggle with anxiety it is most likely that your fear response in your body and mind is in overdrive. This basically means that the normal emotion of anxiety has taken over and is leading your response to your experience. So what ever happens in your life, both internally and externally, your to-go-to response is one of anxiety.

This can take on the form of lots of overthinking and worry, thinking that you are no good and that there is something wrong with you for being anxious, avoiding certain situations, tiredness, body aches and pains, and much much more.

The fact that your fear response is in overdrive has an impact on your nervous system and you may notice that you are feeling restless often, that it is hard for you to sit still and that your body sensations are uncomfortable and that this causes anxious thoughts, which makes you feel more restless, makes it even harder to sit still etc. etc.

Being still

While it may feel difficult, it is really powerful to find some stillness in the midst of this. When we react out of our bodies being restless, we are, unwittingly, feeding our fear response and feeding the anxiety we so much want to get rid of.

Allowing yourself to sit quietly with your experience, trying to slow down your body and mind, gives your brain a different message. Instead of saying to your brain: i feel restless, danger is here, i need to get rid of this (feeding your anxiety even more) by sitting still you are saying to your brain: I feel restless, i am going to sit quietly with this, all is ok.

When you practice this often, you will change your response to your restlessness and you will calm your nervous system down. This in turn will have an impact on how your body feels and also on the mind.

For now see if you can just practice being still. Today’s meditation can help you with that. Don’t worry if it feels hard or if you do not immediately feel relaxed, just sit with the instructions of the meditation and see how it is for you. You can always try the meditation a couple of times.