How do we know its going to be ok?
It’s been a rough few months for us all. I was initially okay. I was clear on my purpose (get the studio online and flowing, apply for federal funds, homeschool kids, and do lots of yoga). I tend to thrive when I have a purpose or a target for my attention.
This has, for the last decade, been both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because my purpose is usually clear, which is satisfying and comforting.
A curse because I’m not good at being chill. When I have a vision for something, my pattern is to make it happen with thought vibrations of “It's on me to do this,” “It's my responsibility,” and “DO SOMETHING!”
Those thought vibrations are a form of anxiety for me, and they result in chronic pain in my neck and shoulders.
Much of my spiritual work in the last decade has been about unraveling the erroneous and anxiety-causing belief that it’s all on me. That if I don’t do it or see that it has to be done or ask someone to do it, things won’t get done.
My spiritual work has been about receivership, about not having a vision, and allowing nature to take its course. The practice of consciously releasing control my life and letting things unfold.
I have a deep belief that I am supported by God/Nature/Source/Light/Spirit and that, in fact, if I let my life unfold without inserting my will, my experience will be more easeful and more amazing.
I believe that, and that belief gives me a chronic nervous belly.
Our belly is the third chakra and is about purpose and will. Mine has been conditioned to have a vision and a clear path for that vision. So, while I work to rewire the belief that I have to have a clear vision and MAKE IT HAPPEN, my nervous system and third chakra are deeply uncomfortable with that idea because it is an entirely new way of being.
When I slide into the comfortable pattern of striving, making it happen, and doing, my shoulders and neck hurt. When I seek to cultivate trust and acceptance of NOT knowing (especially in the societal and economic environment we are in now), my belly is a firestorm of sensation.
These two beliefs existing concurrently create an enormous amount of tension, anxiety, and chronic pain sensations in my body.
I could give you a list of real-life events that are causing my anxiety: the pandemic, the long-term viability of the studio and the yoga studio industry in general, racism and racial injustice, global warming, the President…. (I could go on.)
What I’ve realized is that these situations have NOTHING to do with my anxiety. My nervous system is wired in a certain way and these external situations simply illuminate how I am wired so I may choose how to respond.
Feeling the physical sensations of anxiety is the only way. You have to feel it to heal it. And that is hard because the process of healing anxiety is layered. To unravel the anxiety pattern, we also have to unravel the behavior pattern to quiet the uncomfortable sensations of anxiety.
It’s work. Work that sometimes feels never-ending. Yoga and exercise, pranayama, meditation, acupuncture, massage, plant medicine, EFT, and Reiki are all tools we can use for the work of rewiring our nervous system towards balance.
Right now, I’m experiencing peaks in my anxiety. But I do what I know. I practice yoga postures that soothe me. I practice pranayama techniques that bring my nervous system into balance. I basically use all the tools in the toolbox to get me through these peaks, then I feel better.
I want you to feel better, too. I want us all to feel good.
And I will share with you what I tell myself:
I know how to make myself feel better, as do you.
I know how to soothe myself in healthy ways, as do you.
I know the tools and the techniques and I use them, as do you.
Together, we will get through this.
