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Anxiety is a merciless ***. She can materialize out of seemingly nothing and is relentless
in the way she effects our lives. But the next time you find yourself a prisoner of
anxiety, I want to you stop, take a deep breath, bring your attention to creating space in
your chest and body, interrupt the thought for a second and consider this. Imagine Anxiety
is a warrior, trained and committed to alerting and protecting you when there is danger or
harm. Her hounds, amygdala and hippocampus, live
in our brain and are this very sensitive, frail creatures who have this ability to not
only record and remember anything that has ever caused pain or unrest in the kingdom
of our lives and our bodies. But also the ability to sense danger, even when it is unseen.
Anxiety trusts them faithfully. Just like any dog who will stiffen and barks at the
slightest sound outside, or seem obviously tentative to a stranger on the street. Anxiety
asks very little questions when they go onto alert. She just immediately sends out her
minions, cortisol, norepinephrine, adrenaline, to go check the scene and fight the danger.
And they're just brutes and there’s thousands of them and they just flood the villages of
our bodies turning everything over looking for what it is that got the hounds on alert.
Meanwhile scaring everybody else around. Causing all this ruckus and alarm. Pretty medieval
right? The problem with this is, although that’s
a great team to have on your side, they know the difference between external threat and
danger and that which are self inflicted or happen naturally within our bodies. So the
next time you feel anxious I want you to take a deep breath
and ask yourself. How much caffeine have I had today, am I just full of stimulants. How
much water have I had to drink, is this just the panic of dehydration. Am I hungry or do
I need to eat better quality food, is this just my body asking for better nutrition.
Have I slept well, or is this just exhaustion. Because as far as anxiety and her hounds are
concerned this is just detriment to your physical existence.
Now take another deep breath in and ask yourself. Am I just saying yes to too many things, am I stretched too thin.
and of those things, how many of them do I really not really want to do. Am I feeling
dread or resistance or like I’m going against myself on this. Am I spending time with people
who I don’t really trust or who don't feel authentic and safe and supportive to me. because
this this just a threat on the quality of your life as far as anxiety and her hounds
are concerned. Now take another deep breath and check where
your thoughts have been. Have you been criticizing yourself. comparing yourself to others. Are
you being obsessive or paranoid about the details of things. Are you reliving past experiences
that were stressful or painful. Are you thinking too far into the future about all the ways
things could go wrong. Because this is just harm to anxiety and her hounds.
Or maybe you're about to start a new venture but it’s a little scary because it’s outside
of your comfort zone, but really you're very excited. Anxiety doesn’t always know the
difference. So next time you start to feel anxious, I
want you to take a deep breath, and check where it feels in your body. Is your chest
tight, is there pressure under your ribs, are there squirmy worms in your belly. Is
your head just full of white noise, is it difficult to make a decisoon, to you feel
agitated or annoyed. Or super sensitive and fragile. Because the quicker we can learn
the physical ques of anxiety then we can start to interrupt it and go what is Anxiety doing
up right now. Why are you here. And as we can unwrap our habits from just
the perceived and the real then we can retain Anxiety and her hounds to be on our side again.
Because when the perceived threat and most consistent danger is what we do daily in our
own lives and the repetition of our own thoughts, Anxiety and her hounds never rest. And the
minions are always replenish able and she will continue to send them out and send them
out and send them out in search of what it is thats causing the unsettlement. And when
the exact defense system that is intended to serve and protect the quality and safety
of our own lives and wellbeing turns against us, that is how we become prisoners of our
own lives. So when you start to feel anxious always remember
to take that breath. Oxygen is a great diffuser. Run yourself through the check list of the
potential triggers and threats. Is it physical. Is it circumstantial. Is it mental or emotional.
because theres are plenty of places in our lives that we need our anxiety to work. We
need our instinct and intuition to be strong. We need our reflexes to be quick and our perceptions
to be sharp. But if we’re always living with it then we get exhausted and worn out
and fearful of our own existence. So remember, anxiety Is intended to serve you. Not capture
and torture you. I wrote this little story as a kind of walking
mediation, or active meditation, I wasn’t walking when I was writing As a means of kind
of unraveling the chaos for myself when I’m in the grips of reality. Trying to better
understand how it happens. When I’m like, everything was fine and now it’s ***
not, It’s not okay. How didi this happen. And having to get myself back to neutral ground
again. So if this video was helpful to you, please
give it a thumbs up and share it with someone else who you feel like could benefit from
this information. I hope this exercise gave you some fresh perspective or insight into
the ways we can take back control of our own minds and lives against anxiety. No life should
be lived in contestant anxiety. Thanks for watching. See you next time.