Anxiety - Coping With And Overcoming Anxiety

Anxiety is an internal feeling of fear, stress and tension. It is often triggered by situations you find yourself in.

For most people there are certain situations they find themselves in that trigger their anxiety. For example I used to get very anxious in certain social situations and was diagnosed with 'social anxiety disorder'.

However from what I have experienced over the years, the physical feelings of anxiety are just your body's way of telling you that something is out of alignment with who you really are and what you are on the planet to do.

Anxiety - stress and tension point to where you're out of alignment

Now it is possible to incorporate a number of techniques and strategies to overcome your anxiety. These are strategies such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation and changing your thoughts via 'cognitive behavioural therapy' (CBT) and they do work to reduce the symptoms of anxiety.

However from what I have found, it is these symptoms of anxiety that are your body's way of showing you that something is out of alignment in your current situation.

Anxiety - listen to your heart to let go of stress and tension

For example, I used to work in a professional setting. I'd get dressed up in a shirt and tie, wear black professional shoes and go to work on a crowded bus. However what I loved to do at weekends was go barefoot into the bush and just sit by streams in the solitude and peace of nature and watch the water flow over rocks.

No wonder I felt a sense of anxiety when I was working in the middle of Sydney in clothes that didn't fit with my sense of self and people who I didn't relate to.

Whenever the feelings of anxiety would come up then I would do a number of the exercises to try and overcome my anxiety. In the short term they would work, however on a deeper level I just knew that I needed to change my situation to be more in alignment with what my soul was here on the planet to do so the feelings of anxiety would naturally not be there.

So what I started to do was to align my outer life with what my inner life wanted to express. I knew that if I could do this then I would be in alignment and there just wouldn't be situations that would lead to a feeling of anxiety because my life would be in alignment.

I cover this more in my book 'The Heart Walk', however the first place is to start taking small steps to doing what you love. It only needs to start out being just 30 minutes or so a day.

For example, I knew the symptoms of anxiety were showing me that I was in situations where I was out of alignment. So instead I started to focus on situations where there was no anxiety and where I just felt at home. For me this was spending time alone in the bush.

Back then I started trying to spend as much time as I could in the bush exploring all the rock formations, streams, trees, caves, valleys and mountains. I didn't know why I was doing this, it's just that this is what I loved to do.

So if you are feeling a level of anxiety in certain situations I suggest you instead change your focus and start doing what it is that you love to do. It's OK if this is just 30 minutes per day. The point is to just start spending some time each day doing what it is you love to do.

A question I find a lot of people have is 'I don't know what I love to do.'

If this is the case then there are a number of techniques you can use to find what you do love to do.

Your heart is always guiding you towards what it is you love. Your heart continually is guiding you towards what your soul is on the planet to do. What you love to do is what your soul is on the planet to do. When you are doing this then your life is in alignment and anxiety simply drops to the floor.

So the first place is to start listening to your heart.

How do we listen to our heart?

We all have a little voice within our head that drowns out the subtle voice of the heart. For example, right now it may be saying 'Little voice? What little voice? I don't have a little voice!'

Well, that is the little voice.

As you start to become aware of the little voice within your mind then you will get to see that it talks at a certain tone and tempo. It talks as if it is on autopilot and often repeats the same thing over and over again and takes up a lot of our attention and awareness.

However if you instead treat the little voice within your mind and treat it like a little child then you can simply say to it 'Thank you for sharing'.

After you do this you will probably find there is a pause and a gap in your thinking. This is what the Buddhists call no-mind. It is from this state of no-mind that you can start to hear the subtle voice of your heart.

The way to do this is to place your attention and awareness on your heart center. This is located in the middle of your breast bone and is about the size of a golf ball.

As you place your awareness on your heart center, you can then start asking it questions and then listen to what it has to say.

For example, if you are feeling in a state of anxiety then you can stop and ask your heart a question such as 'What do you want to do?'

Then it is just a matter of listening to what your heart has to say.

For example, if you are in the middle of a shopping center then your heart may say things like 'Stay within your heart' or perhaps 'Do this quickly and take me home'

I cover this more in my book 'The Heart Walk' but you can see here that the voice of the heart doesn't say many words and that it is straight and direct.

However the point here is that if you listen to the voice within your heart then it will direct you towards the things you love to do. When you are doing what it is you love to do then feelings of anxiety just do not have the space to arise.

As you align your outer actions more and more with your heart and what you love to do then you will begin to be living your life from the inside out. When you do this then you will start to see that the feelings of anxiety and tension will just naturally drop away and will instead be replaced by a feeling of peace and calm.

Gaia | Anxiety | Rite Of Passage

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