Know Thyself – understanding the body-mind equation of anxiety

 

Know Thyself

It is so important to understand how the mind and the body play together in states such as Anxiety.

And to ‘Know Thyself’ is the first step to taking your power back, because let’s face it – we are often left feeling powerless in the face of this really powerful chemical cascade.

And it is a cascade, which occurs with every single thought we have – all being released into your body.

Every single thought.

Anxiety happens in the mind, but it is experienced in the body… As you think, so you are.

So this post goes to understanding the process of anxiety in your body.

Why is this important? Because knowledge is power, and empowering.

There is nothing worse than feeling out of control – and that is exactly how you feel when ‘anxiety’ kicks in! By the time it’s in your body though, it’s a helluva lot harder to do anything about it! 🙁

That’s why it’s important to learn about the process of Anxiety, so that the work can happen in those ‘inbetweensy’ times – as that, my friends, is where the difference is made!

This part of therapy is normally referred to as ‘psychoeducation’ – and it’s where I always begin.

Here’s why:

1) Understanding takes away the fear and helps prevent one of the biggest traps of Anxiety – getting anxious about feeling anxious! That just confuses the whole thing even more…

2) You can see how different practices and processes (often called interventions) fit in. It all just makes a bit more sense, and helps you have the ‘conviction of your courage’, as well as the courage of your conviction to dump anxiety. Well, to dump the unnecessary and unhelpful anxiety, because sometimes it shows up for good reason!

So let’s dig a little deeper 🙂

Sun and Moon

At the most basic level what we’re talking about is the ‘fight, flight and fear response’, or sympathetic arousal. There are lots of people talking about this now (Joe Dispenza is a good one) – so its an easy one to get more information on.

What we have here though is not a textbook, it’s a blog post, so here it is as I tell it in counselling…

• The fight and flight response takes place in the Autonomic Nervous System.
• The Autonomic Nervous System has two aspects to it, like most things in our experience they can be seen as opposing forces that need to be held in balance – Yin Yang kind of stuff
• The two parts are known as the Sympathetic (S) and the Parasympathetic (PS) Nervous System

One gets you up and going (S), the other (PS) calms you down. When I was nursing many moons ago the PS system was simply referred to as the ‘resting and digesting’ system. And that’s exactly what it does – helps you relax so that so that you can eat and sleep, rather than stress and pace when the whole thing is out of balance!

• I like to refer to these two arms of the Autonomic system as Sun (S) and Moon (PS); so when you are in a state of Anxiousness – or sympathetic arousal – it’s like your out in the sun for too long – you start to feel a bit burnt out.

How does this happen?

As stated earlier, it is mostly triggered by thinking – which is impacted by emotions and memories – however it can also be as simple as ‘you’re mind telling you crap’. Just because you think something, doesn’t mean it’s true. This is why we need to challenge our thoughts from time to time.

So, when we have a ‘negative’ thought (judgemental, catastrophising, self critical etc etc),  it gives our brain the idea that there’s something not quite right in our world, and we need help to deal with it.

This happens next…

It responds by pumping out adrenaline and cortisol to help us deal with a perceived threat – but we could be just sitting on the lounge thinking about stepping out the front door! When this happens on a daily basis, it builds up in the system and we get to a point where we just tip over into ‘flight and fight’ mode, really really easily.

And what does this system do? Prepares us to fight or to flee, so that’s what we feel like doing! A part of our brain yells – ‘there’s trouble afoot! quick – get ready to run!’

Sound familiar?

We get agitated or aggressive, or alternatively, avoid… run away, and hide. Sometimes behind closed doors, sometimes behind the couch, sometimes in the bedroom, sometimes under the bed! With a bottle of Whiskey… cause that might help (not).

And while this might sound silly – I’ve been in that exact space 🙁

Shifting Energies

Understanding this process better also helps us to understand that some practices will encourage the sun to set (just have a rest buddy), while others are all about bringing up the moon!

For eg: Cognitive therapy changes your self-talk and therefore the chemistry you release, effectively bringing down the sun (sympathetic arousal); breathe work (oh so powerful) will help to raise up the moon.

When you get a handle on the physiology behind this, you start to find your own ways to break into it and make a difference. This ‘difference’ can be felt as a shift in perspective, a shift in how your body feels, or even a shift in your energy body… Yep, our thoughts have a huge impact on our vibrations!

So, start to ‘know thyself’ better 🙂

While this is a very basic introduction to what can seem a complicated process – you don’t need to understand it for the changes to happen! Be compassionate, rather than self critical, and for now, simply breathe with intention 😉

And feel free to ask some questions!

Finally, it’s important to understand that while ‘awareness’ is important – it’s not the answer – it’s the opportunity…

This is why my So(u)lution Therapy program starts here, before moving through many other important areas. There is a lot in between this starting point (how we talk to ourselves) and the finishing point (how we want to talk to ourselves… and others), so it then takes a deep dive into karma, soul purpose, and channeling the higher self, as all of these concepts can, and should influence our awareness of who we are, and why we are here.

Then, and only then, do we come back around to the more traditional psychotherapy techniques to change things on the physical level.

I guess you can see it as a path that looks at the Game of Life – finding freedom in the process!

You’ve entered the game… WHY?

What are the rules of the game, and what do you have to play the game with?

We then look at how to get some skill in the game before developing ways to get some skin in the game!

If you’re interested to learn more, check out my signature therapies page.

Peace be yours bright eyed souls! xx

#anxietyyoursoulquest #mindheartandwil

Jacqui is an Holistic Integrative Health Practitioner. She has been studying and working in the health space for over 40 years, and her passion is to use modalities that will align the three bodies (mental-physical-spiritual) as well as the three levels of consciousness (conscious, subconscious [s0ul] and superconscious [Spirit]) for complete healing and soul growth – in this life and the next!