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Anxiety

Issues are very complicated. They sit in many places in the physical body and the energetic system.

A good issue sits and expresses itself in many ways. It's going to have a physical expression and emotional expression. It's going to sit all over the place. VortexHealing® is a healing modality that addresses all of that on an energetic level, but what makes it unique is that it has a consciousness component. It goes into the core of your issue and addresses how it holds us. 

An issue is anything that keeps you out of being present. That’s my core definition of what an issue is. It keeps you out of the moment. If I have a physical stomach ache going on, I'm kind of absorbed in that experience. I'm trying to be here with you, I'm trying to enjoy the moment, but my physical issue in this case keeps me in this particular experience of myself. 

Anxiety seems like a no-brainer in terms of issues to talk about. There's no one I know of who is immune to anxiety on some level. 

A certain level of anxiety is arguably useful because it gears us towards certain things.

But what we're really talking about today is when anxiety becomes a real problem. When it really takes you out of the moment, when you have to manage it. And so many of us have dealt with that in different ways. 

There's a difference between the anxiety that everyone has and anxiety disorder. Sometimes when I teach classes and we’re talking about different issues, I will ask for a show of hands for people who are brave enough to volunteer.

How many people in the room have had a panic attack? About half of the people there usually raise their hands. It's far more common than we realize. It needs to be talked about and addressed.

If there's one issue that really represents being kept out of the moment, it's anxiety. Most of what we experience as anxiety is either worrying about what could potentially happen in the future or trying to process something that has happened in the past. When we're actually in the moment we are reactive, we're moving, we're living. It's not really anxiety as I'm talking about it today.

We get anxious because we have no control over anything, really.

And so we try to manage it by coming up with creative ways in which we believe that we're in control, only to realize we can't.

I remember planning my wedding. It was a wonderful wedding, and it went beautifully. People were wonderful on all sides, but just planning an event like that always brings up stuff. I remember sitting with a friend of mine, talking about the planning process. I was worrying about this and I was anxious about that, and she took a little cocktail napkin and said, “let me show you something.”
 

She drew a circle on the cocktail napkin. And I said, “what is that?” She said, “it's the circle of control. Note that most of reality sits outside the circle of control.” I still have it that cocktail napkin. I saved that because I thought that was a wonderful little lesson.

Awakening is being in the present moment, it's helping you to realize that you are not your issues. You know, you are not that experience. The tools allow us to let go of the issues, but at the core, the nature of VortexHealing® allows us to wake up out of the story of who we think we are. That always brings us back to the present moment. 

There are days when I feel that I'm just a jumble of issues. That space where you can recognize that there are issues that affect us, that we're anxious, that we need to feel in control, but in the core of our being, that's not who I really am. That awakening and presence that I'm talking about, that's the freedom from all of it. VortexHealing® gives you tools to deal with the stuff, but the freedom is always there. 

No path can give you something you don't already have, but it can clear the decks so that you can realize what you have always been.

Anything that will bring you back to being present and in the moment is not just going to help with anxiety. It's going to help with issues across the board. The body, the human energy system, this whole package, it's not just a machine it's really an experiential workshop. It's really a way for the divine to experience itself in separation, and then to bring itself back out again, which is the awakening process. 

So in a way, we are designed for an experience of separation. The problem is that when we identify with our issues and that experience of separation, we suffer. The suffering comes from the identity with our issues, not just the issue itself. 

Anxiety in the moment, if there's danger, the body needs to react. You need a hit of adrenaline to jump out of the way of that car that's coming at you, you need to be able to move. 

That's not an issue. That's the physical body that's hardwired to survive. I think what's happening more and more today is we are confused about what a survival issue is, and the same stress adrenaline rush carries over to the moment that we're sitting quietly checking our Facebook account, worrying about what's going to happen. 

Lots of people have panic attacks— me included. It snuck up on me. Anxiety has always been kind of a thing. We joke about how I'm a Virgo and I'm the warrior worrier, as it were. But I have to say, in perimenopause, my anxiety just really manifested in a way it never had before. I've come to understand that this is a very common experience. 

I remember sitting in someone else's class. I remember sitting there, just working on an issue, and then suddenly I just had this experience of doom. My heart started to beat and I just physically just kind of lost control. I got very emotional and it scared me. So my body had a reaction, and then I had an emotional reaction to my reaction, and I saw how quickly it spiraled. When we took a break, I just sort of put my sunglasses on and excused myself from the room.

I remember saying to a friend of mine, a fellow teacher, “can you come meet me in my room in a few minutes? I think having a panic attack.” When she came to my room, she saw what was going on, and she did some VortexHealing® on me. She was very gifted, but the thing I remember aside from the tools that she offered, was just her willingness to be present with me in that moment. 

It allowed me to just have my experience, to bring love to it, bring the energy consciousness tools to it. She just allowed me to be vulnerable at that moment, and it moved through very quickly once I had that. But my resistance to that moment, my fear of that moment and what it meant going forward really took me far out very quickly. It was very unnerving and this is not an uncommon experience.

I want to make it clear that this is a physical issue as well.

I think part of the stigma about it is we think, “I should be able to manage this. I should get control over this.” But the body reacts.

Another instance that wasn't quite a panic attack, but I remember. It was a perfect moment on paper. I was walking in the woods with my handsome husband. Snow was falling, Bambi and Thumper were playing. Not really, but it was this beautiful moment. And yet my stomach was in knots. I suspect it was hormonal stuff that played on other issues and things that I was worried about. But this is how the physical, the emotional, psychological, all of these things support our issues.

I was thinking, “this is ridiculous. Here's a perfect moment and I'm not in it, because I'm having this issue, pull me out of it.” And again, with a willingness to be present with my tools, with my breath, I was able to come back. That's when I realized that I really needed to sit down and take it through my protocol and look hard at it, because it's not allowing me this beautiful moment.

Sometimes for me, I could feel the physical anxiety arose and then it looked for a target. Like I felt this way and then I had to justify it. So I sort of went through my list of things that I can worry about and assigned it. But part of it was really just physical. And then there's the other part where the stressor that triggers the emotional or the psychological stress is bad enough to trigger the physical. They can start in one place or the other, but they do feed on each other. So however one addresses it, you have to get it on all levels to the effect.

I've been researching how social media and technology have really changed the game.

I remember the day when I started to be able to get my emails on my cell phone. That was beautiful at first. It was like, “oh, this is going to save me so much time. And I can address my emails on the train ride home.”

But I quickly realized that I was kind of addicted to that, and expected myself to be continuously available to the world. That created a lot of anxiety for me and I think it does for a lot of people. 

I have to create a kind of discipline about it because it's addictive. With everything that's going on in the world, there's this feeling that you have to know what's happening, and you have to be available. And you don't, actually. You can create a structure that works for you and your own boundaries, but it's very tempting to move away from those boundaries.

There's lots of talk about when we talk about anxiety.

I was talking about my personal experience, how it's such a physical issue. Even before going into how we cope with it on all levels, including the physical issue, I want to talk about the important relationship between anxiety and addiction. 

Anxiety is so difficult. We try to manage it in all sorts of different ways— some are healthy and some are not. I think there's a lot of addictions that happen just trying to manage that. Everything from just a drink, to food, to escaping on social media. Social media causes anxiety, but it's also an escape. Video games. All of these can be traced back to ways that we just try to manage that anxiety because it can be so unbearable. 

It's a way to check out of that moment, right? Any addiction is a way to manage or avoid feeling what you're trying to feel. That's why we reach for, fill in the blank. 

Because anxiety is such a physical issue, it can have such strong physical manifestations. It's one that demands management on some level. 

Thank God for the issues that bring us to our knees. Thank God for the things that just make you stop dead in your tracks and say, “Okay, I have to deal with this. I have to take this on. I am not willing to live like this. What is really going on here?”

It's a very humbling process to realize this. Somehow it takes courage to be able to look at that. 

What do we get out of our issues? All of our issues, as difficult as they are, we get something out of them. For me, anxiety is painful, but then again, look at all the things I have to worry about! Look at all the things I have to take care of! You know, it makes me feel important, special. And I think that's a big thing that our issues give us— a sense of feeling special. 

So of course, awakening is letting go of all that. You have to be honest, and be willing to give that up. Which brings us back to the humbling process, and taking a look at what we have to do to be willing to let this go. To observe grace playing, to allow this to let go, and to recognize there's a greater force at play, to support that process of freedom.

Of course with VortexHealing, the work doesn't come from you, it comes through you. You're a channel for a divine presence to sort of meet that issue wherever and however it sits in the system. Ultimately, it's about coming back to this very moment. 

On practical levels, just the classic yoga alternate nostril breathing, which is something that one does before meditation, integrates the Nadi system, which is the subtle nervous system that balances out that sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system. Anxiety can manifest deeply on a physical level.

Consistency gives you room to see what's really going on. My anxiety wasn't about survival. My personal anxiety had a lot to do with a deep sense of loss in my system. I was anxious about not feeling that loss again. In that perfect moment I mentioned, I had everything. How could I possibly be anxious in that moment? Because I had everything. And because of my past experience, I was afraid of losing everything.

Oddly, when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. I live a very blessed life, and that moment was a beautiful example of the joy that I have. And my anxiety came from the fear of losing that. It created this tremendous anxiety for me, and it took me a long time to figure that out.

Anxiety can be a coverup for other issues as well. It's kind of an all-purpose thing.

We're worried about survival. We're worried about loss. We're worried about other issues. And then we have an anxiety of feeling how we actually feel in the moment. So we project ourselves forward or backward. Very often if you're really willing to face anxiety, bring yourself back to the moment, and just see it for what it is, it can be very revealing about where you need to go. Thank God we have tools. 

Anxiety builds on itself. Maybe I don't feel well at the moment. And for some reason, many of us just can't accept that. So it becomes: I don't feel well at the moment, and therefore that means I'm not going to be able to function at work today., and I'm not ever going to get better. It just seems to build very quickly in there. We need to manage it. And before we know it, we're out doing so much about it that sometimes we just need to recognize that we need to stop and be okay with what's happening in the moment. Allow ourselves to be there and then work from there.

I strongly encourage people to talk to someone. Start with a friend. Sometimes just talking through with a loving friend just what's happening in this moment. And if you need to, take it to a doctor or a therapist. Do what you need to do to have someone really reflect back to you. The act of talking about anxiety, and sharing it, brings you back into presence.

Aside from my morning meditation practice, and my healing practice, before I go to bed at night, I watch cute animal videos. I do. I swear, I do. I started with puppies and kittens and then I moved into baby sloths. Wombats are awesome. It really just opens my heart to that joy that's always present.

Recognize that the moment is continuously changing. What was awful a moment ago may not be awful in this moment. Just keep on coming back. How is it now? How is it now? It was awful yesterday, but how is it now?

It was awful five minutes ago. How is it now? You know, when we're really willing to let all of that go, come back to be present in the heart. There we are. If you’re really struggling with anxiety, I don't mean to say, “oh, just do a meditation and you'll be fine.”

No. Use your tools, be it medication, VortexHealing®, breathwork, and understand that that's where we're going. And that's where the freedom is. 

Joy is the recognition of grace, wherever that is— the beautiful tree in the woods, that fantastic, billboard in the city. That's so colorful. There is grace everywhere.

If we're willing to put down our stuff, our stories, and really just be present with that.

That's where our work is. Recognizing that everything we do will bring us back to getting the other stuff out of the way so that we can just be. Easier said than done, but that's life.

Our issues close us off from appreciating what's going on around us. We live in this bubble of our experience of self, and our anxiety. And I remember just walking down the street with a friend complaining about something, and we walked by a pet store. And suddenly there was this puppy in the window and everything fell away. 

You can't fight the open heart. You know, despite myself, my complaining, my issues and my anxiety of the moment, when faced with this beautiful little puppy. It just doesn't hold up. But you have to be willing to put your stuff down.