MY STORY WITH ANXIETY
I have learnt a LOT from anxiety and I’m actually very grateful to it for that reason.
Anxiety is one of the reasons why I dedicated myself to a yoga and meditation practice. Well it was my insomnia but the underlying cause to my insomnia was the stress and anxiety I was feeling in my life.
Stress and anxiety are very closely linked. Anxiety is a product of feeling too much stress in our life. Anxiety is a kind of panicky feeling, a feeling that we’re not in control, which is why uncertainty is a HUGE trigger for anxiety.
And guess what…. the only thing we can be certain about is that life is uncertain.
Anxiety is present when you’re unable to hold the stresses of life in your nervous system. Your nervous system is simply in a place of high alert all the time. Learning to soothe, regulate and bring balance back to your nervous system is key to managing anxiety.
MY STORY
During my third year of uni, from January to my exams in the summer, I swear I didn’t sleep. It honestly felt like I hadn’t slept for the entire 6 months. I know now that I was dealing with underlying stresses and anxiety about my final year and exams. My nervous system was also in a triggered state as I hadn’t been looking after myself at uni with all the going out, drinking and not eating healthily. I started to develop habitual patterns of stress, anxiety and insomnia.
I carried this into my early twenties when I was working in London. Although a part of me was loving life in London as I was living with best friends, meeting lots of great people and having fun. I was really struggling with insomnia and underlying stress and anxiety as I was very unhappy and unsatisfied in work.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life (in terms of work) and felt the pressure of having to have it all figured out. All this pressure was building up in my system and then one day, and over a period of 6 months or so, my anxiety went to the next level.
I experienced social anxiety where I would freeze and feel I had nothing to say, I felt anxious about going on the tube, in a plane and any confined spaces. I lacked a huge amount of confidence in my ability at work, I had low self-esteem, would often cry and feel really stuck. My insomnia was off the chart………..I used to fear going to bed the moment I woke up in the morning and the hours before bed I would be in dread. This was every single day, day in and day out. I was up and down going to the loo, tossing and turning, getting frustrated and not sleeping for hours. It was horrendous. I constantly felt charged and wired. I never felt rested. I always felt like I was running on adrenaline and my weekends supported this as I was going out lots in my early twenties. It’s no wonder I started to feel more and more anxious and unsettled. It was awful!
For some reason I had already began a meditation practice and had done a few yoga classes. Although my insomnia and anxiety hadn’t been cured I had a profound insight when I first started meditation, and that was that there is, a quiet place beneath my thoughts. There is a place of freedom and calm that is always there. I was committed to this practice! I didn’t know how committed I was at the time.
My insomnia was really getting me down and one day I thought enough is enough. I need to sort this out. I can’t live like this anymore.
I read a book which was a 6 week CBT course to help with my insomnia, learn more about his HERE. I 100% committed to this 6 week course, which cured my insomnia. I dived into meditation and my yoga practice, I began to learn about myself and my body, and in tern I began to heal myself.
What’s my relationship with anxiety now?
I haven’t had a panic attack since that time. What I do know is that I am more prone to the anxiety energy. We all have our own tendencies that we need to take ownership of whether it’s procrastination, self-doubt, depression, harsh negative thoughts, worrying a lot, being overly stressed, avoidance, numbing, blaming, victium mentality etc.
A lot of the above is tied into each other and are similar energy.
Modern life is challenging and very ungrounding. It demands a lot from us and asks us to be incredibly resilient in our nervous system.
I have learnt to become so nuanced with my awareness that I can feel an anxiety provoking thought or can preempt it. I know exactly what to do when these ripples come to the surface.
The most important thing is to be working on your resilience daily so you are able to hold space for all that you feel. Running away from how you feel, not processing it or embracing it only makes it stronger. This goes with all feelings. Learning how to investigate your anxiety, be curious about it, question it and even be grateful for it will help you liberate yourself from anxiety.
Even writing this blog has brought a smily to my face as I see how far I’ve come and how grateful I am for the journey I’ve had.
To top it off I even get to help people who struggle with anxiety and anxiety provoking thoughts. I’m deeply passionate about helping people as I know what it feels like to feel in a bad place with it and what it feels like to embrace it and free yourself.
This is why I’ve created an online course called ‘Befriend Your Anxiety’. This is what I have done with my anxiety, continue to do so and what I teach others to do. Click below to discover more about the course.
“I haven’t found anything else like this course. The format and the knowledge shared is priceless. I think when you feel anxiety regularly/deeply this is a great step towards actually befriending it and working with it, finding some foundation for peace with it, that’s been great for me. Thank you.”