What To Do When You Get Anxious

I rush to get things done around the house.

I do this out of habit and out of want for the tasks to come to an end.

I peel potatoes so fast I usually end up with some peeled skin, I stack the dishwasher at lightning speed, willing it to work faster to get the next load on and I  race around the house, putting washing away by shoving it into drawers – just so it’s out of my sight.

When I tried to do things with love (see my post on that here) I found it made me slow down to pay attention.

I also noted that I had a HUGE knot of tension in my stomach when I did these tasks. The harder I tried not to hold my stomach in, filling it with anxiety, the harder it was to let go.

Resulting yesterday in an anxiety “episode”. I felt quite anxious for no reason whatsoever.

Today I thought – maybe I did let go of some of that anxiety whilst doing those tasks….and now it was circulating throughout my body – looking for a way out.

Luckily my gorgeous Mum and Gran were taking both kids out today.

Free time!

During the day!!

So I went to the gym and got on the treadmill for twenty minutes – I was thrilled to discover they have a machine that gives you a virtual tour through the New Zealand wilderness – so I pretended I was on a gorgesouly scenic hike.

Then I had a meditation class for an hour.

Bliss.

So I am relaxed and have felt myself slow the pace today and you know what?

Things get done anyway.

So how do we let go of all that anxiety that builds up within us (and leads to some very strung out and emotional mothers)

I love this article on thetinybuddah.com and have borrowed their summation of what to do when anxiety strikes.

Receiving the Message

Spending time with anxiety to discover the source of the message and what you have to heal can be achieved in many ways. You have to find what works best for you, but here’s a great series of approaches that seem to help everybody:

1. Welcome it.

Make friends and peace with anxiety immediately. Talk to yourself and the anxiety reassuringly: It’s ok. I’m listening. I want to hear what you have to say. I know you’re just trying to get my attention and that the more directly and peacefully I listen, the sooner you’ll stop repeating yourself.

Fighting with anxiety or resisting it will cause it to persist.

2. Write about it.

I know it’s trite to journal since it’s a suggested solution to most personal troubles, but the slower pace of writing and full engagement of your senses helps you travel down the path of the anxiety message to its source.

We don’t always know where our anxiety is coming from, so we have to take the time to dig and poke. Plus, we’re literal people. Our thoughts are literal. By using a linguistic mechanism the analogy of anxiety message becomes more clear and easier to work with.

3. Laugh.

Bring more laughter in your life. It will help you take life less seriously.

4. Love.

 Express love for people, places, and things that you cherish. Be a greater beacon of love.

5. Help others with their anxiety.

The more people you help with anxiety, the greater a vocabulary you’ll develop, and this will help empower your inner dialog for when you’re sitting with anxiety.

6. Meditate.

Anxiety races thoughts and can be very distracting. With a rushing mind, it’s hard to hear the anxiety message and follow it back to its source. Meditation helps tremendously.

If you can learn to notice your thoughts without attaching to them—seeing them as cars passing by as you stand on the edge of a busy highway—you’ll become better at picking out what really matters in this moment.

7. Realize that You Are Enough.

Be accountable, no matter how much “such and such/so and so did” to you. It doesn’t matter. Now is what we have to work with. Tomorrow is what we have to create.

Realize that you are your own solution. You have what you need to look clearly; to hear and to heal. Anxiety is a message born within you, speaking to you through you, and therefore it’s within you to heal.

Do you ever feel anxious? Do you have ways to overcome it? What works for you?