I feel anxious and I feel relaxed

Last night I’d been packing for a training I’m away on this weekend, in between messaging some of the other course participants about meeting up for dinner this evening. It had been a full day of school runs, gym, client appointment, ordering business cards, cooking dinner, hanging out with my family before going away all weekend, and so on.

As I got into bed I suddenly noticed that I was feeling a bit anxious. Slightly tight in the tummy, tense in the chest and shoulders and searching for something to attach this feeling to – what was causing me to feel anxious?

I reflected about the busy day I’d had, perhaps I’m just tired and taking things too seriously?

And then I remembered… this feeling of anxiety isn’t telling me anything about my day, my weekend, my training, my colleagues or the fact I’m away from my family all weekend. And, therefore, there is nothing I need to do about this feeling. I remembered a few years ago when in such a situation I’d have escalated the anxious feeling by resisting it, analysing it, attributing it to whatever detail of my life seemed the most likely culprit. Often that would be other people so I’d head into judgement and blame and poor me, OR it would be myself and I’d head into judgement and blame and aren’t I such an idiot. I could have lain awake for hours. I might have used any number of techniques I’d learned to try and manage or change the feeling.

Remembering this, I was flooded with gratitude for having stumbled across something that prompted me to look in the direction of what is creating my experience, and for the insights that I’ve continued to have since then. Wow, I thought, remember what it was like when I thought I had to do something to change this feeling? That was really, really hard work. No wonder I have a lot more time and energy these days. I knew exactly where the anxious feeling was coming from and that there was absolutely nothing for me to do.

In that moment, I still felt anxious AND I felt relaxed. In that moment I went from tense and alert to relaxed and sleepy. 10 minutes later, the anxious feeling had passed. This isn’t a “how to”; it’s a description of an experience I had that flowed from my own insights into the inside out nature of my experience. As a human being, my capacity for insight is innate and looking in this direction has brought me the powerful knowing that all of my psychological experiences are safe because they’re all coming from the same place. I frequently forget this, but I always drop back there sooner or later.

#insight #insideout #okwithallofthehumanexperience