WHEN MANAGING ANXIETY NO LONGER MAKES SENSE…

If you struggle with anxiety or have been diagnosed with an anxiety related disorder, do you ever have moments where you don’t feel anxious? Even for a few seconds?

Maybe it’s that brief, fleeting moment when you first wake up in the morning and don’t even know who or where you are, or what day it is, yet.

Maybe it’s when you cuddle a baby or watch your children at play.

Maybe it’s when you see a beautiful sunrise.

But what if the feeling of peace and wellbeing doesn’t come from the sleepiness or the children or the sunrise? What if it comes from within you? What if it IS you? What if it’s who you already are?

What if this is true for everyone, and part of being human is that we go in and out of experiencing it?

What if the feeling of anxiety is a brilliant signal that alerts us to the possibility that we’ve innocently got caught up in mistaking passing thoughts and feelings for some kind of objective reality, or even for who we are?

I spent a good couple of decades attempting to “manage my anxiety”. It was a compelling and highly addictive distraction that kept me up in my head and in survival mode, which is where I had learned to feel comfortable. And yet I knew there was something more, and yearned to live more from the heart and to experience more moments of presence and connection.

And then almost five years ago, in the midst of a painful and difficult time, I stumbled upon a conversation about the universal nature of our psychological experience and who we are beyond it. I’m still in the conversation five years later and what I’ve discovered and continue to discover informs not just my work but all of my relationships including that with anxiety.

It no longer makes any sense to try to “manage” anxiety. Trying to do so takes a lot of effort, similar to trying to hold a beach ball under water. Like all feelings, anxiety isn’t personal, and when it is seen for the beautiful signal it is, welcomed and fully felt, it naturally moves and changes.

Curious? Feel free to email katy@katyroser.com, and I'll answer any questions you have.

#anxiety #wellbeing #mentalhealth #claritycoaching