Anxiety Revealed

As some of you know, I'm taking the 8-week Mindfulness course for the second time as part of my commitment to more self-care.

This course had a profound affect on my life the first time round, so I had not anticipated what it would reveal this time. With the mindful practices already being integrated into my daily life, I am now working on a deeper level, which has uncovered habitual thoughts patterns that have been causing me anxiety for years and ones which I thought were acceptable. I thought being self-employed, self-sufficient and self-supportive meant that it was justified for there to be some level of anxiety in my life. But that's rubbish! These thoughts and rules that I've created in my mind have prevented me from moving forward because I always have the feeling of being overwhelmed and never having enough time.

The irony is, I prayed for years for my life purpose to be made clear and now that I've found it, I am flooded with ideas and ways to express and deliver these practices and yet I've done very little to materialise them because I don't know where to start. I've talked about them and planned them, set deadlines and made promises, but I keep getting in my own way. So while the universe has delivered, I am PROCRASTINATING for England because of my limiting thoughts and beliefs.

Nothing should cause us anxiety as anxiety isn't real. It's just a thought about something imaginary in the future that may never happen. It’s impossible to feel anxious in the present moment because you are IN the moment, experiencing it physically with your body and mind, right here, right now....that's where Yoga & Mindfulness come in! If we're not fully present, anxiety creeps back in, as your mind begins to worry about the next moment before it even happens. How often have you been anxious about something and it's never been anywhere near as bad as you thought it would be? Almost always!

Anxiety keeps us one step away from happiness and contentment and can keep us immobilised, unable to move forward for fear of the unknown. How crazy is that? It's not even tangible and yet it has so much control over us...at least only until we spot it! Once we recognise something in ourselves, it becomes powerless because we are now AWARE and it can no longer hide in our subconscious controlling our behaviour. We do have a choice over our thoughts, but we need to become aware of the ones we already have in order to change them.

Healing and wholeness emerge from awareness. We need to be with ourselves to allow each layer to be revealed and peeled away when it's time. As Buddha said "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" We are in fact our own teachers, our own Gurus. We don't need to spend months living in an ashram in India to become enlightened. We just need to spend enough time with ourselves in quietude, fully experiencing our bodies and minds in the present moment. In this space, we can truly listen, and in this silence, we can find the answers to everything we're looking for...