We live in a culture that when life is uncomfortable we have a million things at our fingertips to distract us . . . food, work, children, the phone, online shopping, obligations, alcohol, etc.
We subconsciously hope that by distracting ourself from uncomfortable feelings and sensations, it will help us. You are not alone.
What if the things we wanted to get away from were actually there for a reason and asking for our attention?
What if you imagined they are a good friend knocking at the door asking for help and need to tell you something?
That’s the thing with anxiety and overwhelm or any other uncomfortable feeling . . . we try and get rid of or numb it instead of turning towards it and getting curious about what it might actually need to tell us or how we can help.
We have forgotten that the body holds wisdom and a deeper truth and knowing. We have disconnected from our body’s wisdom and relied on distractions to relieve the immediate discomfort.
Thank goodness for mother nature though. We are biologically hardwired to relieve pain and discomfort when we are in distress. We have neuro chemicals in our brain to make us feel good quickly and to immediately get us out of actual or perceived danger. But when we are constantly in a distressed or anxious state, we consistently need relief from the things that can’t actually help us feel better in the long term.
Imagine having too much to do in one day at work or not having any meaningful connections during the week or feeling the heartache of the latest news . . . without being conscious of it we turn to our social media feeds, a couple of glasses of wine or a quick trip to Amazon.com to get relief . . . which we do.
Over time and without knowing it, we’ve created a pattern that when we are even the slightest anxious, stressed or overwhelmed we get relief in the choices that we make. We don’t have a tolerance for being with what is uncomfortable.
However, the choices that we make to quickly relieve our anxiety or distress can never ultimately solve the underlying discomfort. We make the things we are avoiding harder to be with in the long term.
The practices of reflection, breathing, slowing down, moving our body, gratitude and being in nature helps to orient us to long lasting happiness and well-being and rewires circuits in our brains and biology.
Anxiety is often a pattern in our body, physiology and mind. We suffer in relationship to this pattern because it is often a cycle that we can’t figure out how to interrupt OR we haven’t learned to befriend the thing that we are trying to get away from feeling.
If we slow down long enough to notice, to feel and to deeply listen to the place we are avoiding we connect to our wisdom, intuition and deeper knowing.
Ultimately we all want to come back home to ourselves. The place inside of us that is quiet, peaceful and content with life as it is even though not perfect and sometimes hard. We have to meet the obstacle rather than going around it to feel relief.
