Our anxieties are almost always due to thoughts about how something in our lives should be different than what it is. We tend to live in judgement and continues fear of uncertainty. Either you should’t be the way you are, your partner shouldn’t be the way they are, your body, your career or your bank account and even your art shouldn’t be the way it is. The moment we believe that something in our lives shouldn’t be the way it is, we will start to experience a sense of anxiety, tension and uneasiness on a physical, mental and emotional level. Our nervous system will automatically go into a state of fight, flight and freeze.
Whatever is currently happening in your life; with your body, in your relationship, finances, career or family situation etc. is exactly as it’s meant to be. The same thing goes for your creative journey and expression. Our thoughts about what should be, creates unnecessary anxiety. Thoughts about how life should be is what contributes towards the state of arousal in our nervous system, which in turn leads to tension in our body and an over production of cortisol, which is the stress hormone. This in turns leads to ill health and chronic conditions within the body.
Whenever we look at “beating” a specific challenge, we continue to create more resistance from within. When you exude the energy of “beat” or “fight”, “battle”and “conquer”, regardless of your conscious good intentions, your emotional body will continue to resist what is. Yet healing, peace, joy, prosperity from within can only occur when we embrace everything. This is by no means dismissing the challenges of our human emotions, but rather working on feeling more grounded and rooted from within.
It is only through the acceptance of our lives as it is that our anxiety reduces and eventually dissipates. What I am suggesting is not passivity but rather a state of befriending our lives. Whatever is happening in our lives right now IS HAPPENING, whether you like it or not, IT IS so instead of fighting it, embrace it and learn from it. Ask yourself: “What is this experience revealing to me about myself?” No matter what it may be, the first step towards change is always acceptance and acknowledgement of what is.
Acceptance of the present moment will liberate you because it will help you surrender to the is-ness of life, to the flow of life, which is what will open you up to healing, ideas, opportunities, creativity and even joy. It is only through befriending and learning to trust life, that we will be able to become co-creators of our lives. When the same problems or challenges occur in your life repeatedly over and over again, take a step back and ask yourself, “What lessons am I missing to learn? What am I not understanding?” Once you figure out and implement the lessons, your life will change right before your eyes. You will slowly move out of Victim Consciousness and into Victor Consciousness.
If you’re still not convinced, then I recommend reflecting and implementing the following steps in your life DAILY for the next 30 days:
Every day ask yourself, what is working right now? Write a list of all the things that ARE working. From access to hot water or food, to whatever else you can think of. Focus on your breathing and your breath daily. You're breathing right now and you don’t need a machine to breathe. That must be something to be grateful about.
Work with your nervous system and use somatic exercises to shift energy as well as FEEL the intensity of the anxiety from within while repeating "it's safe for me to feel this".
Ask yourself, in order to surrender into this situation, what qualities do I need to birth to better manage what I’m currently feeling challenged with? Focus on how you can birth those qualities.
Learn about the survival archetypes, particularly the victim archetype, which is highly pervasive and deeply entrenched into our cultural identities. At the root of victim consciousness is the fear that you won’t and cannot survive. Not just physically but survival in the form of your identify, your dreams, your hopes, wishes and your sense of Self. Hidden within the victim, is the victor. Search for that part of yourself daily.
Our authentic qualities can’t come forward until we can embrace our challenges. Everything is happening to grow us into who we are meant to be. The key is to allow for the old Self to “die”. All personal growth is about letting go of the false concepts we have unconsciously taken on; false ways we have identified ourselves, false habits and misinterpreted ideas. Our anxiety is often due to lack of self-love, lack of self-acceptance, lack of self-compassion and lack of self-knowledge.
When you make time to explore all the should’s you have about yourself, your partner, your body, your bank account, you career or other people, you begin to move away from the “what ifs” to the “what is”. This is when our sense of self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-realisation and self-care increases. It is only when we can embrace our “darkness” and our “shadows” that we will start understanding the meaning of self-love and tap into our inner Victor.