Besides all that work in therapy,What Helps Anxiety?
Therapy takes time, and often is not simple.
Often, clients come through my door and want some relief. They are tired of feeling anxious and/or depressed and ask what to do. Therapy offers techniques like EMDR and guided meditation along with establishing a good therapeutic alliance and learning more about the root causes of anxiety, grief, trauma, and relational struggles. But what is something that can be done now, without all that work and waiting?
When we are anxious, we can feel lost.
Let’s get very simple. When we are anxious, we often feel lost. When we are feeling sadness or grief, we are often feeling cut off from a sense of warmth and love. What’s a quick way to serenity?
Slowing Down to connect with self is grounding and calming.
Simple answer is connection. First to self, and then to others. Connection to our own heart and spiritual nature is a pathway to finding calm amidst the storm. Things may be chaotic around you. You may have lost your best friend in life or a parent. You may be going through a life transition and it feels like you are in a storm with so many questions.
What can you control? An exercise to try:
Get yourself to some quiet place where you wont be disturbed. Take a couple of slow, deep breaths into your chest and down into your belly.
Feel your body. It’s alive. Nothing else matters in this moment. The only thing that is real is the moment where you are living. Nothing before it, and only speculation lies ahead, so stay with yourself. Just for this moment. You are worth it.
Take one thing at a time, one minute at a time if you have to do so. What can you control?
(nothing about other people, nothing outside yourself)
Let go of thinking of those things you can’t control, if only for this one moment.
Can you feel the aliveness in your body? That’s your energy.
Can you feel your heartbeat? Thats the gateway to serenity.
Breathe into this space, the space in your chest where your heart beats.
Stay still and allow emotions to come and let them flow if they do come. They will pass. They will not kill you, even if it feels like they might.
Staying in the moment and doing the next right thing FOR YOU, what feels like it would bring you peace, is the way to keeping serenity.
Find what brings simple serenity in this moment
What brings serenity in this one moment? It could be as simple as taking a break from text messages or social media. It could be as simple as getting some water to hydrate you or food to sustain you. It might be petting your dog or cat, or moving your body to release some anger or sadness. It could also be doing something for someone else that has not been asked of you. Wash a dish, send a card. Getting outside our thoughts and feelings by doing something for others can shift our mood and perspective.
The urge to keep things peaceful
What feels right for you might upset other people if it does not match their wants or needs, but we cannot live our lives doing what we think will keep the peace or please other people if we are to have serenity and wholeness. We can be compassionate and thoughtful of the needs of others and wish them well on their own journey to serenity. And we can act with kindness and we can send them love. And, come back to yourself. Only by doing what feels right for you in each passing moment will allow you to find serenity, and sanity amidst the storm.
