Anxiety isn’t a feeling, it’s the avoidance of a feeling. The attempt to discount or run away or remove ourselves from a feeling. 

I think the word ‘anxiety’ has become overused and therefore also misunderstood. I certainly didn’t understand it or my own relationship to it for a long while. 

Leaning into my own relationship with anxiety and my own feelings beneath it has been transformative. 

Feelings can be scary or overwhelming when we don’t know what to do with them or fully understand why we might be having them. Look at what a toddler does when they have a ‘big feeling’. It appears to overwhelm their entire being. However if you have ever watched a child on the downward slope from an intense feeling experience you can see just how easily they move out of a feeling once they have experienced it. Kids are my nature much more in touch with their bodies compared to us adults. Their bodies shake off feelings with much more ease and agility. This is in part due to the fact their bodies most likely have a physical response to the feeling. Crying, shaking, lashing out, rocking, collapsing…the list goes on. This physical movement is necessary to externalise the feeling and not swallow it and internalise it, which by adulthood we have become well versed with. 

Getting back in touch with our physical bodies is an excellent practice that will serve us well and therapy is a great way to learn how to do this. 

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