Anxiety is something I’ve dealt with off & on for most of my life. The first bout I can remember specifically was in a movie theater.
My dad took my brother & I to see Men in Black. We got to the theater, were treated to our favored snacks & settled into our seats in front of the massive screen.
Everything was fine until the previews began rolling.
Bombs detonated across the room carried by consuming surround sound. Fire & smoke filled the view in front of me. My heart began racing. My breathing went shallow & way too fast. I knew for a fact that the theater was about to blow up & we needed to go: NOW!!!
Retrospectively I feel for my dad.
He’d just dropped for 3 movie tickets (evening not matinée) popcorn & drinks. Now his 9 year old is freaking the fuck out & it’s either bale or have a scene of hysterics.
He got us out of there.
It took me 5 years before I could set foot in a movie theater again. Every time I was invited to join friends to go see some new film I could feel the terror welling up inside of me again.
Like many stories involving pubescent young manlings it took a beautiful female’s desire to coax me into confronting that fear. She’ll never know just how much I relied on the hand she offered me to hold; my sweating palms were about more than hormonal cocktails of attraction.
Photo by Ryan Al Bishri on Unsplash
The anxiety that surfaced in the theater that evening has roots that span further back in time. Thanks to a couple decades of excavating (assisted & individually) I have a good idea of their specific seeding moments in this life, but that’s a story for a different setting.
My self-observations & study have also led me to wondering about the intergenerationality of my anxious energy.
I can feel into generations of ancestors who did not have a safe place to call home, war torn countrysides & deep mistrust of power. 1000+ years of ancestral fear culminating in the present.
The story of time matters, but I’ve realized I don’t have to know all the details in order to work with the substance that shows up in my mind, body, spirit & relationships.
Photo by Lucas Calloch on Unsplash
Anxiety has continued to surface over the years in different spaces. Every time it shows up it is showing me a place within myself where I am disconnected from trust & faith, where I feel essentially unsafe.
Tending this reality is my work.
There are 3 practices that I find most helpful in navigating times when the anxious energy presents itself within my tissues:
Breath-work
Movement
Observational Story Switching
*Disclaimer: for those who deal with anxiety chronically & do not have experience working with these types of practices I highly recommend seeking a somatic & mindfulness informed coach, therapist or other practitioner who can support you in working with your anxious energy. I do offer such services & would love the opportunity to support you in cultivating supportive practices.*
Breath-work used well is massively supportive in pulling up & clearing whatever anxious charge is present in my tissues.
Anxiety (along with other heightened states of energetic charge) is comprised of a collection of sensory patterns & hormonal cocktails which exist to support survival. Best believe that anxious energy kept more than a few ancestors alive as they used their nuanced forms to fight, hide, flee &/or appease various threats over the generations.
The charge that accompanies charged states like anxiety needs a place to exit the body. This is where breath comes in. Breathing is the most fundamental way to off-gas build up from the body. It is also the only body process that is both automatic & controllable via direct intent.
If you’ve ever had an anxious moment you’re probably familiar with the heart racing, fast breathing, tunnel vision phenomena that accompanies & comprises the state. Each aspect of this bodily response is an adaptive reaction that supports our survival in the face of threat. Anxiety is a fear response.
When body’s feel threatened they heighten specific awareness of threat, block non-vital cognitive & bodily functions, pump blood to vital muscles of movement & ventilate the system to be ready for action.
All of this is good!
Left unused though this state can feel overwhelming as fuck & create toxicity within mind & body.
Back to breathing….
Intentionally activating breathing, very fast breathing that is primarily inhale dominant is a way to engage the energy created through anxiousness, consciously harness it & give it an outlet. This form of breathing accesses & stimulates the sympathetic aspect of our nervous system which governs our survival oriented responses to stress. When we’re anxious it is likely this system is already in charge.
Following this with intentionally calming breathing, very slow breathing that is primarily exhale dominant is a way to calm the system down toward a more relaxed baseline. Full deep inhales with long drawn out exhales stimulate the rest, digest & repair aspect of our nervous system known as the parasympathetic system. When we are anxious it’s likely that this system is on standby.
By combining these two methods of breathing I find I’m able to work with elevated energies (like anxiety) to flush my system through the intentionally activating breathing & generate sensed safety through the intentionally calming breathing.
There are many different ways to do both breathing types & there are methodologies of engaging both that can be found across the globe woven into various cultural traditions of caring for body, mind, spirit, community & environment.
You can check out the video below for some basic instruction to experiment with for yourself.
Movement (which I’ll add is always accompanied by breath….) is another primary method I use to work with anxiety when it comes up. Remember, when anxiety is present the body is signaling that the sympathetic system is in (or taking) control. This is the system that is governed by the primary actions of survival in states of threat: fight, flee, freeze, fawn.
I find it supportive to remember that each of these states exists within a cycling spectrum of survival. I may not just freeze. I may freeze then flee, then fight, then fawn. Specific responses to threat vary.
Within this spectrum of survival the ability to move is often central to continued living. It makes sense then that movement (again in conjunction with breathing) is a fantastic way to clear the charge presenting in anxious states.
Back to the story of almost seeing Men in Black in theaters. If my child-body had been a less socialized to respect the rules of the the theatre during that experience I would likely have been running for the door screaming: a natural bodily response of movement & breath in the face of a threat.
The specific movements that I find most supportive for dealing with anxious energy are shaking, sprinting, rolling & jumping.
Lifting heavy things can be supportive as well but it’s not my go to.
Shaking is the first & last stop. Shaking as in jiggling all the tissues I am capable of jiggling. This is a very animal response post threat. Shaking & jiggling (+ breathing; don’t forget!) supports the flushing of residual hormonal stimulants like cortisol & adrenaline from body tissues. It’s also a wonderful preparation movement for other more robust movements to follow.
Shake it out. Then exert energy.
Run. Sprint. Jump. Dive. Roll. Repeat. Mix it up. Get the heart pumping intentionally. Get the breath ramped up. Feel the energy moving. Then slow down, shake, breathe, how’s that anxiety now?
Making space for this type of movement practice in my regular routine is incredibly supportive to my body’s relationship with anxious energy & stressors of all kinds. When I’m “on it” that energy rarely feels overwhelming or overbearing. When I’m “off my game”….. lets just say I’m not much fun to be around.
Observational Story Switching is the last stop here because it only works well if the body’s needs for safety are being met (ie moving & breathing to flush & orient with threats - be they “real” or imagined). I have never successfully “thought” may through any anxiously overloaded state, but I’ve certainly thought my way into them…..
My story about any given situation can create a sense of threat or safety.
When I’m consciously connected to my body’s safety needs I am capable of observing the way I am thinking about a potential stressor & noticing if that thinking is appropriate to the situation.
On one side of the story-coin there’s a threat, on the other an opportunity.
When the threat is real externally I need to take action to protect myself using whatever method best suits my survival.
My experience is that when threats are externally real there is an instinctive reaction that takes place without thought. It’s in my best interest to allow these survival reactions to play out in safety oriented ways before attempting to think my way into or out of anything (there’s an art to doing this in healthy ways, but that’s a whole other rabbit hole to jump into…..).
When the threat is not real externally I have the opportunity to take care of my internal needs (ie breathe & move), create sensed safety through appropriate actions & check my story. This is where thinking comes into play as a powerful tool to frame what’s happening in ways that support my body, mind, spirit & relationships.
*When my body’s needs for safety (refer to breathing & movement) are being met I have access to this critical thinking aspects of my brain, when those needs are not being met I do not. Again, I have never thought my way out of an anxiously overloaded state….*
As a practice observational story switching looks like this:
child-self is sitting in theater waiting for the movie to begin.
he begins feeling a little elevated; energy moving toward anxiety (this is the critical moment of observation).
the story that is beginning to play out is: we’re all in danger, I’m for sure about to die, we gotta go!
the switch: it’s really loud, my body feels overcharged. I need to move away from this stimulating environment for a bit to calm down, maybe I’ll go out in the hallway to jump around & shake & hum to myself before grabbing some earplugs…. BRB.
Of course my child-bodied-self didn’t have access to this technology for a whole mess of reasons, not the least of which being a father attempting to juggle responsibility for two young ones in a public setting within a social framework that does not emphasize communal responsibility for the youth….. but I digress.
Thanks to abundant practice & accountability relationships (coaches, therapists, friends, family, etc) my adult-bodied-self does have access to this wonderful mindfulness based tech. And, it works wonderfully to transmute anxious energy when I remember to use it in conjunction with appropriate breathing & moving to nurture my body’s safety needs.
As a coach I use breathing, movement & mindfulness based reflective practices (like the story switch) to support others in curating more vitalized lives. Anxiety can be a drag but it doesn’t have to be. We can work it & learn to be supported by the energy provided within it.
Part of my role professionally is to model what it looks & feels like to work with energies like that of anxiety in ways that support my system. This practice of modeling approaches to managing charged states provides a reflection to those I work with that can support them in discovering ways of interacting with their body, mind, spirit, community & environment that are more supportive & sustainable for them as well as their ambitions.
To learn more about my coaching offerings please visit www.bodydweller.life