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How can anxiety be managed?

What is anxiety?

Anxiety affects about 10% of the population for periods of their life or in some cases for all of it.

It can also affect any of us in response to specific life events – we have a test, we have a serious argument, parents split up, uncertainty over money, someone dies.

It is a normal response to a perceived threat, and everyone experiences anxiety at some point, and possibly regularly.

What we’re going to talk about in this blog are ways to help you manage anxiety so it doesn’t get unmanageable and feel like it’s taking over your daily life.

How can you recognise anxiety?

You can have either or both physical and psychological symptoms.

In your body, you might experience things like – sweating more, hot flushes, pins and needles, panic attacks or nausea.

In your head, you might experience dread, constant worrying, racing thoughts, a feeling of being on edge.

There are lots of other ways you can feel anxiety too, so it’s best to talk to someone if you’re unsure.

What can you do about anxiety?

We have lots of lifestyle and self-help options that improve anxiety which we’ll focus on today. When it feels like anxiety is affecting your daily life and is getting out of hand, we can use therapies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and other talking therapies to help, and in some cases where it is becoming more severe, your doctor may look at medication too.

My specialism is the things we can do to help ourselves.

In the following, I’d like you to look out for the thing that feels like it will fit YOU. Not everything I say will be relevant for you, but in what I say, I think you will be able to walk away with something that will help you change your MIND in order to give you a better experience of life!

It sounds big, but it’s what I spend my time teaching because changing my own mind, and how I think, has completely changed my life.

What is resilience?

Resilience is often defined as our bounce-back ability. I define it as our ability to bounce back AND our realisation that we are the only one responsible for getting ourselves back up.

Now that can sound a bit harsh or isolating; that is not the intention. What accepting that ultimately we are the only one who can actually do the hard work of getting back up does is it keeps our agency – or to put it another way, it stops us giving our power away.

We can ask for help and take that help, and I want you to do that. It takes a village to get through this life, and I can promise you that you will want and need your friends many times over.

Nevertheless, your friends, your family, your coworkers can never actually live your life FOR you – they can be there, they can help with specific parts, and YOU will still have to do all the things in the end. You take your exams, you take your driving test, you go for the job interview, you ask someone to for a favour etc.

Whatever it is it takes resilience – living life creates vulnerability because LIVING your life means risking people saying no, I don’t want that, I don’t like the way you’ve done that, I don’t like you or want you. It’s built-in.

How can you manage vulnerability?

Understanding that life involves taking risks and that involves being willing to be vulnerable will put you in the driver’s seat of your life and give you freedom in a way that people who always look to someone else to solve their problems won’t experience.

Think about it – when have you taken a risk and had it work out, how did it make you feel? And when did you take a risk and have it not work out, and how did that make you feel?

Generally, the risk paying off leaves us feeling exhilarated. The risk of not paying off can feel crushing, but it can also feel like you tried and it can build your self-respect.

It’s managing this part of the reaction that I want to help with through these two tools.

The emotional bank account

What is it? It works exactly like any other bank account – you have to put in money to be able to withdraw it. With our resilience (our ability to get back up from life’s knocks), we have to put in good feelings in order to be able to fund difficult ones.

How do we use it?

• Notice what feels good
• Feel that feeling deliberately
• Bank that feeling

Big and small deposits are both valuable. How YOU choose to bank the feeling is up to you. You might write them down, you might have a Pinterest or Instagram account where you collect the good stuff, you might create voice notes for yourself.

I pin things to a board where I can see them from my desk, and I pin thank you notes to my fridge so that I can see them all the time. What could you and what do you already do? How can you CREATE more good feelings?

Holistic self-care

We need to take care of all aspects of who we are:

• Body
• Emotions
• Mind
• Social
• Environmental

We create good feelings by doing things that look after and inspire us at each of these levels. So start asking questions.

HOW do I like to move my body? I like to box and do yoga.

WHAT feels good? Time with my friends, time just NOT being traditionally purposeful, so reading a book, watching films, and creating art for example.

WHO am I with when I feel at my best? Get really good at realising which people lift you up and in exactly what way.

WHERE do I like to be and what do I need in my environment to be happy?

To conclude

Feeling good is the key to resilience. Become a joy-hunter. It will become a superpower because your joy will help you through the really tough bits of life.

Finally, the more we can understand that what we think creates what we feel the easier life will be.

This is your invitation to feel better, in the way that feels just right for you – whether that’s through Reiki Healing, Life Coaching, Bach Flower Essences, Retreats, Meditation or Yoga classes. Learn to love the life you have and build the life you want. Book a free call with me, Joanne, to discover what would best suit you.

Emotional resilience is directly linked to stress and the way in which we use and look after our energy. Here are four ways you can improve your emotional resilience, and in turn lower your stress levels. These tips are simple but effective and can be used before, during or after a stressful situation.

Sealing your energy

First, let’s talk about ‘sealing’ our energy so we are not at the mercy of external influences, and an effective visual to support you with this.

The personal space that I mean is the space immediately around you. And it is an energetic field. Sometimes we call it our aura.

Sometimes we think of it literally just as personal space – we feel when somebody intrudes into that space, perhaps physically, or with their emotions. In doing so, their energy field (which is full of how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking, what their experiences have been) interacts with your energy field, where all your feelings and aspirations and dreams and experiences are held.

And sometimes there is an energetic clash, which makes us feel very uncomfortable.

So my first tip for managing your personal space is to learn how to seal your energy field so that you’re not at the mercy of what other people are bringing into it.

And the way that I like to do that is; I like to imagine myself in a protective bubble of light. It’s such a simple tip, but a very effective one.

I like to make that bubble of light, a beautiful rose pink, because I want it to have a very kind and compassionate energy.

But if you’re going to be around someone you know you’ll feel more threatened by, you can make a shield out of an image of indestructible lead, or your bubble could be made out of mirror to be more defensive.

The main idea is that we take responsibility for our own personal space.

With people we know, like, trust and love we often don’t even give it thought when we let them in because we already know them. We are already vibrating at a similar wavelength. So it feels really good.

It’s not even that it feels comfortable. It feels actively good.

But we need to know how to manage ourselves when we’re less sure, or when we know that it’s going to be a challenging situation.

Clearing your energy

Let’s turn our attention to clearing our energy with a simple action to clear emotions, thoughts, memories and difficult experiences which you’re ready to let go of. Hint: it’s a task that you already do!

One of my absolute preferred ways to clear my energy field is when I take a shower, to imagine that the water is cleaning my body, but it is also cleaning my energy field so that I’m cleaning both physically and energetically. And what are we cleaning off?

We’re cleaning off emotions, thoughts, memories, difficult experiences, that you’re ready to let go of now.

And also those intrusions from other people so that you don’t have to carry around their weight of experiences or expectations too.

Think of a bank account

Here is one of the most important tips that I could give you. It’s an idea about how our emotional resilience is like a bank account. In order to withdraw money, you must have funds in your account – the same goes for your emotional resilience, and I share how you can build up your ‘bank balance’.

The idea is that we get used to thinking of our emotional resilience like a bank account.

So just like a financial bank account, if you want to make withdrawals, you have to have deposits as well.

You have to have money in the bank, in order to be able to spend that money. Well, we have to have emotional resilience in the bank in order to spend our emotional resilience.

And so what we need to begin to get good at is putting those deposits in.

And a deposit, in essence, is something that makes you feel good. In order to do this, you need to get really getting good at noticing what lifts you up and what makes you feel good, what makes you feel confident, compassionate, achieving strong kind, all of those feel-good experiences. You notice them and bank them through noticing them.

You can also add an anchor – a physical cue.

For example, you could press your finger and thumb together tightly as you replay that good feeling. And by repeating that, you can recreate that feeling when you need it.

There’s plenty more out there about anchoring.

The key idea here is we get good at banking experiences that make us feel good. And that grows your bank account balance so that when you inevitably need to make a withdrawal, you have something to withdraw from.

Managing your energy

I want to talk about managing your energy. You may have already noticed who, what and where drains you of energy and what might do the opposite and help you feel energised. This is a reminder to become more aware of this and offer advice on what you can do to better manage your energy.

Let’s begin to look at energy as something that we direct intentionally. And with this, I’m asking; where does your energy drain away?

Are there certain people are there certain places, or certain tasks, which you know, drain you of your energy?

If so, it’s time to start working out how you can limit your exposure.

Sometimes you can cut something out or even at times, we might need to mindfully cut a person out of our life.

A lot of the time, we can simply limit the exposure or be really creative about how we spend time with that person or in that place or on that task.

Get really good at choosing where your energy goes so that you’ve got more energy for the things and the people that you love.

I hope these tips help, and I’m always here if needed.

Do you struggle with managing stress? Perhaps you would like help with feeling more emotionally resilient? Then book a coaching session with me here and we will get it figured out.

Avoiding burnout

I have a secret to share with you – you don’t have to try so hard to get what you want in life.

The Universe is conspiring with you every day to bring you what you want if you would just let it.

Do you identify with trying? Do you feel tired, maybe even exhausted, and frustrated that things aren’t happening fast enough, big enough, or
somehow well enough for you?

The feeling of ‘not enough’ is the plague of modern society and directly leads to burnout. Just think – not quick enough, smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, rich enough, funny enough, amazing mum enough, entrepreneurial enough… ENOUGH. Enough. You. ARE. Enough.

This is my manifesto after burning out at uni, and then again at 30. Over the last 15 years, I’ve discovered that the Universe has my back – the clearer I am about what I want and the more able I am to step back from controlling how the result comes, the more my dreams get delivered to me on a plate, wrapped up with a bow.

How do I know the Universe had my back?

I was in the shower one new year, wondering what I’d really enjoyed the year before and would like to do more of, and I found myself saying out loud – I’d like to do more radio. Three days later I received a phone call from a radio station that I had recently been a guest on, saying their wellbeing show host had left and would I like to take over… Well, you can guess what my answer was! For the next 2.5 years I had my own radio show.

On another occasion, very early in my business when I was talking to my first ever business coach about what I wanted to offer, I found myself saying I wanted to teach the Bach Flower remedies but I had no idea how, as I had only just graduated from the course. The same month, my teacher rang me to say she wanted to retire and would I be open to taking over from her if she taught me how… again, you can guess what my answer was! A decade later, I am writing my first book on flower remedies, and have been teaching at the College of Naturopathic Medicine for that long too.

If you really think about it, I’m sure you have your own examples of speaking your dreams into existence.

How can I avoid burnout and get what I want in life?

Trying too hard narrows the flow of your energy and limits what you can achieve. The more tension the less energy can flow through you; and the less creative the Universe can be in finding ways to give you your desires.

1. Relax
   Relaxing allows your flow to be as abundant as possible and directly expands your achievement because a relaxed mind is so much more creative and resourceful. Think of any yoga class you may have been to – you relax and let go into the pose. TRYING is the enemy of achievement!
2. Live Lightly
   Living your life lightly gives other people the freedom to do the same. We invite others to get off the treadmill by getting off it ourselves. Just imagine the ripple of relief that would spread.
3. Let Go
   Letting go of control allows the most room for new ideas and opportunities to come and for you to be surprised into greater delight and opportunity than you thought possible.
4. Choose to Love Yourself
   Berating yourself to success simply won’t work, but LOVING yourself to success will and CO-CREATING your reality will.

I’ll expand on this last point as it is really key.

LOVING YOURSELF TO SUCCESS means deliberately curating your energy and your resources. We are many layered beings – PHYSICAL, ENERGETIC, EMOTIONAL, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL. Each layer is nourished by different things and the key is to know what nourishes YOU. Your body, your mind, and your spirit.

CO-CREATING your reality means accepting total responsibility for your current situation, identifying what you want, and going to work for it –WHILE LEAVING THE UNIVERSE THE ROOM TO DO ITS BIT!

It is only from a place of love that co-creation can take place, or else you continue to berate yourself every time life’s difficult bits take place, leading you closer to burnout and further away from a life you want.

How can I start loving myself?

A great way to cultivate self-love is through reparenting yourself. This includes acknowledging your wounds, and getting the help and support you may need to heal them so that they stop preventing progress. By taking responsibility for your own life, you can act with confidence in the direction of your dreams.

Lastly, understand that you deserve help, and be open to receiving it in a whole myriad of ways. Notice, accept, and thank the Universe for that help, and then take more action yourself, so that you create a virtuous circle of ask, act and receive.

So you see, avoiding burnout is really about learning to love, accept, trust and understand yourself to follow the direction of your dreams and allow them to unfold.

Do you struggle with feeling not enough or not loving yourself? Perhaps you feel you are already burning out? Then book a coaching session with me here and we will get it figured out.