A Personal Note on Healing and Anxiety

One of my favorite authors in the world of natural healing is Susun Weed. The mindset of healing that she advocates is called the Wise Woman Tradition. It's simple, nourishing, empowering. I'm reminded of it today because I needed a day of doing nothing. There have been enough busy days in my life, that I needed to spend time doing as little as possible, resting, nourishing myself with simple family moments strung together. The steps talked about in Wise Woman Healing are these:

Step 0 - Do Nothing 
Step 1 - Collect Information 
Step 2 - Engage the Energy 
Step 3 - Nourish and Tonify 
Step 4 - Stimulate & Sedate 
Step 5 - Use Drugs 
Step 6 - Break & Enter 

It's a matter of starting slow, respecting the body (and I'll broaden that to include mind, emotions, and soul, because it's all One after all) and its ability to heal and rebalance itself, and moving on in more intense steps bit by bit as it becomes necessary. 

At some point in the day, I was sitting on the couch, reading a library book, thoroughly enjoying a chance to do some self exploration. It was one of those books where every few paragraphs you have to stop and think awhile and maybe do some writing about what's coming up for you. Out of my Doing Nothing, came Collecting Information. I was able to put a few pieces together about the origins of some of my anxious, sometimes catastrophic thoughts that arise from time to time. I learned to see that those thoughts can be seen as saboteurs of  joy, because joy carries risk of loss with it. I took a nap soon after, paying attention to what my dreams were saying (Engaging the Energy), and came up with a couple ideas on how to better approach those anxious moments from a position that honors and nourishes my sense of self and belonging in the world. I can remind myself that I am Enough, that this moment is Enough, that there is Enough to be grateful for and allow myself to feel Joy about. 

I do struggle with Anxiety. Yes, therapists have their own issues as well as anyone else does. It's been a companion of mine for a very long time, and I learn all the time about more ways that I can pay attention to it and learn to transform it into more comfortable feelings. The way I see it, listening to yourSelf when it speaks in small ways and only needs small interventions makes it so that you don't have to go down the road of intense pain and fear and big interventions so often. 

And I have to wonder, will any of my readers be able to guess what book I was reading on my couch today? We shall see. :)