Breaking Through Fear and Anxiety

Daily Om: Anxiety and fear don't always feel like sweaty panic. They can feel like confusion, apathy, loss of interest in our dreams, difficult relationships, knots in the stomach, shortness of breath, body aches, feeling flighty, and loss of control. It can keep us paralyzed in our lives, relationships, or jobs and stop us from pursuing dreams. It can affect every corner of someone's world. Anxiety is a symptom of unresolved emotions. So many people go through life either unaware of their deep emotional pains, in denial of difficult past experiences, or shoving their feelings as far down as possible. A lot of us simply don't know how to process our emotions and heal, so the result is years and years of compounded emotions, compacted stress, and bodies and minds that are in turmoil.

We feel anxious when we feel out of control. What we're really feeling is out of control of our inner lives, our emotional safety and wellness. We feel dis-empowered and weak and therefore give power to people or experiences that can hurt us. They can because we allow them to. We don't trust ourselves. We don't value our worth. And even though many of us talk like we have faith in a universal system of connectivity and reason, we are afraid we aren't valued enough to be a meaningful participant in that system.

This is the core of our anxieties: We fear that we do not matter, that we are not worthy or lovable, that we are not safe, or that we are not valued (seen, validated, or belong). These are all false illusions of the mind created by belief systems that began in times of trauma, pain, and emotional wounds.

Fear is one of our greatest teachers. It tells us when something is wrong. It's meant to protect us from danger--from threats that can harm us--but we have to discern true danger from false illusions that are created by the mind. These false illusions are not honest signals; they are born in the attempt to keep us stuck in our pain cycle from our past. In reality, these false illusions keep us from healing...read more>>>...