Staying Centered
With all of the fear and changes taking place recently, it is essential to be grounded in order to manage anxiety disorders. Staying centered has the power to lessen our anxiety and in many cases, eradicate it. In this blog post, I will be sharing effective tools and techniques I used to ground myself to heal anxiety and that I still use to stay grounded. Even though I have healed anxiety, every now and then I still feel fear creep in, especially when I get caught up in the news. When I feel this happen, I step back and start to focus on my breath and focus on grounding myself.
(1) Do what you need to do to feel prepared.
This is the first thing I do during stressful times. It doesn’t matter if others think I’m going overboard or doing too little. As long as it makes me feel more secure, that’s all that matters. The end of February, my family and I went to Disney World for my daughter’s dance performance. For me to even be able to go on this trip showed huge progress in healing anxiety. I knew I needed to start preparing and packing weeks before the trip or I would feel overwhelmed, which would turn into anxiety. Long story short, another mom from dance tried to shame me for being prepared and not fly by the seat of my pants like her. In the past her shaming would have worked on me, but this time I had enough awareness to see through what she was trying to do. I realized that I will unapologetically do what I need to do so that I’m anxiety free. There is no shame in that!
When I first hearing about stay-at-home orders and the news surrounding this, I stocked up on my essential immune support herbs and supplements. I also stocked up on crafts for myself and my kids. The power of creating is great for healing and grounding. (I once heard that when we are creating, we are communicating with the angels.) Stocking up on my herbs and supplements as well as crafts made me feel secure. Again, no apologies.
What can you do to ease some of your worries?
(2) Keep things simple.
About a year ago, I had an epiphany. As you know, I’m a planner and that includes planning my family’s meals every week. Every week, I plan our dinner menu and our subsequent grocery list. Doing our meals like this saves a lot of money. However, I was making gourmet meals every week and frequently trying out new recipes as well. Then about a year ago I thought, “What the heck am I doing?” I spent so much time in the kitchen cooking, that I had very little free time to do anything else. My kids rarely liked my gourmet dinners either. I then made a list of easy meals that most of my family enjoyed. (With 5 people in our house, it’s rare that we all like a meal.) The keyword here was “simple.” The result is that my family loves the new easier meals and I have more free time. They don’t care that they’re simple dinners like tacos, pasta, or sometimes even pancakes. Yes, pancakes for dinner! Since the meals are simple my husband and kids are able to help with the cooking too. This has taken so much stress off all of us, especially me.
With recent events, to simplify even more I sometimes repeat the same meals every week. I’ve come to see that simple is more and that less is better.
What can you do to simplifying your life in order to ease anxiety and stay centered?
(3) Exercise.
Do anything that feels good to you. Just move your body. No judgements. Exercising every day has been incredibly helpful right now. In the past when I have felt overwhelmed and stressed, I just wanted to curl up in ball and hide from these anxious feelings. Yet we all know that moving our bodies is a fantastic way to manage stress. It helps us to move these uncomfortable feelings out of our bodies. Walk, run, yoga, dance, hike - do whatever sounds good to you. There are so many options even if you have to stay at home right now.
What’s your favorite way to exercise?
(4) Protect your energy.
At this time, where there is so much anxiety globally, it is essential to protect our energy. It is imperative that we protect our energy in order to heal anxiety in general too. I first learned about energy protection from Kyle Gray and I use his Psychic Protection 101 technique daily to protect my energy. His energy protection clears your energy first before putting a protective shield around yourself.
Crystals and orgonites are great for protecting our energy too. I keep them in my house and I never leave my house without wearing either an orgonite necklace or an amethyst or moonstone necklace.
Do you have a favorite crystal that you can wear or keep near yourself?
(5) Nurture yourself.
Lastly, but most importantly is to nurture yourself. I learned first-hand the powerful healing that occurs when you make yourself a priority. Nurturing yourself has two parts:
(a) Detaching from dramas. This means taking a time out from people or situations that drain your energy. There are some people who thrive in drama and they want to drag you in too. I had to learn to put up some fierce boundaries in order to heal anxiety. These same people who judged me for having anxiety, wanted to drag me into anxiety ridden dramas. To further detach from dramas, I limit my time on social media and only sporadically check the news just to get the highlights.
(b) Doing something that brings you joy every day. Listen to music, get out in nature, indulge in your favorite hobbies, create, or anything else that inspires you. This is why we’re here!
What can you do daily to that brings you joy?
I hope this blog helps you to feel grounded throughout all the changes we’re going through. With anxiety disorders, we have to be ritualistic with our self-care. We have to say “yes” to ourselves daily.
Be kind and gentle with yourself. There is no perfect way to handle stress. We can just do our best and that is enough. Have compassion for yourself and remember that you are loved.