If you're Feeling Anxious, you're not Alone.

Jun 13

If you’re feeling anxious these days, you’re not alone. This is the time of year that many of us yearn for, as it’s so beautiful - It’s warm and bright, everything blooming, so why anxious?

When the energy in nature is rising and coming into its fullest expression, its flow is strong and can feel overwhelming, causing heart palpitations and anxiety. We are part of nature, therefore subject to its energy. It’s easiest to see this in the autumn when the leaves are falling and the plants return to the earth. The emotion of sadness and grief can show up, which is descending energy.

In the early summer, it’s the opposite. With the blooming, we ultimately feel joy and peace, (balanced chi) but when it’s excessive the joy can shift to anxiety and peace can turn to manic, (imbalanced or maladapted chi).

In my book The Empowered Yogi, I wrote about a student who was experiencing this anxiety, which was getting in the way of her creative flow. You may be able to relate.

Settle the anxious mind from Maggie on Vimeo.

Stella added the finishing highlights on the leaves of her large painting of lilies. This painting was her most significant piece and would be featured in a group show in a hip new art gallery in mid-June. Her joy of working on this painting had changed to a feeling of anxiety. Are the colors brilliant enough? Is the lighting right? Did this painting evoke a mood, or is it just another pretty painting of flowers?

She stepped back to look at it and noticed her breath was shorter and her mind was racing. Suddenly, she could only see harsh brush strokes and brash colors trying to blend, looking amateurish. Her heart was racing, and desperate thoughts of what to do to make it better were flying through her mind. Her creative juices were nowhere to be found. She was trying too hard to make it what she thought people would want rather than what was creatively flowing through her.

In the early summer, the fire season, the sprouting energy of the previous spring season wood element rises up from a sprout to a flower. Most sprouts look alike, just like babies look alike; it’s hard to see the gender or unique personality of the baby. But as the sprout grows into a flower, it individuates to become its most unique and beautiful form.

We see this as children mature into teenagers; they become themselves, and gender differences and styles become much more distinct. All is well when we’re just a little bud sprouting up, and it’s thrilling to become ourselves and open our flowers. But as we blossom into who we are, we can feel anxious.

Our confidence can fade quickly when we feel vulnerable and judged for what we offer. Anxiety sets in. Will we be accepted and loved? This is the natural energy of the early summer when the heart is in energetic high tide. Our fire energy is at its peak, as it’s the most yang season energetically. When the anxiety of yang fire energy is high, we add the grounded clarity of the yin water element, balancing fire and water into stillness. Long, slow exhales clear the turbid mind.

Stella remembered this teaching from a yoga class she had recently been to when she realized she was trying too hard. Stella wasn’t normally an anxious person; she embodied a solid, bright confidence. But Stella, like all of us in the early summer, is prone to the energy of the natural world rising to its peak. When we are met with our natural anxiety about deadlines, we can be wise and tend to what’s happening internally.

Stella sat on her meditation cushion with her eyes closed and felt her breath, one hand on her heart and one hand on her belly, which was feeling very tight. “Ahhh” – the relief of a long exhale. Her shoulders softened. She leaned into her back body. Four-count inhales, and six-count exhales, suspend the breath at the end of the exhale to touch stillness. Then inhale slowly into the bottom lobes of the lungs to fill the back body, and exhale even slower. Pause at the end of the exhale and suspend into nothingness.

This is where the magic is – the sacred pause.

Stella breathed through the heart and small intestine meridians as she had recently learned in her Meridian Flow class. She inhaled, visualizing a golden stream of light up the small intestine meridian, from her pinky fingernails up her hands, up her arms, to the shoulder blades, and up her neck to her inner ears. Then she exhaled the heart meridians from the armpits down to the inner arms to her pinkies.

Her mind stabilized into neutrality. She moved through slow sun salutations and a couple of standing poses while she breathed through the meridians to keep her mind and energy centered, which unraveled the tension she was holding. She then moved into a backbend to open her heart to its divine wisdom, followed by a twist to release the spine. She realized her anxiety about her painting was blocking her creative flow. She finished with a forward bend to find stillness. She could then return to her painting with a calm, fresh, open mind.

So the next time you find yourself in an anxious state, know that it’s normal for the season, and breathe deeper than you normally breathe with longer slower exhales. Focusing the mind on the meridians helps calm the racing mind and guides the chi in the pattern for a smooth flow.