OF ANXIETY

WORKING WITH THE ENERGY OF ANXIETY

Denise Bossarte

Image by Torwai from IStock / Getty Images Plus

Our world continues to come at us at an overwhelming rate. Whether it’s at a personal level, community level, or world level, there often seems to be more information, challenges and stress to deal with every day.

I feel trapped emotionally and energetically, and reduced in my mental picture of my body to a fetal position.

In my world, recently, I have been dealing with the learning curve of a new job, my husband trying to transition to a new job and career, and our beloved cat undergoing cancer surgery which was only partially successful. Usually, I can successfully juggle one or two challenges coming at me, but when things start piling up, I can quickly move to a place of overwhelm. For me this manifests as severe anxiety with a feeling of being trapped, intense diffuse fear, and an inability to get enough breath from one moment to the next.

Anxiety has a particular flavor and energy for me. Its’ energy is claustrophobic and tight; like something has my lungs in a tight grip; and my mind is filled to the point of freezing, with a reactive fear of the world at large. I feel trapped emotionally and energetically, and reduced in my mental picture of my body to a fetal position. So how do I deal with this overwhelming energy of anxiety when I feel there’s no way past it?

During the years of exploring practices to bring to my healing journey from childhood sexual abuse, I have discovered several techniques that I can bring as self-care when I’m in the space of overwhelm and powerful anxiety.

In this and future articles, I will share three of these self-care practices for you to explore. I encourage you to try these techniques to see which one’s work for you as described. Or you can modify them as works best for you. Take what works and leave what doesn’t!

White Light Sphere

One practice I have is to work with white and golden light. These colors are traditionally known in Eastern cultures to be healing and protective. (But you can use whatever color resonates for you.)

This practice coordinates the light imagery with your breath.

While taking a deep inhale, imagine that white/golden light is pouring down from the sky into the top of your head and flowing into your heart chakra.

You can imagine the source of the white/ golden light being God, Goddess, the unconditional love of the universe — whatever resonates with you. I like to imagine it is the gentle, loving light coming to me from all the stars in the sky. (I walk early in the morning before work so I’m under those lovely stars nearly every morning.)

Take as deep a breath as you can to fill yourself with the white/golden light. See the inhale as filling up your heart (body)

with that light — you never have to produce or create it, it’s always there, just invite and accept it in.

Then on a slow, steady exhale, imagine that a sphere of this white/golden light starts from your heart chakra and steadily expands 360 degrees from your heart out beyond your body. I usually imagine it to grow to be 8 to 10 feet beyond my body. See the sphere as extending your sense of self, giving you more space, you filling up more space. The idea is to have the image of a spacious white/golden light sphere surrounding you where you have plenty of space to breathe and move. Where you could scream, dance, skip, sing, twirl, or simply be without any fear. You’ve expanded yourself out in this safe space.

Composite image by Claire O’Leary

And this white/golden light is acting as a barrier to any negative energy that might be coming at you. This sphere will not negate the need to deal with the challenges of your daily life. I’m not proposing this as a practice of procrastination! But this is a way to create an energetic space where it is easier to do what is needed.

Then you just continue accepting the white/ golden light on an inhale and expanding the sphere of that white/golden light on the exhale, one breath after the other, for as long as you need.

You can check in throughout the day and work with expanding your sphere, replenishing your light whenever you need to counter the feeling of anxiety. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Denise Bossarte is an award-winning poet, writer, photographer, and artist. A certified meditation facilitator she is also a contemplative arts teacher. As an IT professional, she works for a large urban school district. Denise holds a BA in chemistry, an MS in computer science, and a PhD in developmental neuroscience. She is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

Denise spent her adulthood healing herself from the traumatic impact the sexual abuse had on her life. She is not a mental health professional. She is a Thriver who has traveled a healing journey and shares personal, guided experiences for readers to find and engage in their own journey to healing, and becoming Thrivers. Thriving After Sexual Abuse is a winner of 16 book awards and was recognized by Kirkus Reviews feature in the “30 Great Indie Books Worth Discovering” March 2022 edition.

Whether writing about overcoming trauma in her nonfiction work or recasting her reallife experiences into award-winning dark urban fantasy in four novels—Glamorous, Beginnings, Return, and Readings—Denise tackles the dark side of things with courage, fearlessness, and compassion.

Denise has also published other articles in Voices Heard: Yoga: A Self-Healing Practice for Survivors in the Summer 2021 issue; Meditation: A Self-Healing Practice for Survivors in the Fall 2021 issue. We’re excited to have her back with this 3-part series about working with the energy of anxiety. Stay tuned for parts 2 & 3.

36 SUPPORTING SURVIVORS