• Responding to Anxiety with Heart and Wisdom

    Responding to Anxiety with Heart and Wisdom

    PART SIX

    In part 6 in our final episode on managing anxiety, you will learn to bring together your heart and wisdom. This will allow you to hear the words or questions you most need to respond to while bringing your tone of voice inwardly. This will help soothe you. It may be a tone of tenderness, courage, or ease at any point in time. Only you will be the one to determine what your wisdom most wants to convey and also what tone or quality you wish to activate in your heart. This combination, along with all of the previous steps, will set you up for life to know how to really care for yourself while you’re anxious within the privacy of your own being. You will also see how helpful it is to ask: “How can I best bring my heart and wisdom to the anxiety I’m feeling now?” Just asking the question itself brings a certain amount of peace since it clarifies that you not only feel anxious but also have the capacity to respond in a way that will bring out the best in you.

    It is clear that an intellectual understanding isn’t enough, and it requires implementing these steps each time you feel anxious and need self-support and self-compassion. This episode clarifies that ongoing practice is necessary to become your own guide and master of how you respond to your anxiety. Practicing this several times doesn’t guarantee that you’ll care for yourself in the future; you need to keep showing up for yourself on a regular basis.

  • Heartfelt Communication with Anxiety

    Heartfelt Communication with Anxiety

    Part 4

    In part four, we learn how to open our heart and mind to communicate with our anxiety so that it occurs and converses in a positive, welcoming way and provides guidance. This has significant importance because we become more effective in relating to our anxiety in different ways depending on the circumstances we are in. This can be very beneficial since it can change our conversation when we are alone or with people of different depths. What we need to hear is different depending on who we are with, the degree and intensity of the anxiety, and what our options are—to be alone or together with certain people. The wisdom of recognizing the uniqueness of each conversation is an important realization since we always take into consideration the unique circumstances each time our anxiety arises. We’ve taken another vital step to deepen our capacity to care at these critical times.

  • The Benefits of Welcoming Anxiety

    The Benefits of Welcoming Anxiety

    Episode 122 In part three of caring for anxiety, we continue to emphasize being aware of our anxiety, recognizing its presence, and responding with compassion. This practice is a subtle but vital skill that supports us as we care for ourselves. By being mindful of our thoughts, especially in the context of anxiety, we can observe whether these thoughts are supportive or critical, allowing us to shift toward more caring and welcoming thoughts.

    Resources related to this episode

  • Bringing Softness to the Awareness of Your Anxiety

    Bringing Softness to the Awareness of Your Anxiety

    EPISODE 120 Being gently aware of your anxiety is a powerful starting point. Inquire into your heart, seeking a place in your thoughts that nurtures self-care; it’s truly invaluable. Amidst the anxiety, seek out thoughts that affirm, “Of course, I want to care for myself. Of course, I want to treat myself kindly.” Bringing awareness to your anxiety while nurturing a desire to care for yourself is truly magical.

    Resources related to this episode

  • Introspective Guides: The Golden Keys to Transform Fear & Anxiety

    Introspective Guides: The Golden Keys to Transform Fear & Anxiety

    Robert has never seen a time when fear and anxiety were more prevalent in the world. How we deal with our fear and anxiety is not only important in our relationship with ourselves, our love life, friendships, and family members that have opposite politics, but also in our relationship to our very survival, the survival of our planet, and democracy. It is possible to give yourself space to just feel it and not blend it in with the rest of your life. Give it a solitary sanctuary. Breathe into it so you can notice it more overtly to the point where you can have a dialogue with anxiety and find and speak in a voice that lets your wisdom guide you how you can best take care of yourself. Give anxiety the dignity that it deserves because nobody is being anxious on purpose. It is not a matter of being able to get over it. It is a matter of developing an autonomous capacity to guide yourself while the fear is going on. The origin of fear and anxiety is not negative. It is a longing to be safe. This episode will help you learn how to guide yourself and not get lost in self-judgment.

    Resources related to this episode

  • Introspective Guides: When Anxiety Arises

    Introspective Guides: When Anxiety Arises

    In this episode, Robert and Dave discuss the experience of anxiety that is prominent for so many and highlight what to do when you are experiencing it. Many people’s initial reaction is to distract and run in the other direction, but suppressing anxiety will only make it grow. When anxiety arises, take some time without trying to change it. Let anxiety breathe so you can increase your acceptance and awareness. It is important to dignify the human experience. This allows us to have enough contemplation to realize we want to care for ourselves instead of giving ourselves a hard time for feeling anxiety.  This is a great time to bring in The Introspective Guides. This can set a whole new trajectory. Instead of being frozen in anxiety, there is a partner to help care for ourselves, to befriend ourselves as we are. It could be that answers come up like, I need to call the doctor. It is time to stop running away from anxiety and not wanting to deal with feeling threatened. Anxiety for virtually all of us is involuntary and it deeply deserves our caring. That is the internal part where you are continuing to encourage yourself and recognize, over and over again, your innocence. You’re not doing this on purpose. You don’t deserve to be punished. You don’t deserve anything but to support yourself and to do your very best to breathe, bring calmness,  keep asking questions and respond in a way that will best care for yourself. This can be done with accepting thoughts, actions and developing different ways of caring for this challenging feeling.

    Resources related to this episode