Anxiety, Please Let Me Go.

“Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” - Thich Nacht Hanh

Anxiety, please let me go.

I know what it's like to be trapped in what seems like an endless downward spiral of overwhelm. We all do. We all know what the gripping hold of racing thoughts, a pounding heart in your chest and the rapid incessant breathing that occurs when there's seemingly no way out, feels like.

Over the past several months, I've felt a deep unease and tension within my chest that has sat readily from within me. It's something that you only really realize when you allow yourself to look and try to understand it. But it's also something that so often we shy away from because it's far too painful to look at it, and it hurts to find out why.

It's scary to wonder what's not aligning in our lives. It's scary to ask ourselves what truth we're not living by. But at the same time, if we don't ask ourselves the tough questions in life, we may never find the real and meaningful answers that we are so hopelessly looking for.

The thing about anxiety is that although our minds may race and our bodies may tremble, our souls are also trying to tell us something. They are trying to tell us to look deeper within ourselves; to look at our lives and the way that we are currently living.

Our souls are telling us to pay attention. They are telling us to stop turning a blind eye to the toxic relationship, the unfulfilling job, the meaningless excuses, and the valueless rationalizations, as to why why we're not living in the way we know we can.

We must slow down. We must take a breath. We must allow ourselves to breath. We must see for ourselves the feeling that is causing you so much agony- so much anguish- so you can find the tenderness of your soul again, and find the joy you once felt so vibrantly.

You are not your thoughts, nor are you what you are feeling. You are so much more than what you are currently going through. You have so much more within you than what you are currently putting out into this world.

But you, and only you, are the only one able to find yourself again. Anxiety may have you. Anxiety may clench and tighten it's teeth around you. But the anxious thought and feelings are not you.

So to you the reader...

See anxiety for what it is. Feel it for what it may be right now, but also know that feelings fade and dwindle, upon what's happening around you in your external world. Not your internal world.

Remember to smile. Remember to take a deep breath in. But most of all, remember that although it may seem impossibly hard right now to see things clearly, life will get much better in time. As time always has the tremendous power to perhaps leave scars at times, but never open wounds.

Remember what's important. Remind yourself of what matters most. For life, may be riddled with feelings of overwhelm and incessant thinking, but what matters most is not to try and control it, but rather to respond to it. To give it attention, but not let it become the intention.

Because as hard as it may be, you will be stronger for it. As hard as it may be, you will be better for it.

And as hard as it may be, you will be whole again.