Anxiety Retreat – Calm Your Anxiety

Anxiety is our body’s reaction to an apprehension of future events, especially of new or challenging ones, and of situations similar to those in which we previously felt uncomfortable. Anxiety may be experienced before and during the event itself. Anxiety symptoms may be shaky hands, wobbly legs or heart pounding.

Types of Anxiety

• Generalized anxiety disorder – constant or frequent anxiety state-often wakes up at night thinking and worrying about various things.
• Anticipatory – ex. Worrying before a trip.
• Social anxiety – fear of communication with a particular type of people, or in particular circumstances; fear of being criticized, not liked or judged.
• Panic disorder – anxiety comes accompanied by panic attacks, characterized by overwhelming panic, uncontrollable shaking, shortness of breath, sweating, heart pounding and dizziness. Panic attacks may mimic heart attacks.
• Note: though Phobias and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder are also considered types of anxiety, due to different underlying causes and approach required, we do not mention them in this category.

1. Fear of… not being able to complete a task by the deadline, inability to take care of oneself due to worsening health; losing employment, an employee or financial security; being a “bad” parent or spouse, losing a relationship, letting down or being let down by someone.
2. Afraid to be around… people with a low tolerance for mistakes, confident people, unhappy customers, angry boss, manipulative spouse, people you do not know; people in general due to suppressed anger inside or fear someone will see “who you are.”
3. Afraid to look into… kid’s or partner-related issues, dealing with bills or debts, having a difficult but important conversation, moving to a new place, changing a career/ opening a business.
4. Inhibitions: fear to introduce oneself to someone you’re attracted to; social avoidance due to fear of looking or dressed “inappropriately” or “not meeting the social standards; fear of picking up a phone, giving a speech or attending an event due to fear of looking or sounding awkward; not going to swimming pool/ the beach due to poor body self-image; not going to a party due to fear of being unnoticed, non-invited or not being able to dance well; feeling like a “white crow.”
5. Constant self-blame for inability to pull yourself to be “normal” or “like everyone else.” The more you try, the worse it gets. Feelings of embarrassment, regrets and replaying of the past events overwhelm you.

1. Low self-esteem and low self-confidence, stemming from childhood; being bullied or isolated, overly sheltered upbringing, high societal expectations enhanced by media, past traumas, and negative self-talk.
2. Ongoing emotional drain without proper recovery: trying to meet constant life demands coming one after another, often culminating with additional challenges requiring more energy output, such as a recent break-up/prolonged litigation or dealing with the estate of a deceased family member while grieving.
3. Accumulative long-term factors related to living in certain environments, f. ex. Being raised by an authoritarian parent or parent with anxiety issues; ongoing unhealthy relationship with a partner; being drained due to looking after a disabled child or parent.

Summary: Anxiety is emotional instability caused by numerous contributing physical, emotional, and social factors affecting a person for a prolonged time. Factors #1 & #3 most commonly contribute to generalized, anticipatory and social anxiety. Factors #2 & #3 may often lead to panic disorder.

Traditional Clinical Approach to Anxiety:

1. You feel bad – solution: “manage” with medication.
2. You feel bad – solution: learn coping techniques.

You take a pill and feel less sensitive and more functional, but somehow more numb. You go to a counsellor, are asked about what do you feel, what would you do, what do you feel, what would you do – again and again… You feel relieved the conversation ended.

And then you return to that place called home, where you are tet-a-tet with that person you are not looking forward to facing. You “manage” well, until you get that damn call or text, and then the beast is back.  You sigh, you cry, take some sleeping pills and a glass of your favourite wine, in hopes they’ll knock you out for a few hours. Falling asleep, you are asking yourself: why cannot I just take it easy? why am I so anxious about tiny things?

Among the things that help drastically improve anxiety is restoring body energetics, particularly aura. Aura is an invisible part of you through which you perceive and interact with others.

You may have heard expressions: thick-skinned, sensitive, got burned, feel flat, poky, feel with my skin. All of those expressions relate neither to your mind nor to your body. They all point to aura – which is a multi-layered energetic structure surrounding your body.

Though there is no analogy in the scientific terminology to describe this essential part of you, it is not difficult to prove its’ existence. Try to rub your hands into each other for 30 seconds vigorously and then very slowly start moving one hand over the other bare arm, 0.5-1 inch above. You will feel the warmth and possibly some tingling. You also felt more than once when somebody quietly walked into a room and looked at you from behind. While not seeing the person with your sight, you felt him or her with your invisible “energetic bodies” or “aura.”

The image below quite accurately depicts the spherical-like shape of the female aura. When it gets less spherical (like a flat tire), things start getting to you. In such a state you take the smallest things “too personally”, or become “too sensitive”.

When your aura is healthy, you feel energized, safe and connected. However, your aura may become thin, get punctured or become polluted with negativity. As a result, you become hypersensitive to the emotions of others which you absorb like a sponge, you feel exhausted despite a good rest, or become irritable and easily lose your temper.

At that point, you feel wasted, hypersensitive, or unwilling to connect with others. This is because when your aura is thin or damaged, you want to diminish any further possible irritation or source of exhaustion that may aggravate it even further (ex. a conflict or a negative thought directed at us may make you even more fatigued or angry). You get into a natural self-preservation mode. You withdraw, avoid and feel as if you were becoming distant or insensitive.

The flat tire may even escalate to an emotional breakdown or fight. But there is no need to explode and break down on a side of the life road. You can just pump your tires back.

In most cases, it is relatively easy to restore your aura to a healthy state (though at times, there may be deeper layers to work on, especially if there are many stuck negative emotions to release). Everything starts with a good rest and a full-body relaxation.  We will use a variety of bodywork and hydrotherapy (energy work may help, too), to achieve a deep state of relaxation of your mind, muscles and joints. As a result, the inner restlessness, sense of internal shaking and feeling wired up or dull start gradually diminishing, giving space to calmness, groundedness and the ability to see the world around you in a non-reactive way. Feeling of calm allows you to dive deeper into your emotions without feeling intense pain and defensiveness during talk therapy, making it more manageable and productive. To restore your aura means to regain your emotional resilience.

Relaxation and re-nourishment of the aura is just one aspect of what we do to help your “tire” inflate, but it is an important foundation of the rest of the other methods.

At Fresh Start, we use a full spectrum whole-person approach. You will be working on understanding and releasing unhealthy thought patterns with a counsellor or life coach. Additionally,  you will be addressing physical health areas, based on your individual needs, be it anxiety-induced diarrhea, nervous system dysregulation related to chronic panic attacks, PTSD flashback memories, or weakened immune system majorly impacted by constant negative self-talk. When the affected organs are brought into balance, our emotions balance out, too.

Please listen to a guest’s story below and how she was able to overcome anxiety.

Disclaimer:

Though many of our guests receive wonderful results, the Fresh Start does not guarantee health recovery from any specific disease or symptom, or degree of its improvement, as the healing process is individual, gradual, multi-layered and depends on many factors. Please be realistic in expectations as there is no such thing as quick fixes when it comes to healing.