Newsletter Vol 49 • Anxiety vs Anticipation

Jenny and I have been feeling anxious lately… A sense of change, even strange phenomena where a sense of time or date being off, memory lapses, and a sense of dip even though things are going well, steady, and stable.  It had reminded me of my own post on Instagram that “a dip comes before the upward motion”.  Like physics, energy works the same way.  There is usually a downward flow to catch the momentum of the upward movement.

When we feel anxious, we often associate to something negative, because that is how we are programmed or conditioned to interpret that state.  Yet, we forget that sometimes we intentionally put ourselves in that situation because we like it.  Take a rollercoaster ride for example; when we go up the initial climb, the sense of anxiety, fear, or butterflies arise to prepare for the fall which is meant to be scary.  But because we have intentionally chosen to experience this scary sensation for the ‘thrill’ of it, we do not necessarily call it ‘anxiety’.  It is more of an excited ‘anticipation’ than anything else.  

Many of our life experiences come without a conscious intent.  We may reflect on it afterwards and have an understanding or an acceptance that it was necessary or important, but we do not call it intentional.  And yet, on a higher conscious level, it was.  When I observe the anxiety in the clients, I am often shown that it is actually a dip of anticipation before the upward momentum begins.  And even when I see someone who has chronic or prolonged experience of anxiety, it is often associated to a subconscious resistance or fear toward change or expansion with embedded sense of danger or vulnerability (often times associated to karmic fear of great change that ended tragic or heartbreaking).  And yet, even this alludes to the greater potential and outcome on the other side.

We are creatures of habits and the older we get, the more resistant to change we become.  Even when I hear people say that they want change, I see that there is a deeper resistance toward the very change they say they want.  As ironic as it may seem, many of us are afraid of our own success and knowing our true potential.  But the unconditional love of the Universe within and around us is constantly and gently persuading us to open up, accept, and release toward change and evolution.  And in saying so, like stress, anxiety is not about the circumstance or what is to come, but about how we feel and believe about the situation, inherently believing toward the negative outcome or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It is not easy to accept and release the negative beliefs about something that feels uncomfortable.  But we must remember that there are many uncomfortable or painful things that are associated to good and beautiful things such as a rollercoaster ride, bungee jumping, muscle soreness after a work out, S&M play (LOL), growing pains, and birth pains just to name a few.  The only difference is the permission we give to ourselves and how we choose to interpret the experience…  

So next time you experience a sense of anxiety, ask yourself “what if this was an anticipation of something great about to happen?”…and take three deeeeeeep breaths…