Read Aimee's story
I have lived with anxiety for as long as I can remember. It started as a child with excessive worry and expressed itself later in obsessive/compulsive tendencies and panic disorder. I found incredible support and relief from different and essential sources including therapy, medication and somatic and expressive work. And yet it was not until I stepped onto a spiritual path where my relationship with anxiety changed from feeling completely owned by it to experiencing it as one of my teachers.
What I discovered on this path is that my anxiety–in part—is my own resistance to certain spiritual truths—one being the law of impermanence—that things change and end. Learning how to be with my anxiety from this perspective offered me the spiritual task of reckoning with the demands of my little ego, feeling the anger and grief of that life and death would not be my way, and cultivating a new relationship with life on life’s terms.
For me, spirituality is like a video game. At each level of the game, we meet certain challenges. As we conquer those challenges we move onto other levels where the challenges may become more difficult. But with each level we secure more tools and resources that empower us to face the obstacles in new and more effective ways. With this frame in mind, I meet the challenges of anxiety differently because of the spiritual tools and resources I’ve cultivated. In moments of dis-ease I can now pause, breathe, find the support of the ground and ask myself what is it I am resisting? Where am I wrestling with the angels? What is the spiritual task here?