The first twenty years of my life could be pictured as being immersed in a slow cooker stewing in my traumas, struggles, shame, guilt, and uncertainty so that the only concern I had was how to get through each day, one day after another.

My life, as I moved from grade school to college, was a constant threat that at any moment I would be discovered for the “less than” person I believed I was. Anxiety followed me everywhere with just brief moments of relief that came my way from friends, birthdays, and holidays.

By some miracle I managed to get into college and in my senior year I found meditation as a promise to jump out of the pot. It opened the door for me and I never looked back; meaning that my experience in meditation led me to the threshold where I could step away from the old limiting beliefs of my childhood and allow me to find great joy and peace.

Over the years since I have become a meditation teacher, awareness coach, husband, and father. As the years slipped by so did my anxiety and stress and with it I learned a great deal from my teachers and by just working through it.

Here’s is a thought that came to me the other day:

You see Anxiety initiates as a response to our environment. If that stimulus persists over a period of time it will distill into our autonomic nervous system. That is why we can’t think or love our anxiety away. We will need, first, to relax our body and heal the nervous system’s response to the thoughts and memories that wake up the stored responses in our bodies.

Then we can, secondly, begin to weaken the connection between thought and response by using mindfulness practices to help us remember that we “do” have control to break the autonomic connections and choose calm and peace. Does it take some effort and time, certainly, but it’s well worth the wait and effort.

Blessings & Love,
Ed

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