Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18% of the population. (Source: National Institute of Mental Health). Although anxiety disorders are highly treatable, only about one-third of those suffering receive treatment. Many people are still embarrassed to seek help, thinking that something must be wrong with them, that they are “weak”, “different” or “negative”. Two years ago my daughter was a freshman at UC Santa Barbara when one student went on a rampant shooting. Although I knew she was safe I still couldn’t stop feeling unsafe and terrified…
Today all 900 schools of Los Angeles were closed due to terrorist threats. Last week Mira Costa in Manhattan Beach was closed on 2 different days, and Redondo Beach High School once. Terrorist threats and attacks are meant to invade our simplest sense of security and to control us through terror. When it is targeted at our children it fills us with a fear that goes much deeper: to our roots and into our future, triggering survival terrors that we simply cannot treat with “positive thinking.”
I wonder how many emergency rooms have been flooded today. If you start experiencing chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea and upset stomach, dizziness and lightheadedness, trembling, numbness, or any other sudden or unexplained symptoms, know that NOTHING IS WRONG WITH YOU. If you feel like you are going crazy, or suddenly decide to home-school your kids or to move to a remote village somewhere in Alaska, know that you are not “weak”, “different” or “negative.” Terrible things have been happening in the world lately and it’s only normal that your mind, body and soul react to random, hateful acts.
But RIGHT NOW, before you make that rush decision, or slip into that destructive food, alcohol, drugs and sex path, just STOP, sit where you are and BREATHE. Breathe in your lower belly… slow, easy, effortlessly… Put your hands on the belly…Notice its raising with each inhale and falling with each exhale…slow, easy, unhurried. Be kind to your breath… Take all the time you need for each and every breath… Take your shoes off and sense your feet on the floor. If you are too restless, go barefoot in the grass, walk or run until you slow down, then stop, sit, and breathe…Feel your feet on the floor. Imagine you have roots that go deep into the Earth, or magnets, or suction cups, whatever feels best to you right now… Seek a good feeling in your body, even if it’s as tiny as a grain of sand… Stay with it… Sense any solid, present, grounded, anchored feeling in your feet and let it go up through your legs and into your pelvis, chest, heart, throat, neck, head and arms. Notice any sensation of well-being, tingling, pulsing, radiating in your body, knowing that it is your own life force, knowing that you can reclaim it whenever you slow down and breathe… threats cannot take it away from you… it can only temporarily diminish it, make your mind suffer, make your body sick, but it cannot be easily destroyed …BE KIND TO YOUR SUFFERING TODAY AND DO NOT LOSE HOPE…
