Mental Health Awareness Week
How are you feeling?
You may still be feeling a little fragile from the very intense eclipse window and with mercury retrograde during that period, it was certainly an amplified time of deeply buried stuff rising to the surface.
Anxiety is at an all time high right now and the theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week.
Although anxiety is one of the more uncomfortable spectrums of emotions we experience as our human self, when it gets out of control, it can cause bigger mental health issues and stop us moving forward in our life.
Whether you're consciously on your spiritual journey and doing the inner work, or just trying to get through the tough times we're in, we are all affected.
And we are all connected.
Whenever you might be struggling, it's important to remember that you're not alone.
You are not your anxiety, so try not to get attached to the emotion or feeling. Practice being the observer and allow it to move through you with compassion and love.
Allow yourself to acknowledge what you're feeling, but also focus on ways to help regulate your nervous system and bring yourself back to balance.
If you're feeling anxious, the below exercise helps to bring in acknowledgment for the YOU that feels… Use the words that are right for you and say them out loud.
“Hello anxious me” or “hello me that feels anxious”
“I'm sorry me, you're feeling anxious”
“I see you, I feel you, I hear you anxious me”
“I've got you anxious me”
“I love you, anxious me”
You can also take it a step further by feeling into the body and see if you can get a sense of where you might be feeling this anxiety within the body (or whatever it is you're feeling?)
Who might be really feeling this anxiety?
Are younger you? A past life you?
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Ways to help regulate your nervous system and raise your frequency…
Breathe
When we inhale, we go into a sympathetic nervous system state and on the exhale, we go into a parasympathetic state (rest and digest).
When we make our exhale longer than our inhale, it shows we can start to regulate our nervous system to a calmer state.
Make the exhale twice as long as the inhale and try for at least 30 seconds.
Try breathing in for 4, hold for 7(or whatever you can manage 4-7) and breath out for 8
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Breath work – breathing out longer than the inhale as above
Focus breathing into the heart (maybe you’d like to breathe in a colour, like a loving pink) Breathe in with the intention of connecting to your heart and giving yourself permission to relax and soften, to slow your breathing and heart rate.
Other ways to help calm the nervous system
Meditation
Singing/Chanting
Humming/Sighing
Dancing/Shaking the body
Tapping the body
Hug/stroke the body
Stretching
Cold showers
Cold swimming
Walking in nature (connect and ground)
Listen to some relaxing music
Vagus nerve exercises – see videos below
Exercises to reset the vagus nerve is another great way to calm the nervous system back to a parasympathetic state. There are many resources on YouTube you can follow for this.
Here’s a couple of examples:
Practice listening to your body and giving yourself exactly what you need.
And remember…..YOU are loved.
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