“When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your comforts delight my soul.” Psalm 94:19
This scripture acknowledges that we have times when anxious thoughts can flood us. It also acknowledges that these are times when God comforts us in such a way that we can be delighted. Too many times I have wallowed in anxious thoughts for far longer than needed. A big reason for this was too much of a self focus.
“You know better” is something that has gone through my mind many times regarding falling prey to anxiety. I am learning that there are many factors that can contribute to times of anxiousness. My way out of them really isn’t about me making myself bad.
Here are some tools I’m learning relative to processes those anxious feelings.
Bottom-up approach
For me often anxiety shows up as a bodily sensation more so than a specific pattern of conscious thinking. Certainly thoughts are involved on some level. For me the sensations often show up as what feels like a rush of adrenaline which feels like an urgent sense to move, a racing heart, dry mouth. These are all very real reactions of our body when the sympathetic response has been engaged. The sympathetic system is commonly known as our fight, flight, freeze response. Dr. Gentry defines stress as “painful past learning intruding into the perceptual system here in this present, causing us to perceive threat where there is little to no danger.” This causes our body to release energy. He also describes the flight or flight response in practical terms as us responding with acts of aggression or avoidance, which are breaches of our integrity.
We also have a parasympathetic system. This is known as our rest and digest system. Engaging our parasympathetic system often requires us to engage our body to address the body symptoms we are experiencing. Dr. J. Eric Gentry has some amazing videos on YouTube explaining these options. He is a an expert in Traumatic Stress and Compassion Fatigue. When we address our anxiety system from the body first, instead of the mind, is called bottom-up approach. Dr. J. Eric Gentry encourages us to learn to relax our body as a first step in creating space to process through our difficult emotions. Since learning these principles I have been paying more and more attention to my body and consciously releasing tense muscles several times a day.
Tools for Hope
Because I know how much you just want the sensations to stop when you are feeling anxious, I want to share some of the resources that I have come across that have been helpful to me, in the hopes that it leads more people to freedom in this area. Dr. Gentry shares most of these items in a video he has put out on youtube – called Tools for Hope.
- Focus on your senses, not the thoughts around them. For example looking, listening, smelling etc. He illustrates that in general our senses will show that we are not in danger currently. The thoughts are based on painful past experiences. This contaminates the sanctuary of the present moment. It is a big deal that we realize that we are currently safe. Trauma survivors often don’t realize the difference between feeling safe and being safe. This is cognitive restructuring. This is very similar to a grounding technique that many people teach – where they recommend when you are overwhelmed with a flush of sensations or thoughts, instead of focusing on, engaging the thoughts focus on what you can see, hear, feel, taste, smell.
- Relaxing muscles
- Breathing
- Connecting with body through touch – hand on heart etc.
