21 Days: Under the Layers of Anxiety

Photo by A L L E F . V I N I C I U S Δ on Unsplash

I delayed my new post for my second and last RTT session to remove my anxiety, which I had yesterday. 21 days! No anxiety.

There's so much I want to share with everyone about it, but I'm going to let it sink in first.. (If you haven't read this post of mine first, I talk about going through RTT for the first time.)

What's amazingly clear and interesting to me now, though, that I will share is: anxiety comes in layers, and when you can see through them, it's incredible what you find at the roots.

In my second session, I was able to go into another state of deep consciousness and awareness, but instead of focusing on removal, we focused on adding in replacement values and behaviors in the place where anxiety used to be.

In the first layer, my memories were focused on those "first moments" of anxiety. The first time I encountered conflict of interest; the first time I experienced helplessness and fear; the first time I experienced a crisis of mortality.

In the second, my memories were focused on the construction of my self-image. Moments I had not spoken up for myself. Moments where I had spoken up, and then felt rejected and embarrassed. Moments I was on the edge of pushing myself beyond my limits and I chose to stay small.

Moments when I was too young to understand the consequences.

Before the session I thought, what else could there possibly be? I feel good, and I can't think of any more memories. But it happened, and I did find more -- the layers of anxiety showed that there are different levels of worthlessness.

The most useful part? Thanking my anxiety for its intention. Acknowledging that anxiety came in because I was young and I needed more than what I found in the people around me. Whenever I've been faced with a "difficult kid", and they aren't listening to anyone else, I have found that acknowledging their intention works wonders. I tell them, "I know you've been trying to do better, and I see that you did try to tell the teacher before you hit the other kid - I'm here to help you figure out how to keep this from happening again." I often find that kids will relax, will trust that I see them, and let go of their tension because anger and sadness are both tasked with noticing what's truly important in life. 

And when someone notices, you can let anxiety go too.

If you decide to face yourself, with whatever method is meaningful or useful to you, and discover what is holding you back from the life you truly want for yourself..

..I'm telling you from the other side that it's worth the jump.