Nervousness and anxiety have been my all too often companions. For most of my life I have been a nervous, anxious person, though not on the surface, as I learnt to disguise it quite well… or so I thought.
I lived as a scared little boy for many years. Not all the time, just at certain times: always doing things to please other people, looking for recognition, not doing things because I was scared of being wrong or shown to be less.
This way of living was very detrimental to my health and wellbeing. Anxiety would cause nausea, tiredness and feelings of not being good enough, always doubting myself, going to the point of self-loathing. Feeling anxious or nervous was my 'normal'.
This way of living never felt right, yet I let it become a part of me, ingrained in everything I did or did not do. The choices I was making in how I lived came from a man already in anxiety, constantly worrying about the future. Making those choices I would very rarely be the gentle, tender and loving man that I am.
When I needed to communicate with people, whether it was work, sport or any other relationship, I always put myself beneath or as less than the other person. I put myself in a position of already thinking that I had been hurt, believing therefore I was not able to get hurt by anything they said. I convinced myself that I was not their equal.
In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself 'wrong' in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.
Confrontation scared the pants off me. I would do anything to avoid confrontation when communicating with people, even when playing sport. The funny thing is, sport by nature is confrontational.
Despite this I really enjoyed playing sport: in fact many times I would have said that sport was my life, but even in this, my anxiety about needing to please, to not be wrong and not being good enough, affected how I played sport.
I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing. I always looked at sport as being my time – an opportunity to be what I thought was myself, not having to worry about what was going on in my life. What an illusion!
As I sit and feel these things about the way I have lived, I do not dream about what might have been, but look to what is. Nervousness and anxiety occur less frequently these days, but I feel more what it does to me and how it affects me. Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in.
I can now feel how my being caught up in nervousness and anxiety affects people around me. It makes people feel uncomfortable, I have difficulty saying exactly what I want to say, and what I say can sometimes be confusing because I hold back on what needs to be said.
I water it down to minimise what I think the reaction may be from the other person.
The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.
For someone like me, who has lived with the fear of becoming anxious, this understanding helps me stay more present in my body and takes away the thought of becoming anxious.
Through Universal Medicine presentations, Esoteric Practitioners and the College of Universal Medicine (who ran a course 'Understanding Anxiety in Men'), I am able to recognise and understand the anxiety and nervousness when they start to appear.
I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.
Whilst I am not completely clear of anxiety and nervousness, I do feel that I deal with them in a way that has less of an effect on me. This is something I need to continue working on, building my relationship with myself.
I still feel like that little nervous boy occasionally, but I have a greater awareness of what is going on, which allows me to look at the choices that are there for me to make.
I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no.
More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me. Because of this they do not control me and I do not fear them, but I can accept that there is an energy there, and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.
I would like to thank Serge Benhayon for inspiring me to make changes in my life.
We can so easily search for a relief, a remedy for whatever is coming up for us but in doing so we lock ourselves in to both the remedy and the underlying thing that led us there in the first place. Taking time to allow ourselves to feel what is there and allowing ourselves to observe and notice how we get there as described here is both honest and offers us the opportunity to heal, anything else is just covering it up and does nothing for us in the long term and is just perpetuating the illusion of coping.
Plants and animals don't answer back, nature and the animal kingdom doesn't abuse us, so working with them is sometimes, perhaps often than working with humans! Animals and nature also reflect a level of relationships with cycles that we know deep down inside is our relationship as well.
Wow I can completely relate to many of the things you've felt – and I love how you've brought it back to a choice – and a question of what we accept in our lives and what we don't.
I am sure many of us can relate to this underlying anxiety that affects everything about the way you live. I was inspired by the level of awareness you have about how the anxiousness affects other people. So often when you are anxious you are so focussed on the tension in you that you can't see how it affects others.
"I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me." Realising we are so much more than the emotions we take on is very empowering.
" I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing. I always looked at sport as being my time – an opportunity to be what I thought was myself, not having to worry about what was going on in my life. What an illusion!" I too have had a similar experience however when I am honest about it with myself, I used sport in order to run away, and as a result it took me further away from myself.
'I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me.' This is a great awareness to come to Brian, often people identify with their nervousness or anxiety as being who they are when in truth we always have a choice if we say yes to this or not, by simply being more present and connected with our body that choice becomes more simple.
A great point here, we can fight what we feel but that doesn't really do anything more supportive to in fact see where we've actually let it in – very well said.
Yes, we can fight it and not learn, or we can surrender and learn. I know which one has been more empowering in my life.
"I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself 'wrong' in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok" – this is such a great insight exposing our cunning spirit, giving itself an alibi not to live its true essence.
Although we are not a blank slate and we are not creators, in a sense we are both, because we exercise the art of drawing how we are going to confine ourselves.
I love this Brian . . . " I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me". . . as connection to who we truly are deep within is about hopping into our body and knowing we are enough as we are.
I love what you are sharing here about being aware of the energy that runs through us and that we have a choice about being aware of that or not. To not be aware leaves us at the mercy of that energy constantly wondering how we can deal with anxiety, how we can reduce the symptoms. Conversely, to be aware of the energy running through us means we acknowledge there is a feeling we are ill-at-ease with, to know it is not who we are and then track back to see why that feeling is there. Becoming a detective of ourselves and our behaviours is actually lots of fun.
Learning to live without out of fear of getting things wrong or the need of recognition has been a liberation from the shackles of self-doubt. This has only been possible through my willingness to resolve and heal my unresolved hurts with the loving support and guidance from the Benhayon family, the Universal Medicine presentations and practicing The Way of The Livingness.
You highlight a great point here Brian that we always have a choice, often we feel powerless when we get anxious but if we stay connected to the body during these times we can stop the overwhelm and simply return to our breath.
I know that feeling well when coming to speak in public (although less now than it has ever been in the past)…. a tremulous approach, especially in the minute or so before I'm actually going to speak, where I can hear my heart beat, I'm a little distracted from being present, a little more tense. And when I allow this to play out it cuts me off – what I may have communicated a few minutes before in conversation becomes jumbled up and does not flow so freely. I can feel it, and everyone loses out. So why? Deep down its because I am worried about what people might think of me… its all about my self, my image… so strange to consider what a self fulfilling prophecy it is when we do tighten up. Far better to simply be ourselves, allow the flow, express what we feel fully and at least give it a go at living as ourselves.
Nervousness and Anxiety are such powerful instruments that our spirit uses to keep us from being the powerful, claimed, gorgeous and loving being we all are.
So powerful to stop, feel and allow ourselves to get aware of what is going on for us.
I can relate here to what you are sharing about dancing around to life's tune and trying to be liked and accepted by others around us/outside of us, rather than just connecting to our bodies and what we actually feel for ourselves and then living this from inside out. I have tried both ways of living and I know for sure that the latter is a much more free and less anxious way to live.
I have also heard people shared that they are anxious about going into anxiety. This shows how crippling anxiety can be if we do not heal the root cause of anxiety.
When we get lost in anxiousness we also get lost in the thoughts in our head. Brian, I loved the honesty that you shared in this blog, particularly what you said on the importance of being aware of our presence and our body and how it is a great antidote to anxiety.
Yes I can relate to this – when I make decisions based on fear or anxiety they are rarely wise ones and I am in the constant doubt that I have made the correct choice. However when I make a decision based on a connection with me and a stillness or steadiness within, I have no doubt about it and the outcome of these choices is always wiser and better in the sense that I always learn more from what happens next.
Making a decision based on fear and anxiety means we rarely bring all we have to bring in that moment for fear of rejection, so it is always a version of what we want to say and not the fullness that is there to be shared. I very timely reminder, thank you!
'I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.' This is so important for it cuts judgement, and gives us space to observe where we are, to feel it and to consider how we've moved and the choices that have led us there, very different from getting overwhelmed and beating ourselves up about how we feel.
The more we hold back from saying what is inside us to say the more anxious we become.
You are not alone in this Brian. There is a huge force within society for us all to express and live less than who we truly are – that living less looks different on different people but the result is the same!
I can see this is about giving ourselves permission to see we actually feel everything, seen, unseen, heard or unheard. We are moving in the same water and if someone is angry it creates tidal waves of imposing energy around them, if they have deep sadness it creates a similar tidal wave – everyone feels it. Our emotions and our way of living are not contained to ourselves and we are feeling or sensing all of them all of the time. If we can contemplate that, we can start to understand why we live with anxiety and consider it normal – the constant assessing of what we are sensing without being able to openly or privately have the skills to recognise what we are feeling.
"I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself 'wrong' in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok." I just wonder how many children grow up thinking this is the easier way to look at life?
Seeing nervousness and anxiety as useful indicators of something that we have let in supports us to feel that we have a choice whether to continue running with them or come back to ourselves. In this way they serve a purpose and now I am finally admitting to how much they have previously dominated my life I can also welcome when they make a reappearance as showing me where I have not been true to myself.
This is lovely Brian using the awareness of anxiousness and nervousness as a marker to alert yourself as to where you have withdrawn from being the full you.