Hello anxiety... who does not have any on their lives? I heard an interesting thing yesterday around anxiety. When it relates to the past, it often shows up as guilt, when it relates to the future, it shows up as worry, and when it relates to the present, it shows up as panic. When it shows up as panic, it often gets stuck around the psoas muscle (the flight or flight zone) and its environs. Here is a great article about the Psoas that speaks to this. Read this and then read on.
Anxiety can come from real dangers or preceived dangers. Most of us are not currently running away from tigers, but many of us are immersed in an environment of manufactured fear. Not that there aren't things to be afraid of or stuff we need to deal with. For some people, there is imminent danger, but for most of us, the anxiety we harbor is not of that kind. However, when we are engaging with the world in a stuck psoas kind of place, our ability to deal with perceived threats in a grounded and efficient way is GREATLY hamperd by feeling guilty, worrying or panicking.
This shows up in the mind and the body in ways that are sometimes inexplicable because the part of the brain that is triggered is the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain (Amygdala) is focused on survival and primal and not "thinking" clearly, but mostly "reacting". As the flight or flight muscle experiences the fear, the psoas tends to tighten up and causes all kinds of sensations and symptoms that create even more anxiety in the body.
In choosing what to bring into my awareness, it seems like there are more and more scary things to behold and fliter, especially in this fast socail media world. My animal body wonders, what is the threat level here. What can I do about this to stay safe? What is real here? My frontal cortex mind is pretty good and realizing that there is a lot of hype, and a lot of denial and a lot of misinformation being passed around. Also I know that it is human nature of overdramatize, project and stay in the comfort zone. Knowing all this, has allowed my mind to stay open and fluid and relaxed. However, I have also been dealing with a lot of pain around my lower back that migrates from my left hip area to the upper right side of my back, excruciating pain sometimes that I assumed was mostly structural. Go to the chiropractor. Get a massage. Roll on a ball. Sit in correct alignement. All these things brought temporary relief but it was not until I made the psoas fear conenctiong that the pain truly began to dissipate.
I realized that although my mind was staying open to possible interpretations and realities, my reptilian body/brain/mind was actually freaked out. Sometimes, even when my mind is clear, I feel a tightness and wonder what I should be worrying about. I am a worrier, for me is about the future, not the past. Even now as I sit here writing, I can sense the my breath is high in my chest, not deepening and including my psoas. I have to make an effort to notice the holding, breathe into it, lovingly tell my primal self that I am here, aknowledging it, sensing it, not denying the fear... And as soon as I do this, I find the deep breath of release I have been looking for.
An argument could be made for the possibility that we humans are in immiment danger. The news tells me this everyday. I am a climate change believer. However, I also know that I cannot be part of the solution if I am dealing with a pralyzed mind or body.
As a movement teacher, I have been bringing in more sounding, more release work, more connection to the core because I realize I am not alone in this state of being. In my BeSoul Dance classes, in my Moga Yoga classes, I have been using all the tools available to bring in relaxation, engage the imagination, invite people to connet with their inner widsom. By relaxing and releasing the psoas muscle, we are allowing the physical body and the reptilian brain catch up to the creative imaginative mind which I am counting on to get us to the next level! Expanding with ease and grace is contagious. When we do this in a group, we all feed on each other's vibration, holding hands as we ascend.