Anxiety as a Messenger: A Guide to Calming Your Nervous System

Everyone experiences anxiety at some point. Sometimes this anxiety is due to our current circumstances — life’s uncertainties and disappointments, health concerns, difficult relationship dynamics and other challenges.

For some of us anxiety is ever present. Even when things seem like they’re fine, we can’t let go of the sense of impending doom — the other shoe dropping or the rug being pulled out from under us.

We try to ease the anxiety by hyperfixating on order, trying to control every outcome, making sure everyone is happy. Sometimes we overfunction and let perfectionism take over. Sometimes we procrastinate, stuck in fear of failing.

What if I told you that your anxiety isn’t there to ruin your life?  That instead it’s there to guide you, to show you what’s missing so that you can learn to release the need to control and be perfect. To trust that you don’t have to earn the right to feel at ease and that everything will be ok.

Anxiety isn’t a disease. It doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with you. Anxiety is simply a cycle of troublesome thoughts in the mind that lead to physical sensations in the body. Those uncomfortable sensations in the body confirm the troublesome thoughts and the cycle continues.

When the body feels “unsafe” (“unsafe” is how the nervous system defines discomfort) the sympathetic nervous system — also known as our fight or flight response — automatically takes over. When this happens, no amount of logical thinking can convince it otherwise. That’s why talking about our anxiety rarely makes it go away.

Have you ever had someone tell you to “just calm down” when you’re stressing about something? In the history of the world, has that ever worked?? Even when you know they’re right, your logical mind has checked out and your primitive survival response has taken over. That’s why in order to calm the mind, we have to first calm the body.

The tools and practices of yoga have been proven to ease stress in the nervous system and restore balance. Using our breath, gentle intentional movement and other somatic or body based practices we can shift from the sympathetic or stress response to the parasympathetic or relaxation response.

These tools can ease anxiety in the moment and when practiced regularly can build resilience in the nervous system to prevent feelings of anxiety in the future.

While these tools can be very effective, they also give us the opportunity to understand that appropriate stress is a part of life. A full and rich human experience unfortunately includes the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

We experience deep love and we experience profound grief, we experience intense joy and we feel deep sadness. The beauty of life in a human body is that we get to know a full range of emotions. This creates a rich and meaningful life, but it can also be very difficult.

As I mentioned earlier, the nervous system associates discomfort with danger. If we can’t learn to experience difficult emotions without activating our fear response we will become controlled by our emotions.

Instead, if we can learn to allow for the discomfort of difficult emotions, to get curious about why they’re so difficult and to recognize that every sensation we feel is a messenger trying to help us understand ourselves better, then we can begin to comfort the part of us that is hurting.

We can learn to become less reactive to our emotional triggers and to respond to all of life, the good and the bad in a way that feels safe and true to who we really are.

Anxiety — when we learn to befriend it — can be our greatest teacher. It can lead us back to who we really are, to who we want to be and to how we want to show up in this life.

I’m a yoga therapist, and I help people who feel anxious, overwhelmed, or stuck learn how to work with their nervous system — not against it. Through gentle, body-based practices, I support you in building resilience, restoring a sense of safety, and finding more ease in everyday life.

If you’re curious about a more compassionate, body-focused approach to anxiety, you’re not alone — I’d like to invite you to join my online community The Inner Calm Collective.

Start with the free Inner Calm Collective membership tier and when you’re ready for more guidance, join the Elevated Membership for live classes, deeper support, and a space where your healing is fully supported.

💛 Join for free today!