If you are not used to it, is not so straightforward or easy to just let more joy, happiness and love flood into your life even when circumstances change inside and outside to become conducive to being less stressed and worried.
If you are used to a level of concern, of stress, anxiety, unhappiness maybe from an early age, your brain chemistry becomes wired to accommodate it. It’s the norm, and without it we feel a little or a lot out of our (dis)comfort zone. We might even be a little addicted to the hormones that stress produces that put us on high alert.
I’m studying this in myself and my therapy clients. It’s become obvious even in my limited experience that the people who come to me for help to alleviate anxiety have underlying core beliefs of being unlovable or unworthy or a variation of those.
They are initially excited when they ‘get’ that the core belief is at the cause of their current distress and that they can alter those beliefs – and then the hard work begins.
Tolerating the discomfort and fear as we move towards who we really are, loveable and deserving.
Oh my goodness what does that look like after a lifetime of holding ourselves back?! And remaining in a state, maintained often by self sabotage, of limitations that match our sense of unworthiness and unlovability. Of being flooded by anxiety, and now to contemplate its lack?
It is new territory. And I have been emphasising to those clients and to myself that there’s no big rush. We take it slow, small steps towards opening to a bigger life.
A life where we allow more good things in as we learn to be kind to ourselves. The ‘bad’ things we automatically let go of, they drop off as we come to treat ourselves with greater respect and love.
Learning to Rest with it All 