The sixty second anxiety cure
I get questions like this almost every day, so I think it bears reinforcement:
Q: "Mr. Barnes I wondered if I might pick your brain. I am prone to severe anxiety and though I know you aren’t a doctor, I wondered if you had suggestions about a book or course that might help. You seem to have developed a healthy regimen on your own."
A: First, breathe. Set your watch timer and every 1-3 hours do 60 seconds of deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing. At LEAST once every three hours, but if I were you, I'd do it hourly. If you do that today, drop me a line tomorrow and I'll give you another piece.
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If you will start with this, the Firedance program can help you. But you MUST take this very first step of the "MAGIC Formula""
Have a valid Map. Interrupting stress on the physiological level is vastly more efficient and effective than years of therapy. That said, once you've broken the cycle physically, therapy, coaching, counseling, meditation or journaling is of massive value.
Take ACTION. To avoid a "zero" all you have to do is BREATHE in the proper manner, for sixty seconds, once every three hours. As long as you don't "zero" you are in the game.
Feel GRATITUDE. Gratitude is the antidote for fear and anger. If you deliberately focused on positive memories as you breathed, that is a mini Firedance ritual!
Clear INTENTION. The goal needs to be twofold: to move away from pain and toward pleasure. To live a life of joy and service. There will be infinite ways and combinations of ways to implement this…but first, get clear on the path!
Massive COURAGE AND CONFIDENCE that you CAN and SHOULD take these actions. If you have any doubt, research the physiology of stress, the body's feedback loops, the millions of pages of teachings on meditation and movement systems around the world. Be sure that you have the emotional right to THRIVE. If you can feel internal conflict with the notion of self-care, then IF you can take this first step, you know your next: to decrease your resistance, to interrogate any sense of lack or "selfishness" connected with putting yourself first for a few seconds a day.
Ultimately, the Five Minute Miracle is the smallest step in self-care, in protecting your heart. If you needed to increase your belief or motivation, then during your breathing you might visualize your inner child and commit to protecting her. Or consider the implications of the fact that "you are not the voices in your head." Whatever you need to stay on the path…to take another step, and then another. To DEMAND that you steal your life and heart and mind back from the world.
All you need to do to begin this process is to short-circuit your social programming and life experience and connect directly to your life drive.
And that is never, EVER, more than a single breath away.
Namaste
Steve
