👋 5 quick things from Liza :: the anxiety edition 😬⏰💸


"Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic." –Anaïs Nin	View in browser

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meditation

5 quick things –

photo of Liza (and 40 year old brunette white woman) on a boat in a navy bathing suit. her eyes are closed and she has a huge smile on her face. her arms are spread. the background in a deep blue sea beneath her, cliffs in the distance, and a blue sky with white clouds. the pictures is very joyful.

Hi, gorgeous!

We all want to feel joy, right? And we all have anxiety, too. Anxiety steals joy and casts a shadow over our general well-being. Some of us have been diagnosed with anxiety disorders. Some of us were suddenly plunged into anxiety in November 2016 and haven't come up for air since. And some of us have it in specific situations. It's something we all experience, yet it's something we rarely talk about.

Not here, not today! Today we're going to have our first-ever themed newsletter: the anxiety edition.

A quick note before we dive in: anxiety is a physical feeling. It manifests through our brain (discursive thoughts) and our bodies (lungs, heart, stomach, muscles, etc.) The author of the book mentioned below believes that anxiety is a placeholder for emotions we aren't prepared to feel yet. I note this because one of the best ways to understand anxiety is to meet it where it is: in our bodies.

(You might be wondering what that smiling pic of me has to do with anxiety. Read through and it will make sense. 😉)

By the way, it's just as brave to feel JOY as it is to feel our anxiety. The practice of fully feeling our feelings as they are, without attaching stories, is part of a courageous human existence. I think it's the ultimate self care, really.

Okay, onto your 5 things this week. ⏬

album cover: a young blonde white woman sitting with her journal on the carpet. Text says

NOW LISTENING

1. anxiety by Julia Michaels (feat Selena Gomez) 🎵

Our soundtrack for this week is the folksy song Anxiety by Julia Micheals (feat Selena Gomez).

Feel like I'm always apologizing for feeling
Like I'm out of my mind when I'm doing just fine

I got all these thoughts, running through my mind
All the damn time and I can't seem to shut it off

It's the ultimate anthem for when we're feeling anxious. The only thing I don't agree with is that she sings that her friends don't understand . . . I believe they would. :)

(BTW this song is on the EFF This! summer soundtrack–if you haven't given it a listen yet, it's high time.)

DEEP THOUGHTS

2. meditation + anxiety

There are 3 things I want you to know about meditation and anxiety:

for most people, meditation is an invaluable tool for drastically reducing anxiety
but, meditation does not "cure" anxiety
and, in some situations, meditation can actually make anxiety worse (yes, I said it)

Mindfulness practices teach us to listen: to our bodies, our emotions, and our inner wisdom. Sometimes when we listen, what we hear ourselves saying is, "I feel anxious." The key is to notice that and to love it without attaching stories of it being somehow a bad thing.

If you've ever tried to meditate and ending up feeling more anxious, please try again with a different (maybe more educated?) meditation teacher. When we start a meditation practice, sometimes we can be overwhelmed by just how chaotic our minds might be. But an experienced meditation teacher can teach you how to make friends with that. Our anxiety, after all, can be a gift.

(On the subject, I love this blog post by Dennis Hunter: Confessions of an Anxious Meditation Teacher)

a group of burnt out matches against a pink background

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

3. the wisdom of anxiety

This is a really rich book that teaches, in great and specific detail, how to identify our types of anxiety, examine where they come from, and shows precisely how to embrace and work with the truly valuable messages that our anxiety is gifting us.

In particular, I like the focus she puts on our bodies–after all, as mentioned, anxiety is a physical feeling. She examines the somatic symptoms of anxiety (like rapid heartbeat and shallow breath) and mentions how things like low blood sugar can contribute to anxious feelings. I also like how she breaks down potential anxiety-provoking experiences by day of the week and season, and offers new rituals that we can create reprogram our experiences.

See the book: The Wisdom of Anxiety: How Worry & Intrusive Thoughts Are Gifts to Help You Heal by Sheryl Paul

PRACTICE TIP OF THE WEEK

4. practices for anxiety

Because anxiety is a physical feeling, some of the best practices for easing it are physical practices, particularly breathing and movement. Other great things to do are to directly address things that can increase your anxiety. Try some of these the next time Mr. Anxiety comes to town:

breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth, increasing the length of each breath
5-7-8 breaths (count to 5 on the inhale, hold for 7, exhale to 8)
step away from the screens and do 5 minutes of gentle stretching
stop checking the news and social media for 24 hours (yes, really)
care for your body: do you need a snack? a quick nap? a short walk? do you have to pee? need a drink of water? tune in and take care!

______________________

BTW – when you preorder my book, you can get the full ebook about "The 7 Paths to Self Care." Just email your receipt to effthisbook@gmail.com to get it for free!

PRE-ORDER MY BOOK ON AMAZON | ALL OTHERS

overhead shot of a women in a pool; she is wearing a pink swimsuit on is lounging languidly on a pink pool floatie

MUST READ

5. the unique anxiety of being a womxn in a bathing suit

How do you feel in a bathing suit around strangers? (I'm talking to my non-cis men here.) Do you feel sexy and awesome or anxious and like your head is going to explode? Have you ever thought about the fact that not only are we expected to have an impossibly "perfect" body, we are also expected to exude joy over that expectation?

"The pool is a pressure cooker of social expectations for women: to diet, shop, shave, tweeze, sculpt and tone. It lays bare discriminations of race, gender performance and size."

Oh yeah but also you should be delighted to be there and unbothered by the ubiquitous cameras.

"The expectation that women exhibit an easy confidence in this scenario is its own kind of prison."

The quotes are from this article, which is fantastic: Women Crash the Pool Party | NYT

Also loving author Kelsey Miller mentioning scene-y pools here: My Beauty Uniform | Cup of Jo

And, how to get a bikini body. 👙

That bathing suit picture of me was taken by my darling monkey last summer in the Mediterranean sea. There are very few bathing suit pictures I have the confidence to share, but I just love seeing myself through her eyes. I also cropped out the bits that make me feel anxious and added a filter, so let's be real! There were no strangers there, just my family and me finally feeling good enough to leave the house after days of being too sick to enjoy the trip.

One of the ways love works, I've noticed, is that we get to reflect to our loved ones just how beautiful they are in our eyes. Wishing that for you this week. 😍

Love,

MEANWHILE, ON SOCIAL MEDIA . . .

Instagram photo of a book held in the foreground, called

Instagram photo of the back of a denim jacket, which is embroidered with a rose and the words

Liza Kindred

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