Leah Guy

Of course!

Leah Guy

Yeah, there are certainly ways to overcome them but there’s no recipe and that’s the thing when you’re dealing with fear and anxiety.

Leah Guy

People try to diagnose themselves with anxiety or fear disorders. Really the understanding and the shift happens when we realize that those are just symptoms and they are not the problem.

The shift happens when we realize that feelings of fear and anxiety are just symptoms and are not the problem.

So we have to treat it like a symptom and it’s a sign telling us that something is out of balance and not right in our life.

Leah Guy

I feel like it’s so prevalent because so many are avoiding and trying to detach from their reality, emotional wellness, and state of being. I mean it runs the whole gamut and then it becomes overwhelming.

I could sit here and give you a list of things that cause the imbalances in a person but even nutritionally speaking, we don’t want to do what it takes to be balanced and healthy nutritionally. Some people do, but a lot of us don’t.

Leah Guy

The same is true with our emotions and with our mind. We just get out of control with really owning and dealing with our feelings, experiences, traumas, suffering, happiness, everything.

Before you know it, we get blocked energy, we get stagnant in our life, we put things in front of us, and things become overwhelming and then we are crippled and we can’t move.

Leah Guy

A person has to be willing to do their work and to acknowledge and become aware of what is uncomfortable in our life, what’s not right, what hasn’t been right and work through in process the feelings of that.

Leah Guy

I think in that, my approach is that fear is one of our greatest teachers and we can use it to our benefit.

Leah Guy

However, the approach that I take in the healing work is really about connection and responsibility as opposed to detachment and trying to let go of things that seem to be the big buzz word this past decade or so and is really causing a lot more anxiety and separation than it’s causing healing and wellness. I think that’s my biggest approach. My book is kind of based on that theory as well.

Leah Guy

It depends on what it’s stemming from but it’s not just identifying that I have anxiety. A lot of people can identify “Oh, I have anxiety,” but it’s identifying what’s truly going on within yourself. That’s important when dealing with fear.

If I’ve had a trauma or an upset or a loss or was raised feeling shamed and out of sorts and not good enough, if I’m making excuses for people or blaming other people or just denying my true authentic feelings, then I’m going to get stuck behind some kind of emotion that often comes out as fear and anxiety.

Leah Guy

We have to recognize that I have this but then the next thing to do is be willing to go with them and do kind of investigative work to recognize what’s going on inside of ourselves and then take the steps to work with that. That’s what the healing process is.

It’s not just taking a drug or saying “Oh, I have this disorder,” or “Oh, everybody has anxiety. Let me see how to manage the anxiety.”

Leah Guy

We want to learn how to manage the emotion or the imbalance of what’s going on underneath the anxiety. Then, we have a chance of healing and changing it.

Leah Guy

Just as far as getting out of the panic initially, I always recommend the person to get very body focused and get grounded in their physical experience.

When we get anxiety, we shortened our breath, we do a lot more inhaling than we do exhaling. We’d lose connection to ourselves, our body, and our mind takes us either into the future or into an unknown territory which takes more overwhelm in the body system.

Leah Guy

One of the best things to do just to get out of the panic is to move. Take a deep breath, stand up.

I do kind of a swooshing movement with your arms. Move the breath all the way through your body. Grunt, yell, scream, or stomp in the ground. It’s a way to reclaim and reenter your body as opposed to letting the mind and this anxious fear take you outside of your body.

Yes, I think there’s no reason to push through anything except for just to allow. Actually, you can move out of that panic space where we feel like we’re going to die then, we can just be.

Leah Guy

Like I said, underneath the anxiety, there’s always an unresolved emotion and we’re the ones responsible for that. It’s not our moms, our spouses, or our kids. It’s not anybody else’s experience. It’s our responsibility.

As we are able to sit with the anxiety and recognize that “I’m having anxiety,” and then see if we can let the emotion come forward, it can feel very scary but it’s also very empowering once you can start practicing this.

Then, allow the emotion to be present and that emotion will generally speak to us. It will tell us what we need and what you do next whether it’s crying or yelling or getting alone time or taking some deep breaths or nurture ourselves or whatever is going on.

Leah Guy

But I think the first step is really to empower your physical self to get balanced. The second that we lose the balance of that, it’s very hard to reclaim any kind of sense of self or safety at the moment.

Well, that’s why they take a lot of drugs too just to put up with the anxiety or just get through it like if you’re having an anxiety attack right before you go into a meeting or get on an airplane or whatever is going on.

Outside of those specific times, whenever the anxiety starts to rise up, that’s when we can start doing our work; sit and meditation, slow our breath and get into our body.

Leah Guy

No, I think there are tons of suggestions like the mantra. I used the simple one. Actually, it’s one of my guided meditations. It’s online and my root chakra meditation is “I am here,” and using the breath, your senses, using the mantra “I am here.”

When we stop and we can become “here,” and we pull our energies back from all the places that they go, like “What if the plane crashes?” or “What if she calls and breaks up?” or “What if I don’t have enough money?” and “I’m not okay and I’m feeling rejected,” or whatever.

The truth is that we’re here. We’re not there and so, we can use our sense of smell. We can use that mantra “I am here.” We can pinch ourselves. We can use our hands and touch something. We can find something to focus on with our eyes and connect back to the reality of who we are and where we are.

It’s very simple but it’s also very profound because most people are functioning in a world and a lot of other realms energetically, mentally, and emotionally other than the realm that is right now.

Leah Guy

That idea of presence and mindfulness and being in the now, and all that, is more than a route to enlightenment. It’s really a practice of self-preservation and healing for us in and our experience.

Leah Guy

I think any of that is really good at dealing with fear. Even with like tasting, you could stop right now and know what tastes in your mouth. Is it bitter, sweet, dry? Feel your teeth. There are all kinds of just really simple ways we can use our senses to enter our body and get into this present moment which helps in dealing with fear.