releasing emotions

Allowing your anxious energy to be present is not a technique to get rid of or suppress your anxiety. You can’t destroy energy and suppressing it just keeps it within. The way to be free of this energy is to allow it fully, not to fight it. Nothing leaves your inner space when you suppress it, all you end up doing is pushing it back down and so nothing changes,

You think you want liberation from this anxious energy when the truth is, it wants liberation from you. This is why it keeps coming up; it wants to be free of you, just as much as you want to be free of it.

Allowing yourself to feel the built-up anxious energy

Most people never allow themselves to feel this energy, they avoid places/situations, drink too much, over-exercise, take drugs/medication, distract themselves in activities, search the net for ways to get rid of it, look for gurus, try to perfect techniques, fight, suppress, spend all day in their heads trying to feel different.

By doing the above most people get worse, as there is nothing more mentally draining and exhausting than always being at war with yourself, it is like lashing out at an invisible enemy that you have no chance of ever defeating.

Many people spend their lives in this loop; I did for ten years until I finally realised the only thing I had not done was allow myself to feel the way I did. When I looked into this approach deeply, then it made utter sense to me why this would free me of this energy that I had done everything to try to avoid feeling.

It made sense how much struggle and resistance would fall away, how much more of a break my poor and overworked mind would get, and how much brain energy it would free up. How, if I wasn’t so concentrated on fixing myself, then my awareness could go back on life and off me. It made sense to me that this was the only way forward.

Finally having realisation wasn’t the day I recovered, as I still had so much anxious and fearful energy to release and for a while, things heightened, as now I was fully open and everything came to the surface. It was like opening a tap, and everything that I had suppressed came rushing up, which to be honest, wasn’t always pleasant to face.

But I now understood the process and how it would free me; I didn’t see it as a bad thing anymore, I didn’t think I was regressing on any given bad day. In fact, quite the opposite, I saw it as my body finally releasing what needed to be released, I saw it as a step nearer to being free and the only way to recover from anxiety.

Why we fight and suppress feelings of anxiety

Fighting and suppressing anxiety

The main two reasons people go back to fighting/suppressing is because the brain’s automatic reaction is to try and fight off uncomfortable feelings. Because these actions are counterproductive and will never free you of anxiety, it is essential that you/your brain needs to understand that allowing yourself to experience this anxious energy is a positive thing. When you are free of this energy, then all that is left is peace, which is your natural state.

The other reason is that many people don’t have the patience to go through this process; they wrongly assume that once they understand something, then their suffering should be over. If something doesn’t work instantly, then they go back to searching for temporary peace. I figured out that I could either allow myself to go through a few months of discomfort and be free or spend a lifetime struggling to find temporary peace by attempting to suppress and avoid these feelings.

A lot of people will say to me:

‘Yes, but it is not the anxious energy that is the problem, it is going to a supermarket, driving, etc, that is the problem’.

My reply is: ‘No, these places are not the cause of your anxiety; they are just triggering the anxious energy that is within you. If you were free of this anxious energy, then you would not feel such a reaction to normal situations’.

If the problem were in these places, then everyone would feel this way, the truth is, they don’t. So don’t put the problem on the location or situation you find yourself in; the problem is not there. The problem is never on the outside; the problem is inside you. You should thank these places, not avoid them and see them as a place that triggers in you what needs to be released.

Being free of anxious energy is what recovery is all about

When you are free of this stored-up anxious/fearful energy, then you will only get anxious/fearful when you are in real danger. This is a hardwired reaction in us all and we need this reaction to keep us safe and protect us. The problem only occurs when we accumulate too much of this energy (usually through a prolonged period of worry and stress), and we feel it in everyday situations or as a constant feeling.

When you feel anxious for no reason then nothing has gone wrong, nothing needs to be fixed, avoided, or defeated, it is just a clear wake-up call for you to allow yourself to experience this anxiety energy willingly so you can be free of it.

Paul David
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