On Yoga and Anxiety
I have a hard time living the yoga that I share with people. I run high-anxiety and when anxiety takes over, I start shallowly breathing into the top of my chest and operate primarily out of the on-alert, fight-or-flight mode state. My mind is in a constant state of chatter about fear, worry, doubt, what I did wrong, and what I didn’t do at all.
I try, and have tried, countless ways to quell the anxiety. Yoga and meditation are the most effective for me, but they are the first things I start hiding from when my anxiety brain takes control. The anxiety knows I’ll have to be alone in my head if I do those things and it makes it that much harder to make it to a yoga class, to sit in stillness, or to practice on my own.
I’ve been really struggling for the past six months. I’m a new mother fighting against being mommy-tracked in my non-yoga teaching career—the career that has defined me for the past 15 years—the desire to create a new career and follow a new and very different path, and knowing that, ultimately, my only real priority now is my family. My anxiety brain is in overdrive because/and I just. can't. make. it. to. yoga. I can’t practice at home because the anxiety says I need to check my phone 100 times a minute in case something happened, the dogs are barking, the dogs think I need them to sit on me, I might need to clean something that I’ve put off for months, someone might need me…the list of reasons is endless and overwhelming. I can’t make it to yoga because there’s always something I NEED to put before my own needs and then I’m late.
But I did make it to a vinyasa class yesterday. The constant flow of movement and breath, finding the shape and alignment, noticing how each pose feels in my body keeps the anxiety at bay. It’s impossible to worry when I’m too busy moving, breathing, feeling. It’s given me the space to meditate yesterday and today. Not for long. But long enough to contemplate abundance and contentment. I will get what I need. My life is abundant and what I need flows to me. I am content with all I have at this moment, with all I have been given.
