How Anxiety and I Broke Up
My most favorite goodbye.
Anxiety and overthinking are no more in the closet. It’s out there and in most of us (no pun intended).
Do you know that time when you form these random stories in your head? Aren’t we all the best fiction authors who create stories from assumptions? Before sleeping, we think of all things which could have happened if we didn’t do this but did that.
I am happy to announce my break up with my long term partner anxiety.
Even after more than a year of this deep breathing and awareness fad called meditation, anxiety kept strong and stuck by me.
Through good times and bad, anxiety was similar to my childhood bullies who would trouble me but not leave me.
Once in a while, anxiety would get upset and give me an attack. It was just an attention seeker. Always wanted to get this third party involved called the therapist to sort out our personal issues.
So what changed?
I started yoga. No, not the yoga where I am sticking my leg up against my ear because being 173cm tall I hardly have the flexibility to bring it to parallel to the floor.
I discovered this yoga channel called Yoga with Adriene who has over 8 million followers.
Again you may ask, so what changed?
“A little goes a long way” — Adriene Mishler
This 20–30 minutes a day routine was a mixture of:
- therapy
- self-love
- deep breathing
- becoming more aware of my body
- knowing myself better
This is because it wasn’t the kind of yoga that focuses on the technique, but the kind of yoga which makes you focus on you.
After these 30 minutes, I go through the comments under the video. It truly is the most beautiful community in this world.
Being locked at home for the past 6 months, these people across the world who I don’t know made me feel less alone.
But what really changed? How did anxiety go?
Anxiety was insecure after I made new friends.
Whenever anxiety tried to criticize my body, self-love would tell it to leave.
Whenever anxiety turned into storytelling mode to make me overthink, my new found controlled mind would get rid of the thought.
Whenever anxiety tried to make me slouch, deep awareness of my body made me stand tall.
Whenever anxiety tried to make me overeat, my enhanced relationship between mind and body wouldn’t let that happen.
I cannot believe anxiety controlled me for so long.
This is the perfect example of a toxic relationship and if you find yourself in one, it’s never too late to leave.
I am also surprised that belonging to the land where yoga is developed, it took an American Youtube channel to make me fall in love with it.