If you are managing anxiety, feeling dissatisfied or unhappy – Welcome! You are in the right place!
SOS for Managing Anxiety is a collection of online resources that will help you calm down and gently untangle symptoms of neurodivergence, high sensitivity and unhappiness.
If you are someone who easily gets overstimulated or have learning difficulties that interfere with your ability to focus, here is my personal list of Mind Exercises for managing anxiety.
By calming your thinking down and tuning into your inner guidance through the Intuitive Learning Circles, it’s all lot easier to set yourself up for a genuinely successful outcome.
I was raised in a time before ADD, ADHD or Dyslexia had names. In the fifties and early sixties, kids like me didn’t have learning difficulties, we were simply labelled slow, troublemakers or stupid. Judging from the amount of time I spent in the principle’s office, I was probably put into the troublemaker category pretty early on!
Learning Difficulties: The Genius of Thinking Differently
I remember when I was just beginning to learn how to write my name in cursive. I was trying to figure out which hand worked better making all those loops and curly-ques. While experimenting with my left hand, my second grade teacher came over to me and plucked the pencil right out of my hand. “You don’t want to use that hand,” she barked, “only bad people are left handed.”
I didn’t like that teacher much so, at that moment I made a decision. I was going to be left-handed just to spite her! Like any choice, the decision I made had its downsides. For example, I’ve learned over time that being motivated out of spite and anger does nothing to help my level of happiness. On the upside . To this day, I am quasi-ambidextrous – I write with my left hand and do just about everything else with my right.
rejection dysphoria
In the first half of my life, it was important to be right about how unfairly I was treated. For me, being “right” masqueraded as being powerful and justified my anger. And yet, as time went by, the malaise of distrust, dissatisfaction and unhappiness continued to engulf me. began to turn against me.I know that most of the time, advice from teachers, family and friends was meant to help. They just couldn’t understand why I was so unhappy and didn’t know how to help me.
Much later in life, I started to accept that doing things the way that other people did them just wasn’t going to work for me. I eventually came to realize that my unhappiness had a lot to do with what I was paying attention to and how I was treating myself.
Later on in life, I decided that it was more important to be happy than to be right. I decided to listen to my discomfort rather than fight with it. When I changed my response I found myself, my voice and my peace of mind. Not all at once, but over time and gentle patience.
I stopped being so hard on myself and started to embrace the things that came naturally to me. I went into bodywork and somatic education together with hypnotherapy, Reiki and mind/body energy work. I began to experience a satisfaction and success that I had never known before. Finally, I was allowing the way I was wired to stimulate new ways of thinking and being in the world!
I set to work learning about and putting together techniques from many different disciplines to help me and my clients, many of whom were highly sensitive people with similar issues. I developed a whole system of tools for better focus and concentration using muscle testing. I’ve also found that they can help with emotional healing, reducing stress and providing a way to activate advanced states of intuition and creativity.
Taking back your power is an essential part of developing human potential.
The mind looks for what it has agreements to look for. If we want to create peaceful and coherent minds, we need to train ourselves to look for it. Our agreements with this selection of games are:
Agreements for Managing Anxiety are:
♦ Go for Joy and Happiness, rather than dissatisfaction and criticism
♦ Learn to stop internalizing early childhood messages of inadequacy
♦ Get present in stressful situations and stay centered
♦ Slow down and take things one step at a time
♦ Accept yourself and your innate gifts, skills and talents.
If you are open to managing your anxiety and what I’ve described resonates, the following collection of Mind Exercises, Self-care Formulas and Transformation Games can help you change your agreements with yourself.
With the Intuitive Learning Circle method, you will work with these new agreements to create a new relationship with yourself. You’ll be using the symbols and the questions or answers that go with them to gather unconscious information, organize awareness and illuminate solutions that come directly from your Soul. You are in charge and can become your own best friend!
Intro ~
Start by Clearing Up Your Blind Spots ~
Find out how the the Intuitive Learning Circles work by experiencing a short exercise for focusing your attention, energy and senses. This is a great place to start – not only because it’s a great introduction to this work – but also because it can help you clear up an important blind spot that’s blocking your awareness.
Introducing the SOS Symbol:
This is the SOS symbol that we use for the Soul Oriented Solutions processes. When you gaze softly at it (let your eyes relax) it can help you make choices, fine tune your intuition and listen to your gut instincts – even if you’re stressed out.
Once you’ve relaxed with it a bit, go through the list of four categories below and then, ask your gut instinct for a number between 1 and 8 to help you select the specific protocol that’s best for your situation.
Caution: Be sure to take it slowly. This kind of work can be deceptively powerful. Be sure to get plenty of rest, drink adequate water and eat healthy. You can take a hot epsom salt bath or get some gentle exercise.
Make sure your energy is well settled before you go through another exercise.
1. Retrain Your Mind to Go for Joy ~
Stopping the critical mind before it starts it’s shame and blame requires training. We try so hard to win, to look good, to escape punishment or to be “right.” Sadly, many of us are taught that we’re supposed to be perfect, so that’s what we’ve trained the mind to go for. What if we could learn to go for Joy instead?
2. Clear Distractions From Your Mind ~
If you are someone who easily gets overstimulated or have learning difficulties that interfere with your ability to focus, Tutorial VI from Gifts from the Rainforest will provide a more creative and instinctual approach to help your productivity.
3. Setting Clear Boundaries for a Busy Mind ~
This visual meditation from our RESOLVE Ebook provides a quick framework for recovering mental balance and refocusing attention when you’re feeling scattered or out of sync. Going through a quick “game” calms the emotional centers of your brain and opens up new neural pathways for clear focus and boundaries, which significantly reduces stress and increases clarity.
4. Access Intuitive Guidance for Decisive Action ~
You can use the Circles to help you work out what decisions are best for you to make under your current circumstances. Tutorial IX from Gifts from the Rainforest will help you center yourself and establish objectivity, especially if you’re all up in your head or have experienced a recent trauma. By calming your thinking down and tuning into your inner guidance, it’s all lot easier to set yourself up for a genuinely successful outcome.
5. Learn to Trust Your Gut Instincts ~
People say that being present is super important and it’s true. Yet so often, it’s much easier said than done. If you’re jumping ahead of yourself and need to stay present, this particular exercise is especially useful when you’re experiencing performance anxiety.
6. Managing Anxiety about Success ~
If you have been conditioned to be afraid or negative by experiences early on in life, you may have trouble knowing how to handle what to do when things are going well. The way you view yourself and what you think you’re capable of is colored by habitual behaviors learned in early love relationships as well as childhood experiences. You may simply be dealing with an old program or you could be struggling with more serious entanglements with hatred and other destructive tendencies.
7. Simplify Your Life ~
This Transformation Game is a more advanced process made up of Intuitive Learning Circles, pertinent questions and positive affirmations that will give you a new perspective activate your heart wisdom and help you ADAPT to a simpler mindset by clearing up mental and emotional clutter. When life has become too complicated or you’re trying to do too many things, this is your go- to game.
8. Managing Stress That’s Connected to Herd Mentality ~
This Transformation Game can help you let go of anxiety about what other people think about you. Being clear about what’s true for you as opposed to what the social herd mind thinks is it’s own reward.
About the Author
If you feel that you need additional help, Rheanni Lightwater, BFA, CHT, CKP has 25+ years experience in the art and science of mind body healing. Contact her for a private session if you need more help managing anxiety.
Ms. Lightwater’s mission is to assist people in creating healthy balance and harmony in their lives through energy medicine, hypnotherapy and feng shui clearing.
Schedule with Rheanni via Zoom or in person when you visit Santa Fe, New Mexico. Call or text (505) 271-4612 MST, or email: [email protected]
Disclaimer:
The formulas and exercise in Managing Anxiety should not be considered as an exclusive method of treatment. The appropriate medical or psychotherapeutic authorities should be consulted for the diagnosis and treatment of any medical or psychological condition. The information and practices described are best considered as an adjunct to orthodox medical or psychological treatments.
