Let's face it. We all worry. It is part of being a human. Some children are easy going and relatively chilled, whilst others worry about everything. I was one of those children and still have to work hard not to let the worries take over and become full blown anxiety. I have learnt tricks over the years to keep the worries at bay and I'm now enjoying sharing what I have learnt with the girls.
This week our focus was on the heart. Our emotions come from one of two places - love or fear. Love and fear are on opposite ends of the spectrum however are also one and the same. Often we only worry because we care and have a lot of love. For example, we want people to like us, we want to do a good job (so we will receive recognition), we are protecting ourselves from getting hurt.
Heart meditations are my favourite meditations to do. You can focus on the colour green and concentrate on what love feels like by thinking of all the people and things you love most in the world and concentrating that energy into the centre of the chest. I teach the girls how to project that love inwards, then back outwards even to people we may not like very much, as they are often the people who need the love the most. I took the girls on a guided journey to forgiveness, forgiving themselves for anything they may have done that they don't like and forgiving others. They then surrounded themselves in a beautiful pink bubble of rose quartz energy and gave themselves compassion. We finished the meditation by focusing on what we are grateful for. Gratitude is a wonderful practise to bring you back to your heart and what's important in life. When the heart energy centre is blocked the physical ailments can become problems with the heart and lungs; emotionally we can have problems with loneliness, lack of self-love, jealousy or trust issues. By breaking through the armour of our hearts and resting in that space we can put a warm blanket over our worries and concerns.
Our session focused on why we even have worries which goes back to a survival mechanism. When we lived outside in the bush there were real worries and threats. Our amygdala (the major processing centre for emotions) would kick into gear telling us to run away (flight) or fight. Our brain still does this with any perceived threat, sometimes we even freeze. It doesn't care if it is a real threat or not, the brain knows no difference.
So, we met our worry monsters and some of us gave them a name. The worry monster loves to say "What if?" all the time and lead us into a game of tug of war. It fills our mind with doubts and sometimes the worry monster wins so we won't go to that party we were looking forward to, or deliver that speech we had been practising every night for. The worry monster isn't a horrible monster. It's there because it thinks it is protecting us. Its goal is the 3 C's: Certainty, Comfort and Control. The thing is, there is very little certainty in this world. Many things are outside of our control and if we constantly seek comfort then we will never grow as people and growth is important. If we constantly run away from a challenge, the worry will become bigger and bigger until it causes anxiety.
I taught the girls some art I love to do called Zentangle. Zentangle is basically doodling in a relaxed setting. It helps us to take our mind off our worries. Basically, doing any focused activity we enjoy can do this.
Next week, we shall be learning how to stop playing tug of war with the worry monster by learning to think about the things we can control rather than the things that we can't.
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