Anxiety is a word we’re now much more familiar with as a community – with so many anxieties triggers around us – the pandemic, political tensions, the war in Ukraine, and growing eco-anxiety about the planet – many of us are understandably concerned. These are obvious anxiety triggers but what about some of the “sleeper” anxiety triggers around us – things we don’t even know could be causing us anxiety? What are they and more importantly what can we do to manage them … from a quantum science and spiritual perspective?
Anxiety Triggers Are On The Rise
Why am I talking about anxiety? It is on the rise in our community. According to the World Health Organisation, “the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a 25% increase in anxiety and depression worldwide.”
Then we put on top of that political divisions, the war in Ukraine, fears about climate change and natural disasters – we had major floods in major parts of the east coast of Australia in February – it’s no wonder we are all a bit on edge.
Then couple that with some of these ‘sleeper triggers ’ and we have a situation we have to deal with.
We Can Manage Anxiety
Despite all of this I strongly feel we can do something about the anxiety we may be feeling. We don’t have to be ruled by it, we can live a great life despite experiencing it at times and the answers are much closer than we think.
How do I know that? Because I’ve done it. If you’ve listened to this podcast before you know I have successfully navigated anxiety and manage it now when it pops its head up.
I’ve lived a much happier life as a result … but my recent accident unexpectedly triggered my anxiety. It was a real shock for me to suddenly be snapped back into it.
As I look back at what happened to me it raised for me this idea of “sleeper anxiety triggers”.
What Are Sleeper Anxiety Triggers?
While it is clear major life events like divorce, losing a job, or death of a loved one can cause anxiety – sleeper anxiety triggers are those things around us things that could be causing anxiety and we don’t even know it. So what are some of these sleeper anxiety triggers?
Researcher shows anxiety can be triggered by things like:
- Caffeine
- Lack of routine
- Lack of sleep
- Lack of self-care.
Do any of these resonate with you?
I raise this not to create concern – but to create awareness that some simple things in life can possibly be anxiety triggers for us – and that there is absolutely something that we can do about it.
Understanding Anxiety Reduces the Shame of It
I also want to say at this point that talking about anxiety is something that can bring up uncomfortable feelings in us. I understand completely, yet I found the opposite to be true when I finally had a diagnosis of anxiety. I felt so relieved because I had been feeling so ashamed about my emotions and reactions to things. When I had that diagnosis I realise that there were other people like me and that something could be done about it … which I have done and continue to do.
What Triggered Me Recently?
So after years of doing well, my recent accident triggered my anxiety. If you want to hear the full story and what I learned listen to Episode 70 of this podcast.
To give you a quick recap in late January I had a very unglamorous accident – taking the bin out – that caused a lot of damage to my body. It was early morning and I was on my way to yoga when I thought “I’ll just take my bin to the street”. It had been raining the few days prior and I slipped over in some moss created by runoff and I hit the concrete really hard. So much so that I broke my pelvis in two places and my elbow.
I was in hospital for 9 days and couldn’t walk for three of them. I had elbow surgery and when I came home I was on a crutch and I couldn’t do anything for myself. I couldn’t even get myself a glass of water. I had a lot of support from my beautiful family but the massive pain triggered my anxiety in a way it hadn’t for years.
It was a shock – however, I can see how this accident was really meant for me – and how I was able to get some really beautiful downloads and realisations that I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to access.
5 Steps to Deal with Anxiety Triggers
I want to share with you now 5 steps for you to deal with triggers as you face them. At the same time I’ll explain the gifts my anxiety trigger delivered me as part of this.
1. Be Allowing Not Grasping – Be Rather than Do
My first experience of that anxiety overwhelms happened at about 11:30 pm one night in the hospital. I was in a fair amount of pain and at the maximum dose of painkillers when I started to feel overwhelmed. I could feel what was going on so I started to focus on my breath to calm down. I then started to meditate or pray with the intention of a breakthrough in terms of the pain. Initially, my meditation felt like I was desperate and grasping. It had an urgency to it that was laced with fear and anxiety.
Just as I was starting to feel anxious again I was suddenly filled with an incredible awareness that I was “praying the wrong way.” I needed to stop the grasping and searching and allow the love and support to flow into me. There was NOTHING I needed to do except allow.
What a gift and breakthrough and a change. Instead of doing all I needed was to “be” at the moment. It was an incredible awareness and gift.
I realised I didn’t need to reach out to get this beautiful support and love all I had to do was to allow it in. All I needed to do was to let this energy and love – that is around me all the time – in.
In that split second, I realised the love that is available to us is just like the air we breathe. It is our birthright. It is all around us. We can take it in – just as we take air in. It was such a relief that I drifted off to sleep straight away and then, any time I was woken by nurses in the night, I went back to that allowing state and drifted off again.
This was the first major gift of my anxiety and it resonates for me now in my daily life – I see when I get too much into the doing I veer away from “being” in love and ease into fear by “doing” and trying to manage or control an outcome.
Does any of this resonate with you? Is there a part of your life where you may be grasping, frustrated, or feel like you are working hard – when instead you could just allow the positive energy of love to flow to you? Is there a place in your life where perhaps you looking outside of yourself for the answers when all you need to do is to let the energy flow to you? What if we could accept the love that is all around us right now as we easily accept the air we breathe?
2. The Answers are Within Us – We Can Truly Access the Divine Within
My second tip for managing anxiety triggers is to realise the answers are within us – we can truly access the Divine within to help us with our anxiety … and all other areas of our life.
Now if the Divine is too spiritual a word for you – feel free to substitute another term that works for you like greater consciousness, higher intelligence or your higher self. Just sub that word in as I talk now.
My second anxiety experience was worse than the first, yet just as profound. It was in the early days of being home from the hospital. I’d just gone to bed when I started to experience the beginning of a panic attack as a result of the pain and the fatigue. Before I knew it my thoughts were off and racing in completely the wrong direction. The thought of the attack was as bad as the feelings it was creating – as memories of the attacks I’d had years before came flooding back to my mind.
I frankly couldn’t believe I was in this place again so I did what I knew I needed to do to calm my body down – doing specific breathing techniques and repeating my mantra. As my body started to calm I once again felt an incredible sense of knowing wash over me. This knowing said that if I’m a part of the Divine (which I‘d been saying for quite some time) then I could call upon my own Divinity to heal me. Instead of outsourcing the pain to a tablet, a doctor, or a carer I truly had the power within me to heal … if I chose to. It was time to insource not outsource.
I was electrified at the thought and remembered a healing meditation I’d read in Pete Sanders book You Are Psychic a year before. So I did it. I envisaged generating healing energy from inside my arm and also healing energy flowing into my arm. I’ve continued this meditation regularly and everyone, including my surgeon and hand therapist, has commented on how quickly and well I have healed. I’m on my way to a full recovery and extension of my arm when my surgeon had said my arm would not likely be straight again.
Yes, I have taken supplements and faithfully done the exercises they have asked – yet I’m sure my internal meditations accessing the divine have helped enormously.
This was a gift that is truly causing a major shift in my life. It has brought home to me again that we have the power within ourselves to not only heal – but also to create what we truly want in our lives. We have to stop looking outside ourselves to others for answers. Instead, we need to look inside for the vast storehouse of energy and creativity and love available – and start to use it!
I have talked intellectually about the idea we’re part of the divine in recent months but I really believe that this experience was sent to me for me to know:
- This divine energy exists inside me
- I could call upon that energy to help me heal
- I can access this energy in any part of my life – so instead of feeling scared or helpless (as I did that night) I could feel excited and joyful that I can take action
How does this resonate with you? What could you do if you “in-sourced” to your own divine energy, or higher self, rather than outsourced?
So in a nutshell my second strategy for managing anxiety triggers is to look inside and access the healing power of your mind and body rather than look outside for help from others – as we have been so conditioned to do. My next strategy is a powerful technique that shares how to do that.
3. You Can Calm Yourself Down
My third strategy for managing anxiety triggers is to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you can calm yourself down. How? By using breathing techniques and a simple mantra that you repeat to yourself.
This was my first breakthrough in managing my anxiety. Many years ago I realised I needed tools to be able to calm myself down in-between visits to a therapist.
Why does something as simple as our breath work?
Because it talks directly to our body in a way that our body can hear it. By using a calm, measured breath we are telling our autonomic nervous system that we no longer need to be in fight or flight mode. A calm, regular breath tells our physiology, and the crazy cocktail of stress hormones it sends out when it thinks it is under attack, that it’s ok to stand down.
For an example of a simple breathing technique, I regularly use click on the link below to access my “Calm in Three Minutes Meditation” here:
Linked to that breathing technique is using a simple mantra repeated often. The one that worked for me is “this too shall pass”. You can also use other simple techniques like repeating the word “peace” or allow”. Choose a word that really resonates for you.
These two techniques together gave me my big breakthrough with anxiety. When I used them regularly together I finally realised my anxiety was not going to suffocate me or take me under like I was going to be pulled under a big wave of the ocean.
I realised that if I created a lot of frustration, fear, anger, or resistance about what was going on it was only going to make things worse. So I really did step into the space of patience and I’m so glad that I did because it’s actually made my healing journey so much easier.
4. Your Thoughts Create Your Reality
A fourth strategy that helped me break through on my anxiety was to come to know that our thoughts create our reality. This is where quantum science comes in.
Quantum science tells us that we are all only energy and vibration and that where we focus our energy and thoughts will create our reality. Countless experiments have been done to prove the observer affects the observed. Dr Bruce Lipton says quantum science is the most tested branch of science in the world.
Quantum science was the doorway for me to heal my anxiety – not just manage my symptoms. I’ve spoken many times on this podcast about how holding specific frequencies like gratitude, trust, accepting, and allowing can help change our lives … not just deal with anxiety. To listen to the episodes on gratitude, trust, accepting, and allowing visit the blog associated with this podcast for links to those episodes or scroll back through your podcast feed.
Is there any area of your life where you could consciously raise your vibration so that you could feel even a little happier or lighter? Maybe you’ve had an issue with a family member or someone at work? Maybe something you want to manifest has not yet come to pass … and you feel frustrated by that … what could raising your vibration mean to that situation?
5. Forgive Yourself and Others
The final strategy for dealing with anxiety triggers I want to share with you is very simple … it is forgiveness.
Anxiety is often about what we have or haven’t done in the past, or what others have or haven’t done in the past to us, or for us. It is also about what we or others may, or may not, do in the future.
So a big part of healing anxiety is to forgive ourselves and others … for everything really.
Forgiveness allows us to raise our vibration and open our energy field up to love again – and away from the vibrations of anger, shame, fear and hurt that not forgiving ourselves, or others, makes us hang onto.
An important point here is that forgiveness does not mean you are letting the other person “get away with anything”. Remember karma is a thing – the truth of people’s actions will always catch up with them.
The power of forgiveness is that it releases us from the bondage of low vibrations.
In Australia, we have a saying that “you die of the poison, not of the snake bite”. So to forgive yourself, or someone else is to raise your vibration and let more light and more space in your life so that you can do what is right for you.
Is there any area of your life where you could forgive someone, or yourself, and in doing lighten your own load? And would lightening your load give you the space to feel happier or free to do something fun, inspired, or creative?
Over To You
As ever on this podcast it’s now time for me to hand this over to you I hope that you might have found some resonance with what I’ve shared with you today and I would love to hear your comments on the blog or on Instagram @jenramseyfreedom. You can also email me at hello@jenramsey.com. I’d really love to hear how this episode resonated with you. I’d also love to know what else you would like to hear me talk about on the podcast. I want to be sure it meets your needs. So I’m sending you lots of love until we speak again.
Jen xo
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