Finding Our Anchor
This week’s post is about gaining some control over anxious thoughts…
“You Can Think Or You Can Feel But You Cannot Do Both At The Same Time” Unknown
I came across this saying the other day and it has really struck me!
As someone who seems to constantly inhabit a busy headspace, I am always looking for ways to climb down and back into my body…
Because when I leave my thoughts behind, I get such a serene feeling… and there is the proof - once we interrupt thinking, it is then we can get to really feel!
This is why grounding techniques are so effective during times of high anxiety - because anxiety comes from the mind and lives in the future, but ‘grounding’ brings us back to our bodies and back to the present…
You can read more about my experience of anxiety and using grounding techniques here: “Anxiety Attack”
Mighty meditation
It’s also why meditation is so effective for our wellbeing, because it gives our ‘thinking mind’ a rest!
And meditation is not about totally stopping thoughts – that’s practically impossible because it’s what our minds are made to do! But it’s about letting them drift above us, rather than grabbing hold and riding off with them.
A great way to do this is to imagine our thoughts as clouds, that gently float above us… there’s no need to rise up to them, just know that they are there and let them go by…
Often in meditation we’re invited to pay attention to a physical aspect… like our breath; feeling the cool air gliding through our nostrils, or the soft, subtle micro-movements of our chest and stomach.
We can also focus on the feeling of our body connecting with the ground or chair, or the touch of clothing on our skin (hopefully nobody’s practising naked – but hey no judgement here, each to their own!)
It's called an ANCHOR… it’s a way of anchoring our awareness to the physical and the present – to feel rather than think!
Hello helpful earworm
And since I heard this phrase, it’s become stuck in my conscious, like a song playing on repeat, blasting out to me every so often… like a therapeutic “earworm”!
And this unique form of “earworm” actually helped me when I had one of my not-so-uncommon 3am wakeups!
I’ve posted before about this (with a special guest appearance by a bristly little visitor) in “The 3am Offload”
So, I woke up in the night and the thoughts started… accosted me and hijacked my hope of sleep by throwing loud, unhelpful thoughts into my conscious – as usual, worries of failings as a parent were most prominent (darn that mum-guilt!?)
And when I accepted that ignoring them was futile and sleep was getting more unlikely, I realised I had to change tactics and this is when that old stuck song began to play:
“You Can Think OR You Can FEEL But You Cannot Do Both At The Same Time”
So instead of racing off across the horizon with my thoughts, I dropped into my body and focussed on what I could feel – the air as I breathed… the rise and fall of my stomach… the softness of the covers keeping me warm…
And it did help, I did eventually get back to sleep… which felt like right before I needed to get up, of course!?!?
But these techniques don’t happen instantly, they take time… like life itself I guess, it takes practice and repetition, awareness and a good hunk of perseverance… but stick with it and see what happens…
Take care & much love,
Julie x
Here’s a quick grounding exercise by Dr. Julie that you can do anytime, anywhere!
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Feel free to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you 💗
Oh that quote spoke to me! I'm often way up in my head and since my recent illness have had to learn to be in my body more. It's an ongoing learning process.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here!
Beautiful. Thank you. 🙏 I have bouts with “restless leg syndrome” at night that seem to be getting worse as I get older. Sometimes though, I notice that it could be more about what’s going on in my mind than in my body.