If there’s one message that runs throughout my work on anxiety it’s this: You are not broken. Anxiety is not evidence of disorder but of exquisite, beautiful sensitivity gone awry. The belief that you’re broken is a core shame belief, and when we can heal the shame the encases anxiety, we can receive the tools that help us to work with it effectively. It’s what I expressed here when I was promoting my book, The Wisdom of Anxiety.
And it’s one of the primary areas that is healing in my course Break Free From Anxiety: A 9-month course on the art of living. As I’ve shared in previous posts, there are few things more healing than being in community with other like-minded people, receiving daily emails that speak to your areas of struggle, and receiving the roadmap that you should have received in school for how to attend to your thoughts and feelings skillfully and effectively, what it means to take personal responsibility, how to work with resistance, and much more.
It’s one thing to hear it from me, and another to hear it from course members. I’m delighted, touched, and humbled to share these words from Manuela in Germany, who just completed the 2023-4 round of this course last June. Manuela was an active member of the 9-month community, showing up for nearly every Zoom call, participating actively in both her small group and with her 1:1 study partner, and diligently reading the daily emails. Her commitment to her inner world paid off in spades, as you’ll read below. Thank you, dear, beautiful Manuela, for sharing your experience with the course here!
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I decided to join the Break Free From Anxiety 9-month course after I had completed the Healing the Mother Wound course. For me, it felt like a natural continuation. After realizing that I actually had a deep-seated mother wound, it dawned on me that this was also a reason for my long-standing anxiety, which had accompanied me since my early childhood. I didn’t realize until then that what I was feeling had a name and, more importantly, I wasn’t aware of how many people were struggling with similar feelings and thoughts. Wonderful people, personalities, so different and yet so similar.
This course really was mind-blowing for me – I had many aha moments, things and facts, thoughts and feelings that I had previously perceived ‘blurred’ but could never grasp suddenly became clear to me, were given a name and changed their impact on me.
“What If I’m Broken, Crazy, or Weird?”
One of my biggest fears and beliefs was that I am broken and therefore my daughter would be broken too because I couldn’t be a ‘good enough’ mum for her due to my brokenness. This belief weighed very heavily on me. The most important, life-changing realization was that I am not broken, crazy or otherwise weird, but that I suffer from symptoms that are the consequence of what I experienced in my childhood and early adult life. Unfortunately, I had not learnt the knowledge and skills that would have enabled me to respond appropriately, so anxiety has taken a place in the driver’s seat of my life.
Sheryl’s course has given me exactly that: a toolkit of knowledge, practices, spiritual rituals that enable me to take good care of myself and consequently of my daughter and my loved ones.
Also, I would never have thought that I am HSP because I am very extroverted and outgoing. I had always associated HSP with shy, quiet, introverted people. This realization also changed my attitude towards anxiety. To understand that it is not something inherently ‘bad’ that wants to harm me, but – as Sheryl says – has a message for me, wants to point out something that needs my attention and is part of my personality (and nothing to get rid of).
Warm, Safe, and Consistent Support
Sheryl’s warm-hearted, understanding attitude in the live calls (one of the highlights of the course for me) really touched me, her ability to respond to the most diverse characters and emotional states and to find suitable, sensitive words was very healing. The exchange in the small groups was a wonderful addition to the extensive material that was made available to us in the daily emails.
After completing the course, I am very grateful for the material that remains with me – I am currently re-reading the daily emails and it is amazing what new insights I still have afterwards. I consider it a great gift to have access to these emails for the rest of my life.
I am also grateful for my study partner, with whom I still communicate regularly – a beautiful, lively relationship has developed over the weeks and months, even though we live in different countries.
For me, Sheryl, her knowledge, personality, charisma and warm-hearted nature are a gift and I am very grateful that our paths have crossed.
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If you’re ready to go deeper into the tools, mindsets, and support that will help you heal anxiety at the root, please join us for Break Free From Anxiety. It’s through this course that hundreds of people have broken free of the shame lies to discover their core of goodness that has been there all along, which allows them to step into the flow of the life they’re meant to live. The same can be true for you. The next round starts on September 22, 2024, and I very much look forward to meeting you there.
The post Let’s Debunk One of Shame’s Greatest Lies first appeared on Conscious Transitions.