Harmony
How do people start these blogs?! I guess I'll start with introductions. I'm Athliea. Athliea means "cute little owl who brings good luck."
Everything in my life has been one big giant cluster of lessons. Teaching me, molding me, programing the way I think. In the last year all of it came to a head with a funny and not so funny marijuana addiction. A means to numb years of accumulated pain, that I had compartmentalized and tucked away nicely somewhere deep inside me. Wake and bake became my normal routine and there wasn't many moments where I was sober to deal with the waves of emotions that threatened to consume me.
It wasn't until I got clean in December of last year that I began to become even more conscious of what I was actually dealing with. Most of my trauma stemmed from the early years. I won't get into a consecutive fashion of spilling my guts, but as it comes up you'll get a glimpse of it. What I will say is that I'm alive; taking in air, turning my blue blood red.
Today I want to talk about my harmonization with the Air Element. I've been wanting to fight moments of anxiety. Trying to resist the impending feeling of dread and all the physical feelings that come with it. Like a cat trying to avoid a bath.
What I have learned is that when that wave swells and it curls at the top I have two choices: to try to stand against it, or learn to lean into the wave and get past it, depending on how big the wave is. I don't always get through them unscathed, sometimes I get caught in the current. That usually sends me into moments of bodily panic and unmoving. Kind of like being held a knife point.
But in these moments something inside guides me to breathe. To actually visualize the waves swell and break. Visualize the crash. Breathe in unison with the movement of the wave until the next one swells and I repeat the process. The process of becoming something that is not the body or the mind, but something more ancient and all consuming. It's the return to source, the source that permeates everything. That one frequency where pain isn't actually pain but more of an understanding of truths and untruths. Where I can acknowledge my pain without judgement, without the need to label myself the victim and where unconditional love accumulates.
Does it "cure" me of my anxiety? No, but it allows me to move again, to take steps toward integrating with the flow of life. It leads me back to this moment where there is an eternity of endless possibilities. It leads me to creating my life, and being okay with being anxious when it arises.
Breath Exercise for the Day:
Inhale in for four (count to four in your head), hold for four (hold, two, three, four), exhale for eight (out two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.)
With every count picture the wave. For the inhale the wave grows, for the hold the wave peaks, for the exhale the wave releases.
All the Best,
Athilea