Anxiety, Overwhelm & Exhaustion: Turning private pain into healing service

My first Three-Month Intensive Client.

It’s Monday morning, 6:30 AM, time to get up for work.  You wake up with a heavy, constricting sense of dread that you can’t explain, and can’t shake.  You haven’t even opened your eyes, and already your chest is tight, and your stomach feels like you ate concrete that hardened overnight.  You scooch your legs to the edge of the bed, cautiously entering the world, and hesitate before putting your feet on the ground.  What if?  You lean over the edge and see that nothing is threatening on the ground or underneath the bed. 

In the bathroom, you feel a surge of panic at the thought that you might accidentally look at yourself in the mirror when brushing your teeth.  How can you trust yourself?  Just by thinking about it, you planted the seed in your subconscious to do it.  It would only take a millisecond glance to see something horrifying in the mirror, an evil grin that doesn’t belong to you.  Something is always waiting for you to make a mistake so it can pull you into a nightmare. 

There’s no music on your drive to your work.  There’s been no music in your life for a long time, only the comforting hum of the voices you recognize on public radio.  Even your remote companions don’t offer ease or permission to rest back in the driver’s seat.  Your neck and shoulders are tight, you're vigilant. At any point, they could talk about a full moon, reference some unexplained phenomenon, or say a word that starts with the letters “ex.”  Any one of these things (and plenty more!) will cause your heart to pound out of your chest, your breath to feel like it’s actively fighting against your survival, and instill an overwhelming sense of terror.   

Let’s stop there… at the very beginning of your day.  You’re not even a few miles from home, and you’re already anxious, overwhelmed, and exhausted. 

This was my life when I was in the most active part of an episode of anxiety that lasted two years in its most debilitating form, and from which it took another three years to journey back to myself. 

I’ve been visited by anxiety since I was a little girl, but I never told anyone, and it had no name.  It came and went in waves, lasting anywhere from three months to a year, sometimes destabilizing and disorienting, and sometimes just exasperating and discomforting.  There were some years with no waves at all.   

While this was a painful and frightening time for me, it was also a powerfully fertile time. 

While this was a painful and frightening time for me, it was also a powerfully fertile time.  Talk therapy, yoga, and, most effectively, yoga therapy*, were opening me up, revealing truth, and laying a path.  Most days, it felt like I was on a surgeon’s table with a deep incision down the front of my body, revealing, not organs, but a soft, warm, thick layer of humus-rich soil.  I felt raw, vulnerable, and exposed.  Even when I was in public, I felt like people could see my insides.  While it was perilous and uncertain, I knew a garden was being planted.  A place where I was safe and free to move through and enjoy life without fear and unnecessary suffering. 

*Yoga therapy derives from a yogic approach to the mind and behavior.  It’s a holistic form of therapy that involves partnership with the body and the nervous system to understand ourselves and engage in life change.  Learn more here. 

My garden was planted one painstaking seed at a time.  You read about my morning!  In just a few hours, I encountered several opportunities for physical, mental, emotional, and energetic discomfort – I hadn’t even officially started my day!   Each discomfort was an opportunity.  I eventually learned how to be with my anxiety as it arose in order to demystify it, appreciate it, alchemize it, and move beyond it. 

When anxiety was at its zenith, about 18 months in, I recognized I needed help, finally named this uncomfortable, intrusive thing, and started to do the work.    

The study and practice of yoga therapy were the most accessible, supportive, and catalyzing for me, with me always.

The study and practice of yoga therapy were the most accessible, supportive, and catalyzing for me, with me always.  My choice to steep myself in it greatly enhanced my ability and the speed with which I was able to not only look at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth, but joke and laugh with my husband as I did.  I had no idea that while I was learning, developing skills to regulate and support myself to live free of fear and suffering, I was also awakening and blossoming into the person who would bring this service to the world.   

I was my first yoga therapy client.  The experience and demands of my condition lay the foundation for my Three-Month Intensive program. 

• Immersion in learning a new way of being.

• Relentless presence and awareness, consistently prepared to participate in self-support as anxious experiences arose (dozens daily). 

• Moving and learning through my body daily. 

• Leaning heavily and often on my breath, and building a relationship with my breath of reciprocity and trust. 

It wasn’t a once-a-week-for-an-hour journey.  It was every day, all day.

It wasn’t a once-a-week-for-an-hour journey.  It was every day, all day.  That’s why I built so much support into the three-month intensive I offer clients.  Some conditions, experiences, and people need it!  And anyone can benefit from a three-month deep dive into themselves, their power, and potential. The Intensive can support them and continue to influence and uplift all their future efforts. 

In the Intensive, I offer recordings, resources, and a digital app to provide easy access to many diverse opportunities to engage in the change my clients want to see in their lives.  But, by far the most important part of it is the access they have to me.  I can be there in those moments in between.  In addition to helping my clients process and move forward as things arise, I am also a friendly reminder and instant accountability partner.  We have busy lives.  We have so much that we’re holding and managing, it can seem all but impossible to remember to do the work for ourselves to meet the moment and transcend what’s keeping us stuck.   I love that I can help with that!

I never asked for my experience with anxiety.  It challenged my identity and the stories I told about myself as strong, independent, confident, and happy.  It caused me to reframe my relationship with my past and rebuild my sense of Self and knowing.  It hurt.  It was ugly and messy.  I didn’t always like myself.  And to be honest, it was an enormous inconvenience!!!! 

I wouldn’t change it.  It opened me up.  My garden is wild and beautiful, and I’m nurturing it and harvesting daily.  I experience a pervasive peace and knowing that I will be alright.  So, I built a program for conditions, experiences, and people just like me who need more, deserve more, and have a right to freedom and unapologetic joy. 

If you'd like to learn more about:

Me... Let's connect! Click below.

My embodied approach to mental health and thriving... Learn more at oggibe.com and make sure to check out the FAQs!

The Three-Month Intensive... Check out this page and this short video!

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