In the past week, I not only myself, felt my emotions go quite up and down: stress, worry, and joy and optimism; but I had two others in my circle express anxiousness and fear emotions as well and wondered if something was ‘in the air.’

A few weeks ago, I wrote about being anxious and my story from grade 8 drama class. How people cope with feeling anxious or having anxiety. Do you attempt to overcome in order to get to a desired goal or feeling on the other side of that anxious feeling? Do you simply disclose to people that you feel anxious or have anxiety and brush your hands clean of duty? ‘We’ll I’ve told them and that’s just how ‘I am.’ ‘

I always hesitate personally, with terminology like ‘I am’ or ‘i have’, as in I have anxiety. It just feels too permanent and like you are defining yourself and identifying as being that way. But what if you don’t always want to be that way? What if you recognize, well, occasionally I feel that, but I am certainly not that.

So if we are certainly not that, then we can have it fall into the status of simply being a ‘mood.’ And lately, I have felt like I have had a lot of moods! It must be some energy going around lately, if others expressed similar emotions and it wasn’t just me. Because of the algorithm on my Instagram of what type of content I view, a sponsored post popped up from Gaia. Gaia offers videos, documentaries etc that ‘empowers the global evolution of consciousness.’ This post offered a sign up to see some interviews and access to a summit of a few days of speakers and content. As I follow Dr. Joe Dispenza and the Heartmath institute, which were featured, I requested their free series. The Heartmath series of short videos is what I was very excited about. They explain coherence of the heart which simply means aligning your heart energy with your mind / thoughts and emotions, so the energies of all of these pieces are in sync. They have a ‘how to’ for quick coherence, which is a breathing and focused energy on the heart as a way to regulate the nervous system. Also a how to for a technique of ‘attitude breathing’ – when you feel an emotion that isn’t desirable, how to recognize it, direct breathing and energy at the heart, and replacing the feeling with a better feeling. This can help your mood, anxious feelings, and ultimately your nervous system as a whole. As it turns out, you can have all the positive thoughts in the world, but the affects of those thoughts have a lot more impact if your heart/ body is in alignment, in sync – in another word: coherent – with your mind. If your body feels in fight or flight mode, it’s quite difficult to change your nervous system with positive thoughts alone.

I share this because I find it so fascinating learning about these things and how to self regulate for better outcomes in our lives! Not to imply that I am an expert in any of this at all – I encourage anyone to look up resources and tips that will help you. You can just imagine how your life will improve with not only understanding but getting good at – being able to help yourself, because ultimately it’s no body else’s responsibility except your own.

Sending Love,

Devon