With You, I Am Blessed: Accessing Spiritual Love and Managing Anxiety

As I walked into work yesterday, deep in thought about this post, which is a topic dear to my heart, I walked right out of my flats onto a rainy sidewalk–first the left one, then, while trying to recover, the right one. It seems like so much of life is about that kind of balance–something goes wrong, you lean to correct it, and you throw something else out of balance.

I was reminded of the adage “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re of no earthly good.” It is an adage that applies to me, as I often live between two worlds, Earth and Spirit, and disconnect from my body while dreaming of spiritual adventures, what I am reading, what I want to do with my life, thoughts of my cats, thoughts of Ryan Gosling, and Lord knows what else.

The incident made me chuckle out loud. There I was, in full ridiculousness, standing barefoot on a wet sidewalk with 4 blocks left to walk and 10 hours still to pretend I am a professional person who does not walk out of her shoes.

The reason I walked out of those shoes and forgot to focus on keeping them on my feet was that they are a half size too big and that I was thinking deeply at that moment of writing about the links between mediumship and anxiety–most importantly, how getting lost in your mindscape and not grounding yourself can lead to feelings of loneliness, despair, low self worth, panic attacks, loss of faith in God and the world around you and so much more–basically, the goblins of the mind closet are allowed free rein when we lose ourselves in potentials. I was losing myself in my mindscape while thinking about telling you good people not to lose yourselves in your mindscapes. It is an innately human action to lose yourself in your thoughts, and one that I suspect will always hound me in some form.

When an anxiety sufferer endures a panic attack, one of the most salient characteristics of that attack is the feeling of losing one’s mind, or feeling “unreal.” Clinical anxiety is a physical affliction born of psychological pain, and it strikes unbidden. It is stigmatized in American society, and sometimes blamed as a mask for other problems. People who are suffering from authentic anxiety attacks, however, believe that they are enduring a life-threatening event and/or possibly losing their minds. An anxiety attack is so malicious that it not only makes you feel like your connection to the world around you is unreal, it also numbs all of your extremities so that you physically as well as psychologically cannot feel the world around you and have no idea what is real and what is false.

As a beginning medium, I experienced what my sensei called “falling in.” I would meditate in a salt bath, move into a deep spiritual trance, and feel like I was floating, long after I came out of the bath. I remember sitting on the couch, holding a heart-shaped rock a friend had given me, and rubbing my feet on the ground to try to ground my energy. Beginning mediums can get lost in the intense connection to Spirit, in a really scary way. Grounding and protection techniques, which I will go over in this blog, are extremely important to practicing mediums, and can also assist anxiety sufferers.

The connection between beginning mediumship and anxiety tells us so much about the human condition. It is easy to get lost in your thoughts or your spirituality–to be so heavenly minded you are of no earthly good. The human condition is all about finding balance, homeostasis, in a place that is a blend of the physical and the spiritual. We are in and of love, so nothing can really separate us at the spiritual level–our higher selves never really leave home completely. My ego can be mad at you–honestly, my ego is capable of being mad at itself–but my spirit cannot be, because we are all one, we are all rooted in heavenly love.

Sometimes worry is necessary. Sometimes worry is an intuition trying to get your attention.  Just be aware of your thoughts–be aware of when you are worrying.  Stop and give that worry the attention it deserves–address it.  Nail it down.  Find out what you’re worrying about and why, and take the steps to fix the problem then and there or set a plan down.  Once you have done everything in your power to deal with the worry, you can and should release it–then you can tell yourself that it is not a real problem and do the real work of training your brain not to waste energy and time on a useless act.  Until you make it a habit, however, to meet worries head-on and then release them, they will continue to be the nasty little goblins in your mind closet that rob you of your peace. Worry is a sword blade that can cut to the truth of the matter or cut your hand when you pick it up–it is all about how you wield it.

I have a bulleted list of how to identify and treat an anxiety attack from start to finish that I will share with you in the coming posts–it is currently living as an appendix in the book I am working on. Most importantly, my advice to you tonight, spiritually and as a survivor of anxiety and depression, is exactly what you would expect: release and surrender. Until you identify what your higher power is and surrender to it, you will always hold yourself responsible for making the miracles in your life happen. Why not give that job to your higher power? Why not pledge to make small steps every day, to do your part, but announce to your higher power that you know you are not powerful enough to align fate and move mountains alone? Faith in itself is not powerful. Faith in itself, empty of action, is just hope that the world around you will change. It is nice, and sometimes yes, God intervenes with an incredible miracle. However, faith wielded most powerfully is simply showing the mind goblins the door. Faith is the refusal to buy into the status quo of “this is all I will ever be”–because if you take those small steps toward your dreams every day, they always add up to something more than what was there when you began. That is the real secret: if you try, you will always benefit from that effort. You throw a rock, you get a splash, for every action, there is an equal, but opposite, reaction. It is that simple.

If you have thought of making a change in your life, then I promise you, this is the sign you cannot ignore.

Your higher power is calling–all you have to do is step forward to pick up the receiver.

In love and light–Erica