I was super anxious when I first approached women.
Women will always say something that triggers a painful reaction inside me. Then I forget what to say and give up on the conversation.
This pattern repeated over and over again.
I started doing shadow work and realized that this shrinking reaction I had was a protection strategy. A strategy I used in childhood to protect myself from the unpredictable behaviour of my mom.
After realizing that, I took every conversation with women as a personal growth challenge.
I started relaxing into the painful reactions inside me that I felt during the conversation instead of contracting.
With that internal shift, I became more relaxed with women and started connecting deeply with them.
Before we dive into today’s letter:
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Now, back to the letter again..
The era of reactive humans:
Most of us live in a state of constant tension.
We have a fixed set of reactions to almost everything that happens in the outside world. To the news, traffic, weather, people, and everything else.
These reactions of confrontation or escapism you have don’t even relate much to the situation at hand.
It is a reactive behavior pattern you formed during childhood to protect yourself from the emotional pain caused by the behaviors of your parents/caretakers.
These protection patterns keep you from feeling into the emotionally vulnerable parts within you.
But these emotionally vulnerable parts subconsciously feed your nervous system with fear, worry, and anxiety.
This is why most people feel so unsafe and anxious nowadays.
They try to micromanage everything externally, from people to situations, to make themselves feel somewhat safe, and it never works out as their nervous system is still fried.
Snowballing problems:
As long as you stay in the reactive mode, you will only amplify your problems and make your life more miserable.
Because your reactions will trigger other people’s reactions, and it becomes a vicious cycle.
That’s why all these toxic patterns repeat in your relationships.
For example:
Let’s say there is a vulnerable part within you that is afraid of loneliness.
You protect that part by always trying to be in a relationship so you never feel lonely. You create all kinds of manipulative strategies to make them stay in your life.
At some point, your partner will feel suffocated by your attachment style and leave you.
This triggers the pain of loneliness within you, and you chase another person, continuing this vicious cycle and adding more anxiety and pain to your life.
Tap into solutions with relaxation:
There is a solution to all this self-inflicted suffering:
The solution is learning to relax when you feel the emotional pain instead of contracting and desperately trying to cope with the pain.
When you try to cope, you will only find things that will bring you temporary relief. And you will get addicted to those things.
When you relax into the pain, you will learn from the situation/experience and understand why the pain exists, helping you tap into insights that will bring holistic solutions.
Applying this to the previous example:
When you relax into feeling lonely, you will understand how you used people to avoid loneliness and start to create a more healthy relationship with yourself before committing to another relationship.
As relaxation becomes your practice, you will become more peaceful, clear, and energetic.
Living at ease:
Here are 3 steps on how you can live life with more ease by practicing relaxation:
Step 1: Pause
When you feel the urge to react by becoming confrontational or coping with the situation by escaping, Pause.
Even if you have already reacted unconsciously, pause without continuing the loop of reactions when you catch yourself.
Pausing without reacting will be hard at first. But it will become easier with practice.
Step 2: Relax
Pausing makes you notice and feel the pain that triggers the reaction in the first place.
When your body contracts and tries to escape the pain, relax.
By relaxing, I mean loosening up your body and shifting from fast shallow breathing to breathing naturally and deeply.
When you practice relaxation, emotions will naturally shift from being dense to light.
This very act will shift your physiology out of fight or flight and bring safety into your nervous system.
Step 3: Relieve
At some point, learning to relax into the situation, your mind will become more clear.
Now, you will clearly see the reality of the situation without the filters of the past and will have access to insights and perspectives to address and solve the situation.
Because creativity comes alive when you are relaxed, not when tensed.
This is how you learn and grow from any situation in your life that brings you anxiety and suffering and tap into deeper levels of peace and harmony.
Sending you all the love and healing.
Thank you
Pranav
P.S. If you are tired of trying to heal your anxiety, watch this 18-minute training that reveals 3 fundamental things that will help you heal your anxiety for life.
