Anxiety to Clarity to Lesson Learned

I just brought myself out of a nice, long, hot bath, full of dead sea salt.  I have been told that sea salt balances your energy.  And my energy needed balancing.  Immediately.

Just last week I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  Anxiety for me has been coming on stronger and stronger within the past 8 or so months.  Even more so, the past 3.  I work diligently on my spirituality and my meditation, however unfortunately, now I need medication to get me through these bouts of anxiety.  Getting hold of what is the root of it is my ultimate goal.  I do not want to take medication at all. 

What I ask is the spiritual lesson, the spiritual gift in this condition?

Maybe more faith, less thinking.  Too much thinking can cause great discomfort for me at times.  I know that I have been going through many changes within the past few months.  The most obvious is the moving in with my significant other of one and a half years.  Children.  They, as I have made reference to in previous posts, are a part of my life now.  I can't imagine loving two amazing boys more than I do these two.  But, what a shift in my life.  46, never married, and without children.  That is my history.  There have been situations in the past when I co-habitated with lovers, but never anything like this.  This, I imagine, is the closest I have ever been to being married.  At least it feels this way.  So, in comes the anxiety.  Am I doing enough, and why aren't I doing more?  This anxiety can get it's grip on me and I do feel immobilized at times.  I want to be perfect for them.  How unreasonable is this?  There is no perfect.  I know this.  But I so want to be a positive, consistently available and loving presence in their lives.  I want them to know they can always depend on me.  This brings me to the human side.  I am fallible.  Human, I make mistakes, I can't do it all, and sometimes with anxiety, I can't do anything.  So here I am trying to find balance without beating myself up.  Allowing what needs to happen, happen, in the natural flow of things, without forcing them.

I cried this morning before my bath.  I felt stuck.  My best friend texted me and said, "Cry, let it out, it's what you need and SOAK, relax, do this for yourself."....I did exactly this.  And between heeding this advice and the sea salt soak, I now feel incredibly balanced again.  I did let it out, the anxiety turned to tears, to sobs, to drowning the tears in a bath of gentle, warm water.  I feel so much better.  This is why I am able to write now.  Before all of this, I was so blocked.  Nothing could come out of me or through me.  Amen.  Amen for the miracles of taking action even when I don't feel like it.  It was, after all, all I could do to run the water.  Now, what a shift. 

So, a spiritual lesson...anxiety will not kill me, it is not my forever.  Having faith to force myself into a different situation, i.e. drawing a bath, can work even the smallest miracle in my life.  I do feel like I can take care of things which need to be done today.  My energy is clearer, more balanced.  I feel spiritually safe and sound.  For this I am grateful.

Now, on to living.  Free from the gnawing panic, free to express myself and feel beautiful while doing it.  Taking the next right action, yes, this is what it's about.  Bath or no bath, the lesson was well learned.

Be blessed in every way,
Sharon Asheton