Today’s Question:
Dear Alicia –
I have been experiencing high stress and anxiety and it is leaving me exhausted and emotionally on edge. I was wondering if you could give me some tools or practices to help? How do I access peace when I am so stressed? – Pursuing Peace
My Answer For You:
I could tell you to take some time and deeply breathe, to take off your shoes and plant you feet on the ground, to get out in nature and look for the beauty, or one of my favorite stress reducer, to meditate. In the Awakening to Your Story Book and Starter Kit we even use positive cellular memories to help you access the feelings on the other side of the stress and anxiety.
All of these things allow you to insert a shift in focus that slows down the momentum of stress and anxiety. Choosing methods like these can be very powerful ways to find relief from your symptoms. But what happens when the momentum behind the stress doesn’t seem stoppable? Well let’s take a deer look at the big picture.
Let’s start by looking at the object of your focus, that stress and anxiety. The usual instigator of stress and anxiety is fear. When fear creeps in it relentlessly pulls your focus. Fear holds many different kinds of voices that run through your mind. Before you know it, you think those voices of fear are telling you the truth, when really they are just echoing the limiting beliefs that you have picked up along the way. These limiting beliefs are fueled by fear and breed worry and anxiety all the while working to convince you are that you are not enough, worthy, or able.
Here is the thing about fear; it will always act in resistance to love. When you are in alignment with that divine source energy of love, all resistance falls away and you find yourself in flow and in harmony with that energy of life. This divine source energy of love was woven right into your humanity by your divinity and it acts as an inner compass always calling you back to that place of love.
Here are a few tell tale singed you will recognize about love; it is filled with synchronistic moments, soul tickling experiences, opens doors, and a tangible freedom of heart. Love holds all of your essential truth, always servers your higher good, and it is always an option. This is where the peace you are looking can be found. It is fundamental to you and is woven right into your being along with that divine source energy of love.
Fear contradicts all of these things and layers limiting beliefs on top them making it harder to access. When left unchecked fear and these layers of limiting beliefs create a focus that can make the peace you are looking, feel out of reach.
To access peace you have to find your way back to alignment with the source energy love. There are endless ways to do this but here are 5 tools that I think will help you.
TOOL NUMBER 1 – The Stream Kayak Principle.
We look at this principle a lot in first book Awakening to Your Story, which can be found on Amazon. The Awaking to Your Story Hand Book is a deep dive into this principle and offers you exercise to help you fully utilize it, that can be found on the website.
Here are the basics. Life is a river that flows downstream. The currant of the river of life is that divine source energy of love. On the river of life each person gets a boat and that boat is your consciousness. Everything you need to navigate the river of life can be found right there within your consciousness.
Knowing where you are in relationship to the river and your boat helps you identify the challenge for what it is, and offers you a visual that helps you find a way back to where you want to go.
The ideal situation is to be in your boat, inflow with the river, enjoying the journey, basking in your truth, and embodying the divine source energy of love. But often we find that there is trouble in the water.
- Paddling up stream, where you are fighting the currant of life.
- Two people in one boat, where you are struggling for control or are dependent on someone else to navigate your consciousness.
- Out of your boat, where you are flailing and drowning in the water.
All of these have their emotional and physical side effects; stress, anxiety, exhaustion, and fatigue. In any given experience if you can pause to find out where you are on the river of life, you can plot a way back to that ideal position. Using this principle helps neutralize some of the stress right off the bat. Some of your power returns just by looking at the bigger picture, seeing all the elements for what they are, and by finding your boat again in that picture.
Again the River of Life Handbook walks you through exercises for each scenario. If you want to do some deeper work I highly recommend using it.
TOOL NUMBER 2 – Make Your Stress Productive.
Acknowledge the stress as an indicator that something is out of alignment. The stress is there to help you, but you have to use it rather than let it become a way of life. Let it illustrate what you need, desire, and where you want to go. Let it help you find the language for the limiting beliefs that are ready to be released, and then let it help you build the language for your truth.
Change focus and slow down the momentum of stress by using it and making it build a path to your peace. This stressor isn’t happening to me it is happening to help me find clarity for what I want. And that leads us to number 3
TOOL NUMBER 3 – Know what you want
When you have an arsenal of stress filled thoughts coming at you it isn’t enough to just say you want peace. You have to know what you want as much as you know the stress. So after you make the stress productive and you let it give you langue for both sided, your job it to take the langue for what you want and run with it. Spell it out for yourself in every way possible.
Think about it, write about it, mediate or pray about it, day dream about it and let your heart dance with it and be tickled by it. Spending time building a connection to how these desires feel and what they offer you, not only gets you back in your boat and helps you connect to that source energy of love and truth, it then becomes your focus.
TOOL NUMBER 4 – The Power of Appreciation
Appreciation can help you get right back into your boat and have it pointing down stream almost instantaneously. In the midst of those stressors just start calling out things you appreciate. Count them down, even if you have to start by putting yourself in a time out, closing your eyes and putting your hands on your heart and just breathing. I appreciate my breath. I appreciate my heart beating. Then move outward appreciating anything and everything you can think of rapid-fire style.
This shifts your focus and allows you to plug right into the source energy of love. Then just keep reaching for appreciation one thought at a time.
TOOL NUMBER 5 – Your Thoughts – They Are Tools Too
Not only are they tools they are your greatest tools because your thought literally build your reality. So keep reaching for thoughts that feel better rather than replaying the old one that are tied to the limiting beliefs and fear.
Incremental shifts in thinking will get you there, you just keep on reaching one thought at a time. And before you know it your stress will have lifted and you will be feeling the way you want to.
Remember finding that inner peace is a process, but no matter where you find yourself it is always an option for you. Just keep noticing your thoughts and if they are fueled by love or by fear. Then keep reaching to build up the ones fueled by love.
You can do this. I know that you can… because it is how you were designed!
Keep showing up for your heart and know that until next time I am holding a place of love for you where your inner peace is undeniable.
As you watch the video or listen to the podcast version, know that I holding a place of love for you where your path to your truth is undeniable.
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