Nervousness and anxiety have been my all too often companions. For most of my life I have been a nervous, anxious person, though not on the surface, as I learnt to disguise it quite well… or so I thought.
I lived as a scared little boy for many years. Not all the time, just at certain times: always doing things to please other people, looking for recognition, not doing things because I was scared of being wrong or shown to be less.
This way of living was very detrimental to my health and wellbeing. Anxiety would cause nausea, tiredness and feelings of not being good enough, always doubting myself, going to the point of self-loathing. Feeling anxious or nervous was my ‘normal’.
This way of living never felt right, yet I let it become a part of me, ingrained in everything I did or did not do. The choices I was making in how I lived came from a man already in anxiety, constantly worrying about the future. Making those choices I would very rarely be the gentle, tender and loving man that I am.
When I needed to communicate with people, whether it was work, sport or any other relationship, I always put myself beneath or as less than the other person. I put myself in a position of already thinking that I had been hurt, believing therefore I was not able to get hurt by anything they said. I convinced myself that I was not their equal.
In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.
Confrontation scared the pants off me. I would do anything to avoid confrontation when communicating with people, even when playing sport. The funny thing is, sport by nature is confrontational.
Despite this I really enjoyed playing sport: in fact many times I would have said that sport was my life, but even in this, my anxiety about needing to please, to not be wrong and not being good enough, affected how I played sport.
I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing. I always looked at sport as being my time – an opportunity to be what I thought was myself, not having to worry about what was going on in my life. What an illusion!
As I sit and feel these things about the way I have lived, I do not dream about what might have been, but look to what is. Nervousness and anxiety occur less frequently these days, but I feel more what it does to me and how it affects me. Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in.
I can now feel how my being caught up in nervousness and anxiety affects people around me. It makes people feel uncomfortable, I have difficulty saying exactly what I want to say, and what I say can sometimes be confusing because I hold back on what needs to be said.
I water it down to minimise what I think the reaction may be from the other person.
The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.
For someone like me, who has lived with the fear of becoming anxious, this understanding helps me stay more present in my body and takes away the thought of becoming anxious.
Through Universal Medicine presentations, Esoteric Practitioners and the College of Universal Medicine (who ran a course ‘Understanding Anxiety in Men’), I am able to recognise and understand the anxiety and nervousness when they start to appear.
I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.
Whilst I am not completely clear of anxiety and nervousness, I do feel that I deal with them in a way that has less of an effect on me. This is something I need to continue working on, building my relationship with myself.
I still feel like that little nervous boy occasionally, but I have a greater awareness of what is going on, which allows me to look at the choices that are there for me to make.
I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no.
More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me. Because of this they do not control me and I do not fear them, but I can accept that there is an energy there, and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.
I would like to thank Serge Benhayon for inspiring me to make changes in my life.
By Brian Piper, 58, Greenkeeper/Horticulturist, Byron Bay
Further Reading:
Beating Anxiety Gentle Breath Meditation
Anxious Much?
Anxiety is Not Something You Have To Live With – There Is Another Way
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
“More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me.” Reclaiming the truth of who we are is very enriching for us and those around us.
Anxiousness and anxiety will never truly be gone from my life. However, how I deal with it, how present I am with myself gets stronger and the negative feelings have less chance to stick and control me.
Scared or sacred? it’s our choice!
Thank you Brian, being owned by our nervous system plays havoc with the rest of our bodies and sets us up to play sports for the recognition, which then come with comparison further disconnecting us from our essence and a True relationship with our whole bodies that we can have.
Living in nervous system energy does play havoc with our health and body, ‘This way of living was very detrimental to my health and wellbeing.’
“In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked.” I feel that the education system has a lot to do with these kinds of feelings, everything is very black and white in education, you are either wrong or right, instead of it honouring the different types of expression we each have and honouring who we are.
Thank you Melinda, and may I add that we are also taken away from the natural cycle and our relationship with the constellations.
What kind of education system do we have that fosters this way of feeling and behaving, ‘ not doing things because I was scared of being wrong or shown to be less.’
We can so easily search for a relief, a remedy for whatever is coming up for us but in doing so we lock ourselves in to both the remedy and the underlying thing that led us there in the first place. Taking time to allow ourselves to feel what is there and allowing ourselves to observe and notice how we get there as described here is both honest and offers us the opportunity to heal, anything else is just covering it up and does nothing for us in the long term and is just perpetuating the illusion of coping.
Plants and animals don’t answer back, nature and the animal kingdom doesn’t abuse us, so working with them is sometimes, perhaps often than working with humans! Animals and nature also reflect a level of relationships with cycles that we know deep down inside is our relationship as well.
Wow I can completely relate to many of the things you’ve felt – and I love how you’ve brought it back to a choice – and a question of what we accept in our lives and what we don’t.
I am sure many of us can relate to this underlying anxiety that affects everything about the way you live. I was inspired by the level of awareness you have about how the anxiousness affects other people. So often when you are anxious you are so focussed on the tension in you that you can’t see how it affects others.
“I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” Realising we are so much more than the emotions we take on is very empowering.
” I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing. I always looked at sport as being my time – an opportunity to be what I thought was myself, not having to worry about what was going on in my life. What an illusion!” I too have had a similar experience however when I am honest about it with myself, I used sport in order to run away, and as a result it took me further away from myself.
‘I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me.’ This is a great awareness to come to Brian, often people identify with their nervousness or anxiety as being who they are when in truth we always have a choice if we say yes to this or not, by simply being more present and connected with our body that choice becomes more simple.
Until we start to understand that anxiousness is an epidemic through out the world we will we simply applying Band-Aids to the multitude of boils that erupt on the skin of humanity
A great point here, we can fight what we feel but that doesn’t really do anything more supportive to in fact see where we’ve actually let it in – very well said.
Yes, we can fight it and not learn, or we can surrender and learn. I know which one has been more empowering in my life.
“I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok” – this is such a great insight exposing our cunning spirit, giving itself an alibi not to live its true essence.
The spirit can run the show, and bring in false beliefs to hold us back, ‘I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked.’
Although we are not a blank slate and we are not creators, in a sense we are both, because we exercise the art of drawing how we are going to confine ourselves.
I love this Brian . . . ” I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me”. . . as connection to who we truly are deep within is about hopping into our body and knowing we are enough as we are.
I love what you are sharing here about being aware of the energy that runs through us and that we have a choice about being aware of that or not. To not be aware leaves us at the mercy of that energy constantly wondering how we can deal with anxiety, how we can reduce the symptoms. Conversely, to be aware of the energy running through us means we acknowledge there is a feeling we are ill-at-ease with, to know it is not who we are and then track back to see why that feeling is there. Becoming a detective of ourselves and our behaviours is actually lots of fun.
Learning to live without out of fear of getting things wrong or the need of recognition has been a liberation from the shackles of self-doubt. This has only been possible through my willingness to resolve and heal my unresolved hurts with the loving support and guidance from the Benhayon family, the Universal Medicine presentations and practicing The Way of The Livingness.
You highlight a great point here Brian that we always have a choice, often we feel powerless when we get anxious but if we stay connected to the body during these times we can stop the overwhelm and simply return to our breath.
I know that feeling well when coming to speak in public (although less now than it has ever been in the past)…. a tremulous approach, especially in the minute or so before I’m actually going to speak, where I can hear my heart beat, I’m a little distracted from being present, a little more tense. And when I allow this to play out it cuts me off – what I may have communicated a few minutes before in conversation becomes jumbled up and does not flow so freely. I can feel it, and everyone loses out. So why? Deep down its because I am worried about what people might think of me… its all about my self, my image… so strange to consider what a self fulfilling prophecy it is when we do tighten up. Far better to simply be ourselves, allow the flow, express what we feel fully and at least give it a go at living as ourselves.
Nervousness and Anxiety are such powerful instruments that our spirit uses to keep us from being the powerful, claimed, gorgeous and loving being we all are.
So powerful to stop, feel and allow ourselves to get aware of what is going on for us.
‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’
I can relate here to what you are sharing about dancing around to life’s tune and trying to be liked and accepted by others around us/outside of us, rather than just connecting to our bodies and what we actually feel for ourselves and then living this from inside out. I have tried both ways of living and I know for sure that the latter is a much more free and less anxious way to live.
Many people get caught in seeking recognition and acceptance from outside, ‘always doing things to please other people, looking for recognition’.
I have also heard people shared that they are anxious about going into anxiety. This shows how crippling anxiety can be if we do not heal the root cause of anxiety.
When we get lost in anxiousness we also get lost in the thoughts in our head. Brian, I loved the honesty that you shared in this blog, particularly what you said on the importance of being aware of our presence and our body and how it is a great antidote to anxiety.
Yes I can relate to this – when I make decisions based on fear or anxiety they are rarely wise ones and I am in the constant doubt that I have made the correct choice. However when I make a decision based on a connection with me and a stillness or steadiness within, I have no doubt about it and the outcome of these choices is always wiser and better in the sense that I always learn more from what happens next.
Making a decision based on fear and anxiety means we rarely bring all we have to bring in that moment for fear of rejection, so it is always a version of what we want to say and not the fullness that is there to be shared. I very timely reminder, thank you!
‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’ This is so important for it cuts judgement, and gives us space to observe where we are, to feel it and to consider how we’ve moved and the choices that have led us there, very different from getting overwhelmed and beating ourselves up about how we feel.
The more we hold back from saying what is inside us to say the more anxious we become.
You are not alone in this Brian. There is a huge force within society for us all to express and live less than who we truly are – that living less looks different on different people but the result is the same!
Beautiful what you have shared here Brian, thank you. I have lived with anxiety most of my life and was very good at covering it up, I was living how I thought I should be and worried about getting it wrong. As I connect to more of me and accept that I am ok just being me my anxiety has somewhat lessened, anxiety is not me and when it happens again I will look to see how I have let it in to rule me. “and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.”
I can see this is about giving ourselves permission to see we actually feel everything, seen, unseen, heard or unheard. We are moving in the same water and if someone is angry it creates tidal waves of imposing energy around them, if they have deep sadness it creates a similar tidal wave – everyone feels it. Our emotions and our way of living are not contained to ourselves and we are feeling or sensing all of them all of the time. If we can contemplate that, we can start to understand why we live with anxiety and consider it normal – the constant assessing of what we are sensing without being able to openly or privately have the skills to recognise what we are feeling.
Yes, how many people are walking around thinking anxiety is their normal? low level anxiety permeates so much of our everyday existence if we do not notice that we are constantly assessing the risk and the potential danger every situation and person presents to get hurt. It is a great conversation to start and a life skill to be able to consider this as a possibility
“I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.” I just wonder how many children grow up thinking this is the easier way to look at life?
Seeing nervousness and anxiety as useful indicators of something that we have let in supports us to feel that we have a choice whether to continue running with them or come back to ourselves. In this way they serve a purpose and now I am finally admitting to how much they have previously dominated my life I can also welcome when they make a reappearance as showing me where I have not been true to myself.
” I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.”
This is lovely Brian using the awareness of anxiousness and nervousness as a marker to alert yourself as to where you have withdrawn from being the full you.
Nervousness and anxiety have a crippling effect on the body, through which if we are open to it offer us the opportunity to explore the choices we have made for us to be at this point. I had suffered with anxiety for most of my life but kept this to myself. I now realise that this was because I did not appreciate who I was, that I was enough. In beginning to love and honor who I was, my relationship with my confidence grew stronger and stronger, whilst the anxiety become less and less. I now know that when I can feel anxiety begin to take hold, I have given myself away at some point, and simply focus again on what I know is true, that being who I am is everything.
Brilliant Carola, very well explained and makes so much sense. When we feel anxious sometimes we can blame things outside of us but in truth like you’ve shared, there was a point where we have given ourselves away that then allows the anxiety to creep in. This means we have the power to also expel anxiety out of our body by simply choosing to reconnect to ourselves and to our body.
That is what I am developing too, to know and feel I am enough and appreciate me and the qualities I bring and my confidence is getting stronger and based on truth. When I do feel anxiety indeed I have given myself away and stepped out of the relationship with my body and the values I hold so dearly.
What you share here is super beautiful Brian, and what struck me most by reading through your words today where the tenderness and spaciousness that are allowed when we simply look at what is, instead of what could have been. “As I sit and feel these things about the way I have lived, I do not dream about what might have been, but look to what is.”
Reading this gave me the realisation that when I did martial arts, I was doing it from the stance of defence and not expecting to win. Which is how I have lived most of my life waiting for the attack – being ready so to speak. Since attending Universal Medicine workshops, I have come to know how exhausting it is and that there is no need to be living this way
You give a beautiful example of how much we are trained to be ready and prepared for life in that we can strike back and come to no harm. And yet there is another way, a way of responding rather than reacting, a way of living that is natural to us. And that is what Universal Medicine is about and presents.
Great observation – we brace for impact even though there is none or it is entirely of our own creation.
Sometimes words talk to each other across languages. A disguise leads always to a desaguisado (in Spanish=mess in English).
“The choices I was making in how I lived came from a man already in anxiety, constantly worrying about the future”. This really is key to know that while we are in the same spin, we will continue to have the same outcomes. This is where Esoteric modalities are so vital, to support us to clear our body of past patterns, so we have a clearer perspective and way forward.
It’s a profound moment when we realise that nervousness and anxiety are states we allow to run our bodies and our minds and that therefore there are other choices on offer to us which leave these emotional reactions behind and instead deliver more positive, life-enhancing outcomes.
It is great to read how you have chosen to say yes to yourself and love, and no to anxiety and nervousness, ‘More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me. Because of this they do not control me and I do not fear them, but I can accept that there is an energy there, and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.’
Articles like this that clearly demonstrate that anxiety is a choice are priceless. In our communities, anxiety is behind many a conflict, short temper, burst of anger and need to control, to name a few of the ways we outwardly live to supposedly hide our anxiety. Is it possible to ponder on how much our communities would change if anxiety was not behind such behaviors, is it possible these behaviors would no longer exist?
Understanding ourselves by building a relationship with our inner self and our body makes sense, ‘The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.’
There is only one life and one relationship. Expressing in my fullness in one area requires me to express in such equal fullness in all areas in life, and if I do not, the consequences affect every single area in my life and Istart to doubt and feel tension and anxiousness, this is my personal experience.
” More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me. Because of this they do not control me and I do not fear them, but I can accept that there is an energy there, and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” This is so beautiful Brian thank you for sharing you are a beautiful man.
We have a choice, ‘anxiety and nervousness, or me’. When looked at in isolation that is a bit of a no-brainer choice isn’t it? We would say someone was not of right mind if they chose not to be themselves. Yet I would propose it is much more the norm to not be ourselves than to be ourselves! What does that say about us as a society?
‘In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.’ How amazing you can share this with us and be honest about a pattern that hide away your true self but made you feel safe. When we build a deeper connection with what lives inside our body this makes no sense at all, this connection is very solid and it supports us to deal with the anxiousness, to observe and hold ourselves.
As we start to understand and love ourselves more we can see patterns and behaviours that are not loving and do not foster our amazingness, and so have a choice to let these go.
Here you show just how debilitating anxiety or anxiousness can be. What I have come to understand is just how many of us are living in some form of anxiousness even if it is low grade. I would have never considered myself to be an anxious person but when my relationship with myself started to deepen (with thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine) and I was becoming more honest with myself and what I was feeling I could feel how it had always been there in my body and just how much I accepted this as being normal. I love that you say you ask yourself what have you been doing that let anxiety in, this is so empowering as it also asks us to take a few steps back and evaluate what has happened in our life and how we have reacted as well as why have we reacted.
“In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place”. I recognise this trait in myself too – and am so grateful for Universal Medicine enabling me to understand we are all equal. The anxiousness about getting it wrong etc pervades when I am making it all about me. When I am making it about everyone – the ‘me’ disappears as does the anxiousness.
I used to think anxiety was part of life. Just the way things are. When the possibility was first presented to me that it was something I chose, I didn’t like it. I figured I was an intelligent person, who couldn’t possibly make a choice that would make me so miserable. It couldn’t be true. It was very empowering when I eventually realised I did have a choice, and started to connect to the intelligence of my whole body, not just the head.
It is crazy how we make ourselves less, ‘stupid’ or ‘wrong’ in order that we don’t have to shine .. stand out from the crowd. No trying is needed we just need to be who we truly are and it seems that our relationship with the body is key for this including many many things such as true expression and healing anxiety ‘The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.’ It is great to hear you are allowing you to be you more and more with no apology.
Yes Vicky, this relationship in the body is the most honest best friend we could have. It is the only friend that is with us 24/7 and therefore the only one we should be listening to. How much we want to hear what it has to say is another matter. Therefore developing that relationship again, returning to the awareness we had as children is worth pursuing.
“I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing.” As I have played sports to I was wondering how that was for me and in fact I have to admit that I liked sport when it was easy to win and started to dislike it when it was more difficult to win and we were losing more and more as we were rising in the competition. Actually you could say that I disliked losing as the energy in the team then became very uncomfortable as we were not able to express to one another how this felt to us and because of this inability we all held back in our expression and became very silent. In contrary, winning felt so much different and much better to handle as we as a team where proud on ourselves and could celebrate this. Interesting to look at know as actually winning and losing are one and the same as actually do not exist but in our mind we do make something of it what it is not and connect our worth to it. You could say that sport is the externalisation of the inner competition that looks for recognition and reward if we lack the worth for ourselves from deep within.
“As I sit and feel these things about the way I have lived, I do not dream about what might have been, but look to what is.” This is a great advice in itself, to sit and reflect and not go and escape into thoughts and could have beens or could bes.
Thank you Brian, what I feel reading you is a man with huge sensitivity. Sometimes what we feel around us is overwhelming and in the process of managing the situation, anxiety appears. I find that what you share here is key: staying present in our body is a great support to not lose our presence
My greatest frustration in myself when I’m nervous is realising that it changes me, it puts this awkward filter between me and the world so as I try to express things they end up coming out a bit pear shaped, odd, stunted. Not by any means my full natural (and playful) self, and so what gets communicated is so much reduced.
Indeed Simon, I do recognise that. Actually it feels like we are reducing ourselves to fit into a situation and to not show the clear and all encompassing insight we have naturally available to us which actually needed to be expressed instead.
It’s quite a predicament that we have also many layers above our natural stillness and we call it normal – for instance what are the consequences of living with anxiety for most of our life? Does it have effects on our body? It sure effects the way we deal with situations, and what people will receive from us.
In my observations, anxiety is very often disguised. Someone could be very quiet and shuts the world out or someone could be overly excited and passionate with everyone, but both feels a stepping away from our true self, because we want to avoid feeling anxiety. The thing with disguise is, once we begin we have to keep adding onto the protection, we are then consolidating an identity of ourselves which is not true but we want to convince ourselves and the world that, that is who we are. This could then lead to a long process of unraveling back to the truth, when this lie can no longer be hidden by the body. This is a convoluted and complicated process to avoid dealing with our anxiety. What if we simply acknowledged that we feel anxious and just sit with this feeling? Allowing ourselves to feel, it opens up why we are anxious and how we may be able to deal with it–but we have to first feel what we find uncomfortable, before we are able to truly deal with it.
Gosh, just hearing one man saying that he’s learning to appreciate himself is enormous, and all we need to get the ball of reflection going for every other man out there in need of the same.
Seeing anxiety as a game that I create and play is very confronting at 1st but makes sense and starts to take the pressure off. The more I simply claim being myself irrespective of what other people may think or say the more content I am within myself. And conversely the more I look outside of myself to others for recognition and acceptance the more anxious and uneasy I am within myself.
Brian, thank you for your honesty; it is inspiring and I can feel that there will be many who read this who will relate to your experience and appreciate the fact that there is another way to live. For those who suffer from debilitating feelings of anxiousness and nervousness these words are gold: “I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.”. There is always a starting point for anxiousness and nervousness and to be able to find our way back to it is when the true healing is able to begin.
Being born in a culture that starts our sentences commonly with sorry or I am scared, it makes my skin crawl to hear myself express as such, as there is no truth to what has been said, and my body is telling me clearly. This is a habit that has to be stopped for the sake of feeling true to myself.
Thank you again Brian, I always enjoy reading your writing. A great line “More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me.” and I agree, this really helps to knock out the anxiety. To not be able to be and express ourselves would cause incredible anxiety, starting as children and continuing on into adulthood.
The ancient teachings of Serge Benhayon have and continue to show us that all is our own choice. Being it nervousness or anxiety or both or more, we have a reason why we feel that way and why we have chosen to do so. Simple, showing us our way around and around – coming back to the responsibility that lays there in front of us. Ready to be picked up any moment.
An exquisitely honest and insightful article Brian thank you…. Anxiousness… you know it can be so embedded that we just don’t realize how deep it runs in us, and it needs a master ‘unraveller’ to help make sense of it all and to return to our true natural ‘at rest’ state.
It is beautiful to feel your deep sensitivity and tenderness in the way you express in this blog Brian, the steps you have taken to transform the anxiety and nervousness you once lived with is truly amazing to read and offers a powerful reflection to others who feel this condition is ‘normal’ and something they have to just have to put up with whereas your journey through this condition inspires others to know that there is a different way.
By sharing your truth you make certain layers (that we normally would hide) come to the surface and then offering this as a pondering and possible healing for others who are doing the same or feeling the same. Hence blogs like this, with personal sharing, offer an enormous lived wisdom and certaintly when certain behaviors (that do not serve) are broken. It gives faith that certain behaviors and hurts can be healed to its core.
There are articles you read that have a real quality to them. I know I have read this article before and possibly said this before but this is a very touching article. There is a quality in it that speaks so well and touches me all so lightly, a unique value and quality. So often growing up and into adult hood I was at odds with my thoughts, it was like there was a number of parts all speaking at once about something that was going on and trying to find the best solution. Usually now I see one clear answer or feeling, it’s not a rigid or inflexible feeling/answer but one that offers you the next step and doesn’t try and work the whole thing out in one breath. It’s not a jump to a decision thing either, there is a way to live consistently with a true quality and care that supports you to have the same consistency in any moment, no matter what the headline. Living this way is like a guarantee that when something is needing to be done or decided everything that I have lived is supporting me and not the other way around.
This is such a helpful and very healing blog for me, thank you Brian. After a lifetime of anxiousness and nervousness to some degree (cloaked under the term “stress”) it’s very supportive to come to a story like this and receive a new perspective, and to understand where nervousness and anxiety can come from. Beliefs such as not feeling good enough and wanting to be approved of, liked and accepted I can certainly relate to. I agree too Brian that accepting and simply being ourselves in full, even in situations where we are pressured not to be, is key to healing and restoring our Stillness.
It is through being honest with ourselves as you so beautiful have shared, that we can develop a greater awareness of how are bodies are responding to the choices we make. I have struggled with anxiety for a huge part of my life but have discovered that it is, at the end of a day a choice, or more precisely the end result of a choice. For as you have pointed out the more we choose to be in connection to ourselves the less anxious we feel, about not being in connection to who we are within.
Brian, I can very much relate to what you are sharing. I had an experience recently where it was pointed out to me that I was very anxious around my son and was often worrying about time and as a result that I was not being myself around him, I allowed myself to feel the truth in this and so chose to let go of the anxiousness and of trying to control time, this has felt very different, I feel an ease in my body rather than a tension and when I do now get anxious it is very obvious and feels awful and so I can choose to come back to me and not stay in this anxiousness.
Thank you Rebecca, I feel this too that my relationship with time can have a marked effect on how anxious and nervous I feel.
At a recent workshop Serge Benhayon presented on anxiety/panic attacks. That they are a bottling of expression – that which we have connected to that we are not bringing.
You are already confining yourself, because you have accessed it and are not bringing it.
The physicality of confinement brings up the feeling that you are living confined because you hold back that which you already are. You are already connected and you know it, you are just not bringing it. I could so relate to every word he spoke.
‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’ True Brian and sometimes when I do feel anxious it is accepting the feeling that anxious causes in my body, observing it as I know it’s not me. The moment I condemn myself for the choice I have made I am further down the track of not being good enough and then I am completely gone.
Thank you Brian for sharing this, we need not let these emotions run us and by choosing ourselves over the nervousness and anxiousness we get to feel their affects more when we do choose them. I am also experiencing this and as I sit here now after such an episode it’s getting to the point where I question – is choosing anxiousness really worth it? Because it’s not supporting me as a tool in life but the complete opposite.
“Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in.” This used to be a very familiar feeling to me and you put it beautifully into words. To go through life with a filled up and constraint chest is hard and then, because of not expressing, it feels like we are not able to express what we want to say and nobody will understand. But it just takes a little bit of practice and most of all our own permission to simply put into words what we feel (to express) and the words will come and form themselves.
This felt very humbling to read in just how honest and open you are yet with your writing I can feel the fragility and love you hold yourself with and in, it is like there is no judgement but you are letting something play out and unfold that you know is not truly you, it is really beautifull. It is also really lovely to hear how you are gaining true confidence from your body and connection with yourself which is allowing the nervousness and anxiety you have lived in gently melt away. Also that sounds like a really interesting course held by the College of Universal Medicine. We often associate men with being tough and desensitised (which is a complete illusion) and not anxious!
I never would have believed that anxiety is a choice: it just used to feel like it happened to me and was completely beyond my control. Becoming more aware of what and how my body feels has changed this, to the point where it really does feel like a choice to align to it, Or not.
It feels like it is no coincidence that many of us grow up with a normalised level of anxiety and nervous tension running through our bodies, especially when life has been made so much to be about security, protection and self. It feels like one of the keys with healing and changing this is to bring more connection and love to education.
This is such a beautiful and honest sharing, and one which I can very much relate to actually – particularly what you say about how anxiety affects the way you communicate with and are received by others. I have been noticing that as well. I started my new job a few month ago and I have noticed how I sometimes moderate my movement and hold back my expression in reaction to what is going on around me and what mood others are in, and this is so debilitating as I am constantly running on the nervous energy. It is such an empowering process to observe and notice how we are living every day with utmost honesty and love, and resurrect the grandness of who we truly are by letting go of what is not us.
It may sound a bit ‘out there’ for some, but I would say that being ‘good’ and living with a fear of ‘being wrong’ are the worst prison someone could place themselves into. This is so simply because when you are striving to be good or avoiding being wrong you would never think that such thoughts are controlling how you are with yourself and that they are in fact not you at all. But they are not, and this does not change even if we think we are ‘the good’ person. Hence anxiety and nervousness is in our body because we choose to live thinking we have to be ‘good’ and not ‘wrong’ but they do not naturally come from the body at all.
Thank you for sharing as I have this happening to me, and I like what you say we can choose to let anxiety or nervousness in or or say no. Something I am working on. I also remember when I was young, I would also avoid confrontation. Confrontation scared the hell out of me.
Thank you for your deeply honest sharing Brian. I recognised so much of my life in yours particularly “always doing things to please other people, looking for recognition, not doing things because I was scared of being wrong or shown to be less.”; needing to be the good girl to keep the people around me happy. I can now feel how exhausting that must have been, an exhaustion that stayed with me for most of my life. To have let go of the need to be ‘the good girl’ has enabled me to finally release the anxiety and the subsequent exhaustion that has held me back from being who I truly am, and that feels so wonderfully liberating.
Thank you Brian for this honest and open sharing. As I was reading I noticed the tightness in my body and realised I was carrying some nervous tension in my body as a residue of the anxiousness I let myself run with during the week. I know the patterns mentioned here so well and I have noticed they happen when I get an image in my mind that I think I have to live to.
But life does not work to images, there is a natural flow and expansion which I miss out on when I am caught in my image bubble.
Both anxiety and nervousness are so present in most people’s every day life that they can go unnoticeable if we are not open to feeling truth. For example, I used to have a fake smile that I would use as a cover up every now and again, and people would never be able to tell the difference, even I couldn’t tell the difference most of the time. However, when we begin to open up to feeling truth, these things become very evident.
To overcome nervousness and anxiousness like you have is truly extraordinary, this is something that most people just learn to live with. I love that you have discovered that through building a deeper relationship with your body and choosing greater awareness of what is happening when in those states, you have learnt to address what caused them in the first place and what is needed to let them go. Very cool.
Beautiful to read this as I recognise so many of the ways with anxiety you mention. Anxiety can own us, but only if we allow it to and not be aware of the true cause.
Beautiful blog Brian. I too have made myself less in order to ‘protect’ myself from hurt. It is a counterproductive strategy that keeps me stuck in a cycle of comparison and frustration. Great to see this game for what it is.
“More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me. Because of this they do not control me and I do not fear them, but I can accept that there is an energy there, and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” What a great learning to apply to every day life. To learn that it is important to surrender to our bodies, that is the answer, to know what it feels like to be with ourselves, that changes everything.
Through my work I have found that the loudest and most brash of youngsters are often the most scared and sensitive.
Our own anxiety not only affects ourselves but can definitely have a ripple effect or even a domino effect on everyone around us.
In my experience, it is quite common that we might make ourselves be wrong or less than others, thinking it will soften the blow when those judgments come towards us. But of course, it doesn’t work at all but invites more of that energy to be directed at us more often; and also, the hurt underneath remains unhealed.
Brian this is my 2nd read and again very healing. Today I could really connect to the issue of nervousness and anxiety around expression and feeling my words stuck in my throat. Reading your blog has been very encouraging to look at this again with gentleness, and to remind myself I am able to choose being me or the anxiety etc, and give myself the opportunity to continue expressing.
” or so I thought.” So much is revealed in those few words. Thinking that we can hide our anxiousness and lack of self-worth by keeping quiet is a self-deception. We are able to feel in others when they are anxious and lacking self-worth so why do we imagine that this is not as equally felt in us by others!
Thank you Brian, very down to earth and relatable blog. Your last line summed up the power and simplicity of this blog for me, “I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” It’s definitely a new way to look at anxiety, that it’s not just something present and being experienced, but something present because we in our true selves are absent. That in itself could revolutionise psychology.
Given anxiety is us fighting our own awareness, seems to me the way to stop anxiety is embrace our awareness and act on it if this is what is needed or read the situation and respond accordingly.
I have noticed that this fear of doing something wrong or getting it wrong runs through many people’s lives and causes a lot of distress and anxiety. It is as though we are continually living on the back foot, always ready to defend ourselves or put ourselves down before someone else does.
Anxiety is a choice – we either go with it as a way to manage life or we say no to it and choose to deepen the relationship with our body and from that make adjustments to the relationship to what we are reacting and instead bring more understanding and acceptance to it.
Thankyou for your honesty and courage in openly sharing how you feel Brian. We get expert in hiding our true selves so that others don’t notice – like actors on a stage playing a part. This takes us further away from our true state of beingness. When we do share how we truly feel we often find others experience similar feelings too. ‘Expression is everything’ as Serge Benhayon has presented to us countless times…..
Thank you, Brian, anxiety is such big subject and a much needed subject to speak about with each other, so we can feel what is at the heart of it and how we can actually reduce our anxiety levels in our lives. We have the power once we allow ourselves to feel how and where this anxiety plays out and where it comes from. Often it is the lack of connection we can actually have with ourselves.
The fear of anxiety is anxiety inducing. The only way this can be overcome is through developing a relationship with our bodies.
Thank you Brian, I had a wave of anxiety come up just reading this blog but I was supported by your reminder that these feelings are a choice and we can choose to connect to our true selves at any moment.
It is interesting how much can we disguise and no one ever notice. This is because not just us but also the others play the same game because they also live in a way that produces illbeing. It is like a play of mirrors. We reflect to each other both parts of what we want to share and the fact that we hide the ill side of our existence.
Brian this a great article and one which I can relate to in a big way, it illustrates how debilitating anxiety is but also offers great tips in dealing with anxiousness.
Brian I love your honesty, and how through that honesty you have been able to identify patterns in your life that have kept your anxiety going, and from living who you truly are, you have been able to become the man you are.
Anxiety can have this way about it that we claim we are the victims of such distressing feelings when in the anxiousness and nervousness. I love how you’ve claimed that you are not a victim or at the whim of anxiety whenever it comes into your life but keeping it very simple in that “I can accept that there is an energy there, and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” For me, Anxiousness comes in and stays so long as I choose to keep thinking about situations I am not in at the moment or wanting the situation to be different. That isn’t something I get affected by whenever anxiousness decides to stroll past me in my day, it’s something I call in the moment I choose to not accept what I can feel in the moment.
As men we avoid feeling how vulnerable and sensitive we are like a plague, so we go to behaviours that make us feel superior, big and strong but this only suppresses our innate nature only delaying our return to the tenderness that we are.
I can relate to that Brian, however that tender little boy is oh so powerful. Maybe people are a bit afraid of what he will bring or perhaps they long for him to come out and show the world what life can be about.
That’s just awesome, Brian. I particularly like the following lines: “The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.” When put like that, it’s very simple. Just as we can observe and enjoy a sunset, a plane flying overhead or someone’s red shoes on a busy street, so too can we observe and appreciate those little details about ourselves. It’s getting to know the real us and it allows us to begin to build a foundational and loving relationship with ourselves.
Anxiety really is debilitating and plays havoc with your mind by bringing in unwanted emotions to complicate the situation. Building a solid loving and appreciative relationship with ourselves is a great way to keep those anxious moments from too much of a foothold.
If we make an estimate of how many behaviours a day we had just to control the environment and make sure that we get the result we desire in order to keep walking in the same energy, aiming to further satisfy the same need and being played by the same emotion, we would be amazed. The point with all of this is that is an incessant self-created race that leads nowhere.
In my experience anxiety is definitely a killer of tenderness and connection for when I am caught up in my fears and worries there is a distraction and a protection in me which cuts me off from my own heart and from others. This can be felt of course by other people and it interferes with intimacy and the depth and closeness of any relationship.
Hello Brian and I remember reading this blog sometime ago and loving it, nothing has changed. Such a cracker piece of writing that pretty much sums up how things were for me as well. This part, “In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.” is so true. There is still parts of this with me and depending on the climate around me is whether I choose this or not. As you also say the more I develop a deeper and deeper relationship with my body and all it feels the more this choice is obvious. This relationship continues to grow and has no off switch or off season, it’s a 24/7 dedication that’s not perfect but it is always something to return to.
This is such an awesome sharing Brian, like many many other things it’s all about choice, choosing to be me over the anxiety and nervousness sounds so much nicer. I too have chosen anxiousness a lot in my life as an energy and it doesn’t feel good at all in the body so why do we choose these harmful things in the first place?
Love this Brian “The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.” I’m finding too that to stay connected and aware of what’s going on in my body can guide me in how to be – so that the vibration the body knows is not it, can be stilled.
Thank you Brian, I came back to this blog because I needed to deepen my understanding of what it is like to live with deep anxiety. Thank you so much for explaining it so simply and some steps for addressing the pattern so it doesn’t control you any more.
Having been in anxiety for many year in the past I can appreciate how your have felt. I have come to a more comfortable and confident space but sometimes I drop into my old ways. Thank you for sharing your journey Brian, much appreciated.
As I connect to myself more deeply and get to know myself, the more anxiety and nervousness shows up in my life. Recently I felt so anxious and nervous about the future. It really surprised me the intensity of the anxiousness but the funny thing was I could also feel how unreal it was. It made question as to why I had created such a drama as I let it go and came back to the stillness within me. Worrying about the future can sneak into my thoughts but I am learning to say ‘No’ as I know from this experience, it is something I create and allow to enter.
you say something very true here – that by not saying what you want to say and all there is to say people get confused and it complicates conversations. This is a wonderful tender and honest blog, thank you so much, I have leant a great deal from reading it.
I really appreciate your honesty and openness here; men are ‘not supposed’ to have, much less profess to feelings of anxiety and yet, it has become an undercurrent in most people’s life and gets expressed and compensated for in different ways.
When we lack self acceptance, we become plagued with self doubt and our body becomes a slave to nervousness and anxiety. The more we accept ourselves the less hold nervousness and anxiety have over us.
What is it that really drives us in our interactions? Is it the fear of being wrong or not being liked? Or is it the fear of being right and being really liked? I would say the latter.
That’s an interesting point Eduardo and worth pondering on.
Being aware we are feeling nervous or anxious is important, only then can we choose to do something about it. I see people who are totally unaware that anxiety is running their body, as used to be the case with myself too.
If I learnt from little to know that anxiety is like an inbuilt alarm that my body gives me when I leave my stillness, I am pretty sure I would be much more prepared for not only work and the workplace, but dealing with everything that I need to deal with.
‘I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no.’ I have realised that what I have to offer when I present me, myself, must be huge as there is this anxiety and nervous state that wants me to be less, so saying no to nervousness and anxiety is saying yes to life, yes to love and yes to my responsibility to bring me in every aspect of my life. Yes to the enormity we belong to and are an equal part of.
Thank you Brian, your blog is hugely supportive. I know someone very close to me just recently shared that they feel anxiety most of the time. After reading your blog I feel to print this out and share your blog with them. I too experienced anxiety and sometimes it can still creep in. It is by being more aware and by reflecting on what choices I have been making to lead me to feeling this way is a great way to choose differently so I can be more myself and more able to deal with any situation that may arise. By deepening my connection with myself, I feel invincible, strong and powerful. The key here is to keep building on my relationship with myself, embrace more loving choices, so anxiety has no room to creep back in but instead allow myself to be over flowing with love.
It is such a common experience, anxiety and nervousness can be so familiar that we are unaware it is even there, yet it influences everything that we do and indeed don’t do. We can hold ourselves back from living our lives for fear of getting it wrong. Being aware of what anxiety and stress feel like in the body gives an opportunity for different choices so developing and nurturing that relationship is key to letting go of the familiar destructive pattern.
For years I never thought I suffered from anxiety, because it was at a very low level, I became used to it. I thought it was normal until I got to the point where I had not experienced anxiety for a period of time and when I returned to my normal ways my anxiety levels was so much more apparent and obvious it difficult to ignore. Becoming aware of this was great because I am able to be more honest about how I feel and now when anxiety is present I can address what is really going on.
‘I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing’. As I read these words Brian I couldn’t help but wonder Is this why people are so competitive and haunted by comparison in their daily life because of their fear that they are being left behind and are coming last?
Brian this is deeply healing and supportive for anyone who struggles with anxiety and nervousness and how we can support ourselves from going into overwhelm when this feelings surface. Learning to appreciate ourselves is key to deepening the relationship with ourselves and understanding the triggers that allow these feelings to take hold, and then knowing we can simply say ‘no’ and return to who we are is a powerful reminder for us all.
By allowing yourself to be true to yourself, by accepting and appreciating yourself, brings miraculous changes to our lives.
We need to have a big dose of self acceptance to be as honest as you have Brian and I truly appreciate what you have shared and modeled for us here about taking responsibility for our feelings and how they impact on ourselves and each other. Bravo!
Bravo indeed Bernadette for the more we share how we have mastered our own fears the easier it is for everyone else to learn that same mastery.
Brian thank you for the big fat reminder – it is our choice to let anxiousness in or not. We ultimately control whether we lose ground to nervousness or whether we stay strong and present. Work in progress for me but very much an improvement since I have been claiming myself more.
it really is lovely to read such an honest account from a man… The truth is, deep inside the heart of even the most scarred and rough man, one will always find something that would resonate with this story… I know, because in my early life I felt that I needed to have such scary exterior that no one would be able to see inside. As Brian writes… it is actually possible to have a choice now which is indeed a great gift.
Thank you Brian for sharing your experiences, your knowledge and your wisdom. It is so lovely to read and to feel that you appreciate the beautiful, loving and responsible person you are. I certainly appreciate, and was inspired by, your honesty in dealing with nervousness and anxiety.
Hello Brian and I can relate to what you are saying. It’s like when I was growing up I was trying to learn to be a ‘good’ person. Watching everything and then trying to mould my behaviour so I didn’t upset or hurt anyone. It was like there was an attempt to perfect this and over and over again you would try, sometimes it would work and other times it wouldn’t. There was no consistency and hence my life was the same, full of up’s and down’s. When I started to let go of the ‘good’ things and just went back to settling myself and listening to people it felt like a whole world opened up. It’s true that in any moment you have all you need with you, you just have to choose to be open to it. For years, decades, anxiety ruled my life and now while it still visits I use this as a marker to settle myself and listen.
It is great to hear how you are starting to re-claim your power, ‘More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me’, and saying no to energy that keeps you less.
Thank you for being so honest Brian, I wonder how many people can relate in part or full with what you have shared, I imagine quite a number. I certainly can relate with having been anxious, though keeping it hidden – learning to disguise it even from myself. Like you Brian, I am now choosing to appreciate and just be the true me.
It is interesting to observe the different ‘boxes’ people can put themselves in- the contracted and invisible guy, the jock, the know it all, the business man, the alpha etc- all of these can be like masks- trying to fit in to what we think is accepted and what the world wants us to be- yet it takes true bravery to learn to take these masks off and allow your true face to be seen.
Dear Brian, to get to the point where you can do this “I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no” is quite phenomenal. Anxiety runs so many people and I would say that the majority of people learn to manage it through various mechanisms but very few would think that there is an option to be free of it. What you offer is ground-breaking and a much needed conversation to show that there is another way with anxiety, with a willingness to get to the truth of what is going on. That it does not need to run you. Amazing work, thank you.
Committing to a level of awareness is not only about nominating but stepping up with levels of responsibility that says less to the anxiety that was running your life. This is a milestone that should be deeply appreciated, as anxiety continues to be one of the most harming global health issues.
Building a relationship with our body is so vital, ‘The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body.’ Once I recognise I am anxious I have choices.
I agree Lorraine, connection to our body is key in allowing us to make a different choice when we get anxious.
The antidote so to speak to living with anxiety is through appreciating and allowing myself to be me. The more we just allow ourselves to be true to ourselves the more obvious it becomes that anxiety is simply due to us not living connected with ourselves.
How often do we ‘water things down’ because we fear how the other person will react, or make ourselves less, because of the same reason, only for this to lead to more uncertainty and confusion between us and the other person, and muddled communications. As you say, the more we build a relationship with our bodies, the more we can identify these unhelpful behaviours and understand why we do them and how actually damaging they are. We think we’re protecting ourselves when we hold back or make ourselves small, but actually we’re just complicating situations by over-managing and controlling them – making us want to protect ourselves even more. So much more freeing to allow ourselves to be who we are and say what needs to be said.
It’s amazing how we can live our whole lives with anxiety and nervousness ticking away in the background as something that’s always there, ready to re-surface at any moment. It has taken me a few years to really start to understand and feel that anxiety is not who we are, not who I am – and that it is actually a choice. It always seemed to me before that I would lurch from being ‘fine’ to completely overwhelmed – as if I was the victim of an anxiety I had no control over. Now what I’m learning to feel is that I can choose whether or not to allow anxiety in and take over, or say no to it – and that it is always a choice based on a combination of earlier choices in how I’ve been living my life, how connected and ‘with myself’ I’ve been in the preceding moments.
Personally I never thought I was particularly anxious, and would put out this demeanour of being cool, not caring too much etc. All a facade of course. Deep down I was insecure but did not want people to see that so put up this other person to protect myself. Unfortunately it has the effect of keeping me separate as well from the love that is all around.
It is much better to deal with the things that are presenting in our life, in a way that is true and whole, rather than let things build up and take no responsibility- whilst anxiety increases and we begin to feel very small.
I find it very interesting the symptoms Brian describes when he feels he is in anxiousness. Although anxiousness has been a big behaviour of mine for most of my life I had not linked feeling nauseous (which has also been there) to anxiousness. What I am observing about myself today is that when I am feeling anxious it can be very subtle to begin with but the tiredness and nauseous over time give it away. Thank you Brian for sharing this insight as it is helping me to have a deeper understanding of anxiousness and how and why it plays out in my life.
I have realised how exhausting anxiety is, my whole day can be run on the low grade version simply because i think I have too much to do. If I’m totally exhausted at the end of the day and am honest,I know where to point the finger at, my old buddy anxiety, but if I am more present with what I am doing and don’t let my thoughts get ahead of me, I know I will have more energy at the end of the day.
What you have written Brian is something that I feel most of us can relate to as having experienced. It’s amazing how we continue on a familiar path when truly ‘This way of living never felt right, yet I let it become a part of me, ingrained in everything I did or did not do’ to the extent that it becomes our normal way and part of our identity. With the inspiration that I have received from Serge Benhayon I am beginning to connect more deeply to my body, and I now have an awareness that I can let go of the anxiety and nervousness as I claim more of who I am and no longer see myself as small. I have expanded and now feel fuller of myself and this is just the beginning…….
I have lived for most of my life avoiding confrontation and I feel because of my unwillingness to express as a child my teenage years was a nightmare with so much frustration, rage and resentment coming to the surface and not knowing how to deal with it. This fear of confrontation is still there but much less as I learn to speak up in a loving way and what I am noticing most of all is how much my body actually loves it when I do.
As a general rule we slowly teach our boys it is inappropriate for them to express their feelings while growing up so by the time they reach manhood they may be so disconnected to what they feel that they may believe they feel nothing. It is no wonder anxiety is such a huge problem in our society.
I find that the moment I lose the connection with myself and my body anxiousness comes in. It is as if my body is feeling like a ship at sea with an absent captain and is sending out warning signals. Not having this deep feeling within myself of the knowing that is there will leave me uncertain and insecure in my choices and movements. The way to not be anxious for me is to reconnect and feel a sense of settlement within myself and my body.
It’s interesting that we often identify ourselves as being our emotions. I too have lived with much anxiety and nervousness and thought ‘this is just how I am’ as a fait accompli. It has been a revelation to learn that this can be changed and I am not my emotions but something far, far greater.
Thank you, Brian, for sharing so honestly about how anxiety and nervousness have shaped your life and how simply allowing yourself to look at how they play out and affect you has given you the opportunity to arrest their control. This awareness has put you back in your own driving seat. I get to see another point of inspiration about how fragility is truly powerful.
“Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in.” I so know this experience Brian and I am learning to express no matter what. Recently I stood up to express in a workshop and my body was shaking, in the past I would have tried to hide this or just not even attempt to express, this time I allowed my self to shake, it eventually stopped and I expressed myself beautifully from my body.
I remember when I was 23 I was so scared of life that my nervous system was in a constant state of alarm. I remember seeing an Iridologist who looked me in the eye (literally!) and asked me what I was so scared of. Granted, I had been through a huge trauma that involved an injury and meant a change of career, but the way I responded to this was one of terror which made me totally scared of life in every way. I did not have a foundation within myself to deal with life so my nerves were on edge constantly. Fast forward 24 years and I do not respond to life in this way anymore. Yes, life still happens but my response to it is different because I have built a loving foundation for myself. My nerves still jangle occasionally but it is nothing I can’t deal with. The teachings of Universal Medicine have enabled me to create this support for myself within my own life. Without this I would still be trying to find ways to control my nerves.
Thanks Brian for your sharing of a topic and condition that is very common and becoming an epidemic in our society. From my experience it’s like we choose to be less and then let our fears, doubts and other things get in the way instead of staying with ourselves. I suppose the questions is when did we choose to separate from the steadiness of knowing and feeling ourselves to be enough? Your sharing is a very helpful insight to what lies under our anxiety, so thanks again for sharing .
Isn’t interesting that in truth most of us as we are young start to develop an anxiety or nervousness to some level. We learn to adapt and believe that this is our normal. What I have gained from attending Universal Medicine in my understanding is that who I am, and All that I am, is Everything that I need to be at any given moment. Now over time I am starting to feel this and believe this and the more I do and claim this the anxiety and nervousness just drops away. Would it not be wise then to appreciate and celebrate our children for who they are and not what they do?
“As I sit and feel these things about the way I have lived, I do not dream about what might have been, but look to what is. Nervousness and anxiety occur less frequently these days, but I feel more what it does to me and how it affects me. Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in.” This is such an awesome sharing. I have found too that awareness is key and it is not necessary to go into the self bashing when we find ourselves falling into patterns we wish to break but just to observe them so we can make different choices.
I have also done the course ”Understanding men and anxiety” and would recommend it to every man
It is all too often that we live our lives in nervousness and anxiety and often our experiences are that “Anxiety would cause nausea, tiredness and feelings of not being good enough, always doubting myself, going to the point of self-loathing. Feeling anxious or nervous was my ‘normal’.”. This is such a great sharing of how this does not need to be the way we live and that we really can change this to a loving, fulfilling way of being with a confidence and knowing by being in connection to our body and our inner sense of steadiness, stillness and love. A great inspiration for us all.
Brian, thank you for such an open, honest, humble account of how anxiousness and nervousness affected you, reading this I can feel that I have very much been affected by both of these and yet I have tried to put on an exterior of being laid back and relaxed, but underneath I was in a lot of self doubt – always being very critical about what I said and how I was, this is changing now as I am more present with myself and know that the self bashing thoughts are not true, instead I choose to appreciate myself which feels like a counter to the anxiety and nervousness.
Underneath my anxiety and nervousness was a need to be accepted, and when I started to appreciate and accept myself, this underlying nervous tension that I had accepted as normal began to shift, and a calmness and solidness returned to my life.
“I am able to recognise and understand the anxiety and nervousness when they start to appear.” To heal a particular pattern at its root level, tracing back to the energy that has caused the reaction in the first place will give us the insight as to what exactly it is that we need to work on.
Building a relationship with our body sounds a bit weird, but once you start on the path of listening to the body, it is clear that the body is wise, well beyond the mind, and not only that it is more honest!
Once I started to get a glimmer of the real me, it becomes very painful to watch myself disappear into ‘nervous little me’. It happened recently when I started a new job and I started to feel the old pattern. This time I stopped and appreciated the qualities I know myself to be and the opportunity of connection with the customers and the purpose of being out there, and the feeling disappeared and hasn’t returned, what’s more I have all the energy, vitality to be as engaged at 9 as I am at 5 so the connection and joy I feel is a power source.
One of the things I can get anxious about is having a conversation which might be unpleasant or when I know someone may be upset, but the longer I put it off the worse the feeling is in my body. Then I find that once the conversation has started there is a sense of relief which comes over my body and the pressure just goes – this really brings it home how anxiety can leave us feeling exhausted.
Gosh, I can relate very much to not wanting to do things in case I would get things wrong or make mistakes and although it is much less, I can still feel how this behaviour still affects me in my life. The pressure I put on myself is exhausting and this stems from a lack of acceptance in myself driven by an ideal of needing to be perfect in every thing I do.
I recently attended a series of interviews where my scared little boy was doing the driving. It was amazing to feel how I seemed to check out and enter into a state of nervous anxiety as I worked overtime to try and get the prospective employers to “like” me. Desperately measuring everything around me to try and say the right thing that was going to make them see that I was a good fit for them, the company and the role. I came away from the whole experience exhausted and it was no surprise they too felt that they didn’t get to see the real me, because, well, they didn’t. It was so clear to me that what was actually required was what we learn through the work with Universal Medicine, to connect with ourselves, our gentle breath and to feel what needs to be said rather than try and control the situation. Although I have learnt this technique many times I am not perfect, especially when there is people “liking” me to be had. Your post certainly supports me in recognising that I am not alone, and I appreciate the opportunity to share in this experience with you.
I have also discovered that there can be a background unsettlement in my body which when present really prevents me from expressing myself fully and clearly and gets in the way of connection with others. It is definitely a choice though to either choose to stay in this or surrender to a stillness within which brings true settlement and ease to my body.
One of the keys to reducing anxiety that I have found invaluable and that is mentioned in this blog is staying connected to my body and all that it is feeling rather than trying to calculate my way through life using my head.
Anxiety and awkwardness was a constant in my life, always there to undermine and shrink my expression which also had a draining knock on effect to all those I met. Now building a body of self love and choosing not to engage the negative head talk I am now free to be me in and that also allows others to be themselves.
Anxiousness has been part of my life since childhood. I took it for granted I just had to put up with it. I overrode the feelings in my body by constantly keeping myself busy or doing things to please others.
I have used food to dull and numb my body. But until it became evident I wasn’t coping at work e.g. feeling overwhelmed, and getting so anxious when I was put in an emergency situation that my body would freeze, mind go blank and I would not know what to do, that I knew I needed help.
I sought the guidance of an esoteric naturopath who suggested I get tested for pyrrole disease- where a special urine collection is needed; only done at certain pathology labs. Pyrrole disease is a abnormality of haemoglobin breakdown- excess pyrroles are excreted in the urine causing high zinc and vitamin B6 to be depleted as well. Since being diagnosed with pyrrole disease I now take vitamin supplements daily and have found a great improvement in my wellbeing. I also had the help of esoteric practitioners, and used the gentle breath meditation taught by Serge Benhayon often throughout the day when feeling stressed. Esoteric yoga has also been very supportive in helping me return to my stillness in my body and be aware of what is getting in the way of me feeling and connecting to the real me.
It is incredible the impact that we can have on us and everyone around us when we choose to go into the nervous and anxious state of being. You sum up what feels to be so clearly what I have been choosing to live in the past and like yourself still shaking off. The accessing of situations to make myself feel less equal and that I have not been enough. Totally caught up in what others will think and reducing myself to reduce a perceived reaction that hasn’t even happened. Well it generally has because I have gone into such a belief which has then created it. Also how when you do express it, it comes out not so clear because of the holding back and not fully expressing all of what is there to be shared … such a great place to be thanks to Universal Medicine to be aware of such behaviours, patterns and beliefs that we can keep exposing and letting go of to allow All of who we Are to flow with ease and grace.
Brian I do love this blog as it really helps to start the conversation with other men about anxiousness and nervousness. This is something I always kept to myself and always made out like I was tougher than I was as part of the disguise, so it’s good to know I was not alone with these feelings.
“I have difficulty saying exactly what I want to say and what I say can sometimes be confusing because I hold back on what needs to be said”. I can relate to this Brian, the fear of saying the ‘wrong thing’ so saying something trivial or not speaking at all. I find as I self-care, regard and deepen my connection with myself I become more aware of my true feelings and the trust within myself makes it a lot easier to express without the fear of rejection.
We are our own best, wise counsel, and know exactly what we need and what is needed when we are connected to ourselves. When we doubt or don’t trust in that innate wisdom, we become unstuck, doubt and feel anxious because we don’t have our own super loving support behind us and so the doubt and anxiousness is because we haven’t brought all of us to the situation and feel ill-equipped to deal with what is there to deal with.
Living on nervous energy to get you through the day and not feel what may truly being going on underneath that (like deep anxiousness) is incredibly exhausting and also addictive once you have lived like that for awhile. I can attest to this as I am still working on staying present with my body to avoid using nervous energy (fed by foods that make me racy) to deal with stressful situations or to avoid feeling what is there to heal. It sure feels more energizing and free to not care what other people think of me as much as I used to and to live with a trust that on a certain level I always know the truth and how to handle any challenging situation.
Nervousness and anxiety can be very controlling. Everybody needs to adjust and do or not do things that make little sense or there will be consequences.
From what I read I can share that what you write emanates an ease and a confidence that is very pleasant to feel. To me it shows that the anxiousness and nervousness is not ruling you anymore.
Confrontation is something that a lot of people avoid, it does bring on anxiousness and nervousness, not knowing if you will say the right thing, being in fear of how the other person will react. These things always create an anticipation, instead of knowing that the relationship we have and hold with ourselves is key when we need to confront someone, allowing ourselves to feel that what we express is super important and it doesn’t matter if it isn’t perfect.
Brian, you offer us a key here to banish anxiousness and nervousness – “appreciating and allowing myself to be me” and “look[ing] at what I have been doing that has allowed them in”. By doing this we start to be aware of the choices we made that opened us up to such emotions and eventually we can catch them before they start to get a hold of us.
“I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me”. Brian this is a huge step for once we know we have a choice then we can take responsibility rather than believe we are a victim of circumstances.
Loving your work Brian. I have found that constantly trying to manage the image I display to the world, my “shop window” so to speak became a clearly exposed root of nervousness and anxiousness. “Were people liking what they saw”, “Was I beating the competition”, and “What do people want to see” types of behaviours would run around in my head as I tried to manipulate the situations unfolding around me to protect what I believed was my individuality. But like you, through the presentations I have heard from Serge Benhayon and indeed the more I was working on my livingness the more I am learning to let go. The more I am prepared to smash the glass on the hypothetical window and just let people in, to trust the situation around me and simply focus on the steadiness and gentleness I am realising is the true me. I am no pro that’s for sure but it has become clear that the exhaustion derived from living in that nervousness and anxiousness is certainly an exhaustive and pollutive way of being.
The thing about anxiety is we all think we are at the mercy of it, that it can’t be changed or addressed, but here we have a real life story that debunks that thought, and shows there is another way.
” I put myself in a position of already thinking that I had been hurt, believing therefore I was not able to get hurt by anything they said. I convinced myself that I was not their equal.” There was an ‘ouch’ reading this, this morning. Feeling life and how people treated themselves and others, I thought the best solution to cope was to actually put myself down and treat myself as less, was a way to make others look better. It was better to be less than see the truth of how life was. This worked in very subtle ways but always led to behaviours that were self harming. And consuming harming substances seems totally ok, when it prevents us from having to feel where the world is at and choosing to be responsible for what we can truly offer in order for change to occur.
This last sentence is key. We each have so much to offer in order for change to occur. It is important that we no longer hold ourselves as less in any situation or with anyone, there is too much at stake.
How powerful and beautiful to read how you have come to understand your nervousness and anxiousness and how it effects you and others and to make such brilliant changes in your life. This is an inspiration for all those of us who suffer from anxiety and nervousness also.
“In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked” I can so relate to this Brian, it feels so imprisoning to be held in the worry of what others think. Slowly I’m learning that’s OK to trust my feelings and not be so fearful of making a mistake. It is so much better to make a mistake and learn from it then remain stagnant and numb.
Our body is so amazing. It responds to our choices no matter what they are, and it is through those choices that the most astounding things are able to happen.
Recently I experienced a deeper connection to myself, a feeling of steadiness and presence that allowed me to feel that nervousness and anxiousness had crept in in various situations in the past, but with this greater feeling of steadiness, I could feel how it is totally up to me to allow this into my life and that it is not a person or situation that causes nervousness, but how my body moves.
if you dig deep enough, even in the most macho of men, you will always find a hurt and then the resultant life that is configured by and around that hurt or hurts… This may be really hard for the average bloke to read, but it’s true, if we let ourselves really feel… But that’s the thing so many of us men take pride in actually not feeling, in reveling in the hardness… But as I said go deep enough, and you will find the hurt, and this is what must be addressed eventually.
I can feel how anxious children are, sometimes, as you describe Brian, when they feel they are not good enough at home or at school, and I can also remember this well in my own body when I was a child, often needing to please. What I hadn’t realised was how this plays out in adult life as we carry around the feelings of failure a lot of the time. It’s very exhausting,
Brian, I love hearing that you are choosing you and not the layer of anxiety and nervousness that is not you 🙂 That is very beautiful to see how we can all come back to what is underneath our behaviours.
Anxiety can be so debilitating. I was imprisoned by my own anxiety and panic attacks; until I learned that I held the key to it all and it was much simpler to free myself than my mind allowed me to know.
Thank you Serge Benhayon for supporting me to understand that i can say no to anxiety, and choose me instead and that it matters what i say, and it does make a difference.
I can so relate to this Brian as it was how I was also. It is a very measured and small way to live as you would know . . . “In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.” This is a very honest and raw blog thank you.
Honesty is a key for me Kathleen. If I cannot allow myself to be honest with myself then I stay entrenched in the same old pattern. Always coming up with a reason to justify what I have not done or said. I have found for me that there are layers of honesty. Being open to honesty opens the doors that allows the honesty to go deeper and deeper.
‘Confrontation scared the pants off me. I would do anything to avoid confrontation ‘ Me too Brian… but now that I truly know what love feels like in my heart and body – and as I approach everything with that feeling – my fear of confrontation dissipates.
Such wisdom about a really debilitating set of choices that many make, with life-depleting results. Your blog is an inspiration to others who suffer this affliction and provides real instruction: ‘the more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are’.
I can really relate to a lot of what you share here Brian as I felt similar. The fear of not speaking up because of the potential consequences, the reaction from others. I’m learning now that when I don’t express it holds in my body as a tension and when I do express my body feels alive. I’m learning more to say what is there to be said, not perfect but a work in progress.
Saying no to an emotional pattern that runs you is true strength.
I was riddled with anxiety for most of my live. When I was a teenager I would avoid people if I was walking home from school by crossing the road. Could you imagine how many times I crossed the road, any–one watching would think I was a loony…which I was. Anxiety ruled me, it caused me to do very weird behaviors. Through attending Universal Medicine Workshops I learnt to be in my body and that being in my body enabled me to handle what ever the person or situation I was met with…bingo no more anxiety.
‘I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no.’ – What you are pointing out here is key, when we get a greater understanding of the fact that we can choose, it alters the entire picture.
“This way of living never felt right, yet I let it become a part of me,…” wouldn’t it be amazing if children were supported from a very young age to listen and respect their feelings rather than override them in order to please.
With a large majority of people feeling anxious and nervous in life I wonder at how much we get to see the true and real them underneath. It’s like we are all playing cat and mouse all scared to show our true colours incase we get pounced on. How beautiful Brian that you are choosing to be the real you and are breaking the mold.
When you are nervous and anxious, it feels as though life is happening to you, so you feel constantly on edge and disempowered – a super exhausting way to live life. Personally I have found that “fighting” anxiety does not work, but bringing understanding to it, to how I have been leading up to feeling anxious, and not being hard on myself if I do find myself feeling anxious, is the best approach.
It is about committing to a level of presence within our bodies that allows us to know when we are in nervous energy and instead of fighting it and managing the situation we surrender to what is without losing ourselves from who we are.
“Feeling anxious or nervous was my ‘normal’.”, and this normal is shared by so many in society today – often without even realising it.
Thank you Brian. I relate well to your article having had anxiety nervousness and panic attacks for a long time, it was the inspiration and support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that gave me the tools to live differently, choosing me through love, the panic attacks and anxiety/nervousness gradually disappeared on its own. If I have anxiety now it quickly resolves.
‘I can now feel how my being caught up in nervousness and anxiety affects people around me. It makes people feel uncomfortable’ – I totally agree that living in anxiousness has these affects, however in some cases it makes people feel COMFORTABLE – particularly those who also live a tense and nervous lifestyle – as it confirms to them that being this way is ‘normal’ and acceptable. It’s so important that we role model and express the fact that this way of living is in no way our natural state, and that there is a way of letting go of the tension and feeling more settled in our bodies.
Although I have not lived as being scared and full of anxiety, I can relate to much of what you have share and particularly the following lines.
“I can now feel how my being caught up in nervousness and anxiety affects people around me. It makes people feel uncomfortable, I have difficulty saying exactly what I want to say, and what I say can sometimes be confusing because I hold back on what needs to be said.
I water it down to minimise what I think the reaction may be from the other person.”
I have also had avoided confrontation at all costs and feel this is the reason I have been unable to express my true feelings easily. I am also developing a beautiful and trusting relationship with me now and I am aware of how terrible I feel in my body if I do not express what is there. Great blog Thankyou Brian.
I can relate to this statement ‘put myself in a position of already thinking that I had been hurt, believing therefore I was not able to get hurt by anything they said. I convinced myself that I was not their equal’ this is still something I struggle with no-one hurts me that way I hurt myself when I go into self-loathing. It’s time to let go of being a victim and let that pattern go.
There is a difference between dealing with your anxiousness, and controlling your anxiety. The greatest sportsperson is the one who can control their anxiety, but that does not mean that they are not still anxious underneath the surface, and so we are fed the illusion that such people have the answer. The truth however, is often that such people become ticking time bombs. “Managing” your anxiety or controlling it is like sticking your finger in the dyke. It will work for a while but it leaves you hamstrung. Dealing with anxiety requires one to renounce their attachment to what they want – in other words acceptance. Through acceptance, comes understanding, and through understanding, a deeper surrender, and in that surrender a letting go of the state of being we call anxiousness.
Adam, this is awesome – I feel I now have a better understanding of anxiousness. And as you rightly say, it’s not something you can put on hold. In order to treat the issue, one has to get to the root of it all.
When I am nervous and anxious I can feel my heart rate increase and it starts to sounds like it is beating very loudly, I feel an uneasiness within me and when I go to express something my expression gets lost in a conversation because I get tongue tied and my words just don’t make sense.
Thank you for sharing this Brian, often anxiety and nervousness is something many of us keep close to our chest….this needs to be shared and there is such a vulnerability in your sharing yet held in your strength. As there are social pressures on men to be strong and a certain way….
Brian, this is a celebration:
‘More and more I am appreciating and allowing myself to be me. Because of this they do not control me and I do not fear them, but I can accept that there is an energy there, and I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.’
Yes i can say this has been my experience also, as i was very anxious, nervous type of person, where my body would tremble and i would skip heart beats – i lacked confidence in my ability to do what was in front of me…i allowed nervousness and anxious to control me for years. it wasn’t until like Brian has shared that i became aware of this and what it felt like in my body. The healing remedy for me has been over time developing an appreciation of me, not just a mental mantra, but really feeling it in my body and moving my body with that appreciation. For example i appreciate that i connect easily with people, i love people…i feel that in my body and move that and it feels like joy.
Nervousness and anxiety is very common in our society, more than we possibly realise, particularly what we could call the ‘low grade’ anxiety and nervousness but as you have shared Brian it has a physiological impact on our bodies, it can drain us, make us feel tired in combination with the impact it has on us in our relationship with ourselves such as lack of confidence and doubt and then socially how we are in the world. So we can see from this perspective that anxiousness and anxiety are very serious states as they erode us away. We need to look at anxiety, and the impact it has on our society…they are silent and eroding.
Brian you have shared with us another way. ‘I still feel like that little nervous boy occasionally, but I have a greater awareness of what is going on, which allows me to look at the choices that are there for me to make.’
This is such a strong statement Brian, ‘put myself in a position of already thinking that I had been hurt, believing therefore I was not able to get hurt by anything they said. I convinced myself that I was not their equal’ and i’m sure it resonates for many of us. We can be so afraid of being hurt, but it is us that hurt ourselves more so, by making ourselves less. We can see how harmful that would be to a child if we told them they are less, not good enough, all those things we put on ourselves. You can already see this child either withdraw, cry, become a bully, anxious and an array of behaviours tp choose from. We are no different to that child.
Hello Brian and I think this was and is the case for many of us, “I lived as a scared little boy for many years. Not all the time, just at certain times: always doing things to please other people, looking for recognition, not doing things because I was scared of being wrong or shown to be less.” For me it is like we go over and over any given situation to make sure or certain we aren’t going to be wrong and yet it’s impossible to be perfect, why do we do this over and over. As you are saying rebuilding the relationship you have with your body and how it feels has been important. In place of trying to make things perfect, developing how you are feeling in and around any given situation and healing this part has supported the ‘fear of being wrong’ thoughts.
The willingness through this article to explore not only what might be happening for you but also how anxiety affects those around you is admirable. When you come across someone that has obvious anxiety, you really feel how all encompassing it can be but in truth most of the world is running on a low grade anxiety and we all feel every level, even the subtler cases. Your exploration supports anyone suffering from this affliction a chance to be more honest with themselves, accept and move through to heal one day at a time without perfection.
Reading this article has deepened my understanding of the impact of living with anxiousness. I am feeling waves of exhaustion as I let go of this modus operandi and am inspired by the space there is now, without the restrictiveness and tension of anxiety.
‘…….but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’ I also know nervous tension and anxiety and I observed that often I push myself in order not needing to feel it, which increases and manifests anxiety. The key for me is to alllow myself having space and not to push through the day, but lovingly be present in everything I am doing.
I think this is a big comment for all of us Brian, “In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.” As you are saying it’s not true but this is a default position for many of us including me. When I have spent more time with how I am feeling and not just jumping to a default I have found a lot of the things I thought aren’t true and never really worked anyway. The only thing that has worked day in and day out in any situation is doing my best to stay with what I feel and this is ongoing.
It is amazing quite how much nervousness and anxiousness tightens up and constricts the body. It stops you from truly feeling and reading what is going on as it automatically puts you on guard in reaction.
This is so familiar to me for most of my life: ‘always doing things to please other people, looking for recognition, not doing things because I was scared of being wrong or shown to be less’. It seems this is the way we try to bring up children by well meaning parenting and school expectations. Yet the impact of it as shown in this blog is debilitating on most, and even those who do not go into anxiety but choose to go to overdrive to succeed, that is not natural either. What a blessing it has been to be supported by Universal Medicine to return to deeply connecting to that inner awareness we all have inside and building a loving rhythm in my life that honours that – and start turning round the previous patterns.
Like anything, once we are aware that we have a choice in what we connect to, the obvious choice would be to connect to our selves, and when we choose different and feel that effect, then we can choose again to reconnect to ourselves. sometimes easier said than done, however we the teachings of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon made much more easily achievable than ever before.
It definitely is a true gift to humanity.
Your article is so down to earth and very relatable. Although I have not been someone who suffers from anxiety I absolutely have a deeper understanding of what goes on for people now and I will bring this further understanding to the classroom when I teach. Many children today are showing physical signs of anxiety such as bed wetting and hair pulling.
Thank you Brian for so openly sharing with us. Your story, learning and unfolding is a great support to many and a gorgeous inspiration for what is possible. Today nervousness and anxiety are rampant in society today and it’s beautiful that people have a true lived story to go now go to. Much appreciation.
There comes a point when we realise our reactions to other people’s behaviours actually massively negatively impacts them, it’s the point when you realise that someone else’s well-being and evolution is more important than your reactions or frustrations or whatever.
A great sharing Mary and I can relate here very much to the protection and fortress as it has been a hobby of mine without realising that it was. Letting go of the protection shows a strength that is unbreakable and has allowed me to not need any form of recognition of another whatsoever. Without the support of Serge Benhayon and all his presentations an workshops I would not have come to this enormous realisation.
What struck me is whenever I come across the title of this blog I read a sacred little boy instead of scared, and I love it as it is exactly who you are and we all are. We are super sacred and precious but because we come into a world where this is not lived and honoured we learn to be in this world by adapting behaviours that will cover up our essence and very much let us be in a way that is further and further away of what we know is our truth. And being scared is one of them. But underneath our sacredness stays intact pulsing to the rhythm of the universe.
It is quite a miracle that our sacredness is there the whole time and remains there until we reconnect with it. I am often still blown away with how stillness and presence in one person is more than enough to support the body of an anxious person to drop from where the tension has taken them to their own sacredness. It is very powerful and I absolutely feel that the quality I bring into a classroom is powerful enough to support the class to just be, to surrender to their natural rythmn and be a great foundation for them to learn the curriculum.
If we where to really look at this in and amongst schools and universities we would find that many pupils and students live their entire life using anxiety and nervousness to get through their day, which is leading us into a modern day plague.
So true Amina. I work as a relief teacher and visit 5 different schools each week. I see anxiety a lot in the primary setting.
As I develop letting go of an old momentum of using anxiety and nervousness I can feel how exhausting it is on the body and much more clarity I am experiencing as a result.
Dissipating anxiety and nervousness completely from the way we live is a daily choice, especially when this has been used as a way to get through life.
Brian,this is a very beautiful article to read, I can relate to a lot of what you have written having grown up with a lot of anxiousness and holding myself as less than others, at the time I thought I was just less and I felt bitter that people were treating me this way, I then realised that if I held myself as equal I was treated as an equal and so the blame on others dissipated and I realised it was how i felt about myself that was important.
“Anxiety would cause nausea, tiredness and feelings of not being good enough, always doubting myself, going to the point of self-loathing.” Anxiousness is an immense drain on our health. Its a bit like leaving the car engine running even though you have parked up for the night, its put a constant strain on our nervous system which in turn upsets every other system in the body. Added to this is the toxic effect of the thoughts we have and we have yet to become fully aware of just how damaging these are to our health. The Gentle Breath Meditation is a real God Send for conditions like this, supporting us to come back to our bodies and feel the effects of our thoughts and actions. Re-connecting to the tender quality of our breath is the equivalent of turning off the car engine at the end of the day, everything in our bodies can come back to our natural rhythm and we can give ourselves space to feel our choices, change our awareness of ourselves. Never underestimate the power of such a simple tool.
Trying to escape an energy that exists all around us is impossible; worry, anxiety, nervousness and panic attacks are all energies that we can choose to not absorb. These and many other such tensions are always felt by everyone; we can not stop feeling them but it is how we deal with them that is important. My understanding is that we do not allow these tensions to run our life by living in the knowing that they are not us and we are more than this. If we heal our hurts that caused the problem in the first place, the energy still is there but we are now free to make a different choice of energy that will control our thoughts!
Given there are an increasing number of children with anxiety at a very young age, it would be so awesome for the gentle breath meditation to be a normal part of the school day, maybe even twice a day ….. something so simple, yet incredibly impactful, allowing the child to re-connect and feel how awesome they truly are.
In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. This is what I held onto also Brian, not speaking up because I wanted to be liked and a part of everything. So many times in my life did I compromise myself for this very reason, preferring to be someone, to be liked, compromising myself and what my body was telling me at the time. Now, I can still go there at times, but my body definitely tells me loud and clear, your going against your absoluteness, stop and breathe.
I really appreciate the insight you have shared in your blog, Brian, I can feel so strongly how important it is to be deeply aware of how I am holding people, energetically. You have allowed me to have a far greater awareness as to what it feels like to suffer from anxiety, which is very important given a very large percentage of humanity has this condition to a greater or lesser degree.
‘I can now feel how my being caught up in nervousness and anxiety affects people around me. It makes people feel uncomfortable, I have difficulty saying exactly what I want to say, and what I say can sometimes be confusing because I hold back on what needs to be said.’ …… well said, Brian. We all feel the energy around us, whether we’re aware of it or not, so it makes sense that when someone is nervous or anxious, this tension is felt by others and may provoke a reaction in them also such has a holding back, which may well then create more anxiety and so it goes on …..
Anxiety is exhausting and debilitating. I tried to manage my anxiety by hardening up and shutting out how it felt in my body (which is impossible and leads to further anxiousness). Like you Brian, I eventually learned to feel all there was to feel and look at my choices that led to the anxiety. Today I can say I am not an anxious person but still occasionally choose old behaviours.
“I Have A Choice: Anxiousness, nervousness or Me.” When we get to know us and the ease of living that comes with being ourselves the choice to come back to Me is becoming easier, and now is feeling like I am living from my natural qualities which allows a natural connection with others.
“easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place” – this line really stood out for me this morning, I relate to the idea that at times it is easier to self-sabotage than it is to simply present what is known and needed.
Those who do enjoy confrontation are just as scared in truth – using confrontation as a way to bluster their way through life and ensure no one gets close. It is a guard. The bully in truth is as lost as those he victimises.
It’s amazing how much we fight being ourself .. when we are everything and more. Why is that everything around us does not support or reflect this? Or, why is it that we do not embrace all that we feel, trust, and truly love who we are and what we bring?
Anxiety and nervousness are things that many people live with and learn how to mask with stimulants and busyness and much of the time, may not even realise they are anxious as it can become such a familiar way of being. I know from my own experience that coffee and sugar used to be my ‘go to’ because they made my body feel racy and stimulated and the anxiousness and racyness merged into one. When you take away these stimulants or other props, it sometimes feels like you are more anxious, but this isn’t necessarily true, it’s just that you’re feeling what is really there and not masking it.
I love what you’ve shared Brian. It isn’t about finding a ‘fix’ for things like anxiety, but about being aware it is there, what triggers it, and when we do go into it, using the techniques we have so ready available e.g. the Gentle Breath Meditation to come back to ourselves.
I have held so many things unexpressed inside me for this very reason too Brian,“In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked.” However it is interesting that we will put ourselves first because of our anxiousness, rather than putting the importance of saying something that is true when it needs to be said, as allowing a behaviour that is harmful to continue, it is equally as harming to not call it out.
Brian, thank you for your sharing. The reality is that there are many of us in the world that live some level of anxiety and like you have shared, many get very good at hiding it, pretending it is not there or even forgetting that that is what they are feeling. Anxiety is a key ingredient of our current society and some people have higher degrees of anxiety to the point that they need to be medicated for with with pharmaceuticals. And then there is a larger portion that dont need pharmaceuticals but that then medicate themselves with alcohol, recreational drugs, excessive sports and study etc etc. This is crazy but we actually seem to accept low grade anxiety as normal and so people live with this on a daily basis and call themselves OK or FINE, even though they are not Ok or fine. So Brian – your blog actually spells it out that we dont have to live this way, that any level of anxiety is not normal and is not something we have to choose to live with. We have the capacity to make a change and live differently.
The choice is really – living deeply connected, breathing our own breath, staying present to ‘what is’ or connecting to ‘what is not’ which is an energy that tries to stop us from the ‘what is’ – so lovely to read your choices now Brian.
It really is so ‘simple’ – to connect to ourselves and treat ourselves with the utmost care and lovingness, respect and appreciation is all we have to do ….
I can relate to anxiety too, as in the past there was heaps and heaps of it, disguised at times and other times right out in the open. Getting to know myself more and more over the years now and connecting to who I am within more and more, with all the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, has made a profound difference in my life too and I am forever grateful for all I have been given and continue to be given to truly step into who I am.
Great sharing Brian, and I love your conclusion too – “I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no.” At any moment we have the opportunity to look at the choices we can make, and to choose you over energies that do not support you will always be a winning choice, even though at times it may feel not so easy.
We experience rejection from such an early age that we start to change ourselves to hide and avoid it at all costs. For some it is about being invisible, for others it is the need to please, or being bigger than life…. the list goes on but very rarely are we told that it is OK just to be ourselves. Learning to undo the pain of rejection, particular self rejection has sent me on a journey of acceptance responsibility and understanding choices.
There’s such a stigma that a man can’t be anxious, let alone show it. I have found that in covering this up, men feel they need to be tough, or hardened which only adds to the issue, because there is the added pressure that they should not only not be feeling anxious, but cannot let anyone in the world see or know it.
‘I always looked at sport as being my time – an opportunity to be what I thought was myself, not having to worry about what was going on in my life.’
There was a time when I used to think running was my ‘time out’, and was the time of the day I enjoyed the most – especially when I was experiencing extreme anxiety and panic attacks. Whilst I numbed myself in the pounding of the pavement, I was not actually doing anything to support myself, and in fact, by trying to escape what was awaiting to be felt, I made the issue worse.
Thank you for sharing this Brian, I see many people who experience anxiety on this level and you have given me a deeper insight into what it is like from the inside-out.
Since attending Serge Benhayon’s presentations, I began to realise there is always a choice, a very simple choice in fact – to be love or not be love – sitting on the fence and not making any choice, is in fact making the choice to not be love.
From lived experience, deepening connection with my body and being more aware of breathing my own breath has been key in re-building a strong and solid foundation within. This is highly preferable to the old way of living with anxiousness and disharmony.
If I being honest I would say I operate with at least a low level of anxiety most of the time. There are levels of tension and stress that I allow and then there are levels that feel too intense. I appreciate how you have presented here a way to address this and potentially live without anxiety and nervousness.
“This way of living was very detrimental to my health and wellbeing. Anxiety would cause nausea, tiredness and feelings of not being good enough, always doubting myself, going to the point of self-loathing”, this is so key Brian as it evidences the link between physical and mental health. If we are consistently anxious in our minds then this has a strong impact on how our bodies feel, and vice versa if we disregard our bodies our mental health can suffer. It’s so important to take care of the WHOLE and not just fragments of our lives and bodies.
‘Nervousness and anxiety have been my all too often companions.’ How many of us have felt like this? And yet even reading this sentence we can see that it come back to our choice – are they companions we want to hang around us or are they companions that no longer fit into where we are going?
“I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing.” This could be true of many professional athletes where the celebration in winning is really a relief that they did not lose. There can be no true celebration or achievement in winning as this is always at the expense of the person or team that did not win. Competition is detrimental to all involved.
I totally agree – the more I am building an honest relationship with myself, the more I can stop in a situation where I do or could possibly feel anxious and ask myself what it is I am feeling for sensing that is making em feel this way – what do I not feel prepared to deal with, can my connection to who I am deepen so that I am steady no matter what? I have found that this has totally changed the amount of anxiousness I live in.
For years Mary I would go to a Chinese Medicine practitioner who would give me an Acupuncture session,use jars as suction points and herbal mixtures which really tasted horrible. I would see him every 3- 4 mths.I would feel so much better after a session but all that had happened was a relief of the symptoms that were playing out in my body. Nothing would change. I would still be Anxious and nervous and rebuild the symptoms in my body. Universal Medicine through the workshops,presentations courses and practitioners have given me the understanding and the power to begin healing myself. This is the only way it can be.
How can there be any true connection or intimacy with others if we make ourselves less and not equal to the other person. By doing this we are actually saying no to the connection with other person and dismissing love.
Anxiety and Nervousness are very effective at what they are designed to do, prevent any true connection with anyone. Even now at times I feel like an outsider in a group. This is just me distancing my self and preventing any connection. This is my choice not other people rejecting me.
You took the words right out of my mouth Brian. This is a brilliant blog about a subject that has affected many men and myself most of my life also.
It is a clever ruse isn’t it to get in first and ‘beat ourselves up’ before someone else does believing that this decreases or prevents rejection from others but it doesn’t work because we are still ‘beaten up’ at the end of it and have made ourselves far less than who we.
When we are in a state of anxiety all our choices are based on fear and avoiding something happening rather than just choosing based on how we really feel in our bodies and what we really feel to be the truth. This creates further tension uneasiness and a lack of self worth because we are not living true to who we are.
‘I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing. I always looked at sport as being my time – an opportunity to be what I thought was myself, not having to worry about what was going on in my life. What an illusion!’ – It is interesting how society is set up with images and ideals for us to feel we have to achieve something to ‘be ourselves’ and to find identity – and how this keeps us from understanding that we are already all we ever need to be.
I too have tried to deliver half-truths instead of being totally honest, for fear that it would not be well received. It creates confusion and has often lead to more mess. Holding back does not benefit anyone.
It’s interesting how men come across as able to handle most things but then there are the little telltale signs that give it away, such as not speaking up in a group and avoiding situations. It just goes to show how we as a society have fallen for the facade they present, even to the point that we believe they do not get nervous and that they should be able to cope with everything. Time to look at the guys a little closer and to recognise that they are as vulnerable as women.
Something i have noticed Brian is that i often blame others for my anxiousness – yet when i read what is actually going on i see that i am furious with myself and unwilling to take responsibility for the choices that have led me there.
“I still feel like that little nervous boy occasionally, but I have a greater awareness of what is going on, which allows me to look at the choices that are there for me to make.” Brian how amazing to have this awareness of the how the nervous little boy feels, to clock it and then to take responsibility for the choices that got you there – this is truly parenting yourself.
It’s so interesting that you say you were terrified of confrontation but that you loved playing sport. As you say, sport is confrontational in its nature. Perhaps this was your way of managing the anxiety in a way that was controlled and organised. I love how you have found a way to deal with your anxiety in your everyday life so that you do not need sport as a way to manage it.
Its amazing how we compartmentalise our lives, finding pockets that we call “our time”.
I ask myself what is “our time”?
Is this a moment when we put aside everything else so we can focus on ourselves?
Is not the very nature of needing ‘our time’ because we do not live in a way that honours ourselves on a daily basis and consequently this momentum causes us to feel exhausted, seeking ‘time out’.
“The choices I was making in how I lived came from a man already in anxiety, constantly worrying about the future. Making those choices I would very rarely be the gentle, tender and loving man that I am.” This is such a great point Brian and one i can totally relate to, for in this disharmonious state of anxiousness we are actively blocking out the abundant tenderness, sensitivity and stillness that innately, naturally we all are.
‘The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.’ With experience in my life is the importance of the relationship with my body and the openness to understand what is truly going on and what is my role in it.
“This way of living never felt right, yet I let it become a part of me, ingrained in everything I did or did not do.”
This confirms all that Serge Benhayon presents, for inwardly we know what naturally supports and serves us yet we choose to bend ourselves to what we think the outer needs us to be until it becomes such a familiar movement, part of our lives that we come to accept that it is our normal.
Watering my expression down to “minimise what I think the reaction may be from the other person,” is something I have chosen to do all my life, but the result is that by holding myself back the other person does not get to hear the truth of what could have been shared. I cut my innate wisdom off for others and myself by going into nervousness and anxiety before hand and I don’t allow myself to access what I could bring.
Brian, it’s great to read this article, I love the simplicity of what you have shared here, ‘I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.’ this is really supportive and I can feel how the anxiety is not me, that naturally I am not a nervous or anxious person, that I have a choice to go into the anxiousness or to stay present.
When it comes down to it Rebecca it is quite simple. It is us that choose the complications that help to confuse ourselves.
Brian I remember going through life in my later stages of school and after leaving school where I was so anxious I would be shaking and twitching at the desk, focused on driving myself forward with no care for myself in the process. To this extent anxiousness was so very normal, it was part of every day – yet now today I see the harm this has caused and what your blog further shows me is that something that is normal is often very far from truth because in reality is it very unnormal.
What you say David is correct For some people their anxiety and nervousness can lead to needing assistance from the Medical system. For most of us, certainly for me, feeling anxious was normal. I would deal with the symptoms in my body, not understanding exactly what was happening and just get on with living. As you say quite unnormal.
It is amazing the turmoil we can put ourselves through when we are anxious and nervous it is as if the world closes in on us and what can be seen as normal decisions in life suddenly become complicated calculated and intense.
Brian simply reading the title to your stunning sharing was enough to really bring it home to me how we are so completely wrapped up in the illusion. We, the collective Sons of God, each one of us a mighty slice of himself, spending lifetime after lifetime giving ourselves titles like ‘anxious and lonely, depressed and suicidal, bouncy and fun, excitable and generous, gregarious and whacky,’ they are all dissolve able descriptions that get changed and rotated as we go through life after life. And yet we invest in certain ones. We want to have the ‘happy and popular’ or the ‘intelligent and interesting’ titles, not knowing that they are just different flavours of the same thing. That thing being ‘who we are not’.
Anxiety is a self-made prison that we place ourselves in to be protected from the world. The causes can be many but the outcome is always the same, locking us in our own little box. Your description of sports is like coming out of your box to only be chased by the thing that you built it for to start with. You have shown the change we can make by listening to our body and slowly opening it up to the world. How many others are still out there hiding and suffering in silence.
Nervousness and anxiety really are very debilitating and are a world plague in intensity. The loving choices we can make and changing the way we live really makes so much difference supporting us as does healing our childhood hurts and issues in our lives and supports everyone around us also.
I agree Jane many are bound to the idea that they are how they have ended up and no changes can be made, yet this is far from the case. Knowing that anxiety and nervousness is not normal nor is it who we are at essences reveals that we have many conversations to be had on who we truly our, how we live that and what our purpose is.
I love the way you say Brian, “I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me” the simple knowing that we have a choice here is an enormous step and is something for all of us to really home in on and consider. Having experienced so much of this since my childhood it brings about an enormous understanding and rediscovering of who I am by not choosing to use this way as my way, therefore I am now able to step into the world and just be me without the need to use either anxiety or nervousness to get through.
Nevousness and anxiety are patterns of behaviour that I have pulled in to stop me from deeply feeling what is going on. Sometimes there are things in the outside world that I don’t want to feel sometimes it is something within that I don’t want to feel. As I nominate these patterns more, I am finding that it is becoming easier to reconnect with my body and choose a different quality of being with myself.
I wonder how many of us spend a lot of energy ‘shooting ourselves in the foot’ just so we can say the job is already done if someone else comes along and tries to? I wonder how many of us are therefore walking around wounded for no reason other than to pre-empt the theoretical possibility that someone else might wound us? Thank you, Brian, for flagging up the ludicrousness of the cruelty we dispense on ourselves.
“I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in”. This is a wonderful realisation Brian to share with other people. I actually find that denying, pushing down or trying to fight anxiety just helps to keep it firmly in place. When I step back and observe, feel and question the anxiety, it loses its power altogether.
I loved what you have shared Brian. I feel the social norms of how men are expected to behave are very strong. They set men up to be constantly looking to see from other men (and women) if they have met the mark. These socially created ‘marks’ are impossible to meet and feel ‘all-wrong’ in the body, as they deny so much of the loveliness and sweetness that is naturally there within men. Thus men are setup for a life of anxiousness (and pretending they are not).
Our whole society is set up upon layers and layers of ideals and beliefs. We have visions and pictures of what a man should be, how he should look, how he should act, the same for women. In subscribing to these pictures we each lose our connection to ourselves and who we truly are and we put ourselves on the merry go round of manipulation and comparison, confirming everyone in their choices of not being true to themselves.
Learning to recognise the early warning signs and triggers of anxiousness and what your body feels like when it is not anxious is a very important step to re-empower oneself and stop it from controlling your life. As I have found there is often no basis for the anxiety except for the habitual pattern I have created of this being my norm in life. This pattern doesn’t seem to be able to run when I am very present and gentle with my body and myself.
Our anxiety really does affect other people, similar to a herd of animals. If one animal becomes agitated in the pack, it ripples through the herd like a warning of imminent danger. I feel something similar happens with people, where an anxious person sends out an energetic signal that something bad is about to happen. This distress signal probably makes it harder for people to concentrate on what is being said, as their bodies are being told to get ready to fight or run.
An inspiring blog showing that we can all change those aspects of our childhood which may still affect us in adult life through a loving relationship and understanding with ourselves.
Brian you mention how being anxious can affect people around you. This was not something I had ever considered before. As I have become less anxious I am sensitive to how others are around me. In a way my anxiousness kept me wrapped up in myself and therefore I was less able to connect with others.
Brian, an awesome sharing and great to hear how you have transformed things in your life and the way you look and feel about things. We all have so much to share, we not only cripple ourselves but also others when we hold ourselves back.
Putting myself down before others had the chance to, I thought was an ingenious way to avoid the hurt of others doing that to me. But the pain of not being who I am, the resentment and bitterness borne from this is way worse than any put down. So why do I still revert to pretending and investing in trying to be less than another? Could it be as simple as seeing how this way isn’t the way, choosing to commit to living the way and celebrating the reflection this brings understanding what’s reflected isn’t about me but is us all as one with the universe?
For me anxiety has been the ‘perfect tool’ to not have to feel the world around me. Lots of what’s going on in the world isn’t very loving and caring. So I choose to invest in life and put enormous amount of enery in making the world a ‘better place’, a more loving place. So that in the end when everybody was to live lovingly, I could come out – safely – and live lovingly as well. But what if this doesn’t work… That life’s about reflection and that I am to reflect love in order to inspire others – naturally. That’s in fact everybody’s responsibile and birth right – to L I V E our own life, Light and Love. Rather than choosing the anxious, nervous little boy.
“I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” What a revelation! For anyone feeling anxiety or nervousness and thinking this is just who they are, this is an amazing blog to show that there is a real choice that can be made. I find connecting to my body and to my breath gives me the opportunity to make the next move not in that emotion but with all of me instead.
I also thought I had hidden an occasional low level of anxiety, it would come about when I judged myself to be lesser than another, it would be debilitating and I would have to distract the conversation or go mute or vague out. Now I am loving the surety I feel within, having set about clearing and supporting myself of these negative judgements and building a relationship with my body. No matter with whom I speak now I realise I have an equal contribution even if it is to listen and support I now know myself as an equal part in all that life presents.
The more I feel my own love, the more I feel this as a marker and when nervousness or anxiety comes in then I can recognise it as not me. As soon as I recognise it then I can come back to me.
“In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked.” Gosh Brian, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve not said something for fear of being wrong or not being liked. However, what I can discern now is that these are just thoughts that I entertained and made my own. Whereas in truth when I now connect to my body to know what I feel, I can then say this knowing it is of complete value as it was experienced, and therefore worth expressing.
Brian allowing your natural self to shine has been a journey I have noticed, it’s lovely to now see your open smile and feel all of you in your full expression.
Anxiety is alarmingly prevalent. You have delivered gold to people experiencing it Brian in saying that you
“… have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me”. I think that knowing this is remarkably empowering and not just for people with anxiety, but for us all.
Nervous tension is making my body like a prison, very tight and there is a drive to get things done, I cannot think or act properly and I make the mistakes I want to avoid. It asks a true relationship with myself to make a conscious choice to not put others or a task first and let my body suffer but instead honour my body by being present with what I am doing and to feel what is there next.
Our body has so much wisdom within, it really does show us how to be in life if we just listen, we can gain so much wisdom.
i love the fact that you share that you have been feeling anxiety since boyhood- its obvious we get knocked out of our innermost very early on in life. Babies don’t naturally carry anxiety- they are at ease in general if all their needs are being met. Anxiety is definitely a response to life!
And opening a conversation about this, as this article has, is an amazing opportunity to gentle review our habits and behaviours and what lies behind them.
Men often do not talk about their anxiety – its great to see and read from one man who is being honest and who does wish to actively deal with it too, rather than bury it in ‘safe’ talk or alcohol or other typical behaviours.
This is so common an experience, people do typically experience this and how it feels to have this as a chronic issue in life. there is a way and i am so glad to likewise be reducing my exposure to chronic anxiety too.
Thank you Brian – it’s clear from what you’ve shared that whether we are in anxiety and nervousness or connected to our innermost, it’s just a choice.
Understanding what we are trying to avoid and the ways this has played out in our lives is important. When we try not to feel some things it stops us from feeling the good stuff too and our focus narrows to avoiding and being afraid. Allowing ourselves to feel what is there and to understand that these negative feelings are not us is so healing. I lived with this too and now I understand so much more I can acknowledge what is happening and not be so overwhelmed by it.
Anxiety is debilitating and I would say the vast majority of people suffer from to different degrees, and as you have nominated the best way to deal with anxiety is by adopting healthy and self caring lifestyle choices
Anxiety is also very involving and very controlling. It is a good way not to see the world as it truly is – in its glory and its ghastliness.
Yes Joe, it is hugely debilitating, and a plague in modern times. Most of us don’t realise how addicted to anxiety we actually are, that it has this grip on us, sometimes ever so subtle but harshly so — to the extent that we never can fully settle within ourselves. To call out this anxiety, to know it is not who we are, is the first very powerful step at freeing ourselves of it.
Just love reading your blog, Brian, thank you, each time I take away something more. As I was re-reading it today, I realised that whilst I would never say that I suffered from anxiety or nervousness, I am very aware that I have used a lot of control in my life to avoid certain feelings and as I’ve chosen to let go of this more, I am feeling a lot more anxiety in my body. In the past, when I would have used control to not feel something, I am now allowing myself to feel a lot more, to connect more deeply with my body instead of trying to dismiss the erupting feelings. These feelings often start as anxiety, then, as you share, I have the choice to either allow it to dominate me, or instead, choose to connect to my inner heart, to surrender to my body, trust in myself and allow myself to just be, knowing that things will work out just the way they are meant to be for my evolution, if I allow myself to just be and allow things to unfold.
I can relate to anxiety being caused by not feeling good enough, trying to please others and giving my power away leading to constant tiredness and exhaustion.
This is a powerful blog Brian in its openness and honesty to explore how anxiety has affected your life by looking at aspects in life that are difficult to face.
We can live our lives in fear and anxiety, but this takes a huge toll on the body with tension being revealed in our muscles and our movements. I did to do this too for a lot of my life, too scared to open my mouth and thought I’d make a fool of myself. Letting it go of this is amazingly releasing in the body, it’s liberating and frees the whole body up from the tension that we can carry and not realise it until it’s not there.
It is amazing how you can disguise and hide anxiousness – for many years i hid it behind the facade of being a motivated, driven person – maybe coming across very eager to please or even hard working, but what is driving it underneath is this constant anxiousness and nervous tensions. But who in this world would be criticised for that? Who cares enough to stop you and ask you to consider not just the doing but the quality of your being.
Reading this blog makes me think about all men around the world – do they all experience this anxiousness? And how do they respond / react to it? What does it make them do? I was wondering, because when we hear about violent acts committed against our fellow humans, and those are often by men, I want to ask, what happened to the tender boys they were when they were born? What do we as parents do to nurture that tenderness? Why do we make our children so hard? We can teach them other means of survival, i.e. by connecting within and listening to what they feel. In that way we all connect and violence becomes impossible. We are a long way off that but it is the way to be for the future, the only way to be if we are to evolve back to where we came from.
I wonder if the best antidote to nervousness and anxiety is being connected to our inner heart? Our connection to our inner heart may largely be determined by how we move.
Brian, thank you for this very honest and humble blog, reading this I can feel how I grew up with a lot of anxiousness and lack of self worth – it just seemed who I was at the time, the presentations of Universal Medicine have inspired me to make many changes in my life, taking care of myself has built my confidence in myself, now if I feel anxious I allow myself to sit with this feeling and feel into why this maybe, this seems to allow the anxiousness to dissipate.
Thanks, Brian. It’s so true what you say, that if you live your life with an underlying level of anxiousness, every decision you make, everything you do is laced with that energy and therefore none of it is from the true you. This can be very debilitating and frustrating as it feels like you are going nowhere. Exposing the trap of choosing anxiousness is super important, as it is so prolific nowadays.
Wow thank you for being so honest Brian, your blog is so refreshing to read. I know before attending the Universal Medicine presentations I was super anxious and spent a lot of time trying to hide it, I am now so much more confident and even though anxiety still comes up it now hasn’t got the intensity it had 5 years ago before I came to this work. There is so much anxiousness and nervous tension in the world and mainly this is because for some crazy reason we are afraid of being just who we are.
To me anxiety was always there as an under current that was puling me every which way. Thanks to the presentations on anxiety by the ‘College of Universal Medicine’ and also by Serge Benhayon I now have an understanding of why this was happening to me so I can now deal with anxiety!
“Confrontation scared the pants off me. I would do anything to avoid confrontation when communicating with people…” This I have lived too! The idea of making someone else rattled by simply being around them let alone actually speaking made me tread on eggshells. As a consequence I chose making myself less and lived in anxiousness. I am still learning what it feels like to not do this and to be more me around everyone, which feels great.
I completed the Anxiety in Men course presented by the College of Universal Medicine and found it very valuable in understanding and reducing the levels of anxiety I experience every day. I would highly recommend it…http://study.coum.org/enrol/index.php?id=14
Anxiety is one of those things that you can learn to manage or hide to a point from other people but surfaces from time to time in a big way if a crisis hits. And I know if you let it, it can dominate your thought processes so that everything you do or choose is based on a worry about the future rather than feeling the truth of what is going on in the present moment.
Life is very draining when we focus on doing things to please others or to avoid being in the wrong, yet it is very common because we hold so strongly to the concepts of Right and Wrong. It took me quite a few years to realise just how anxious I was and then quite a few more to heal this. It is such an important subject to air and discuss and great to know that there are courses out there supporting men with this issue. We put ourselves under such immense pressure to be something we are not, to conform to a set of false ideals that completely negate the tender, caring, wise and deeply loving people we all innately are.
Once something becomes so imbedded in one’s life, like anxiety has been for me, it is easy to assume that there is nothing that can be done to change it. I used to believe that I was just an ‘anxious person’. However as you have pointed out here Brian, we are not by nature anxious and ultimately it comes from a choice to stop being who we are or hold back who we are from the world and so we can start making different choices and not allow it to dominate.
Wow thanks Brian for being so open and honest in your blog about such a big topic that I’m sure affects many men and women. I know I related to a lot of what you have shared here. It is so true that anxiety stops us men from being the tender, gentle but powerful men that we are and this can be felt by everyone around us.
.’……… always doing things to please other people, looking for recognition, not doing things because I was scared of being wrong or shown to be less.’
This creates such a huge tension in the body and as such nervousness, to seek recognition and acceptance, trying to be nice all of the time. I agree, to build a relationship with the body brings me back into the actual moment and takes away the anxiousness.
Having woken up with high levels of anxiety most of my life it is a joy to read this and reflect on how far I have come with this. It is amazing to see and feel that by making changes to the way I am with life, my daily root choices such as food, sleep, conversations etc. really do support in changing this way of living around.
It’s so great to have this subject brought up and exposed and I would be very interested in learning a bit more about this Understanding Anxiety in Men presentation by the College of Universal Medicine as it sounds like something that would benefit me a great deal.
I agree Kevin, I did the course live and online and can recommend it.
When you talk about the fact that “Confrontation scared the pants off me.” this is how I felt, it’s also one of the things that has taken me many years to change how I am in confrontational situations. Today knowing that I am calling the truth of a situation provides strength in confrontational situations, and the moment I go into right or wrong I get completely confused and want to run away from it. Yet standing up for truth, no matter what, is something that we are all being asked to do. If we don’t nothing changes.
Re-reading this blog, helped me see how my past fear of confrontation, was a consequence being disconnected to myself. How could I express myself honestly, if I didn’t allow myself to feel and honour what I felt. I also see how not expressing how we truly feel, disconnects us from another and also dismisses them.
What a beautiful learning Brian, that we have a choice either being with ourselves or not and with the latter choosing for nervousness and anxiety instead.
Serge Benhayon presents an understanding of the fact that it takes much more effort to be anxious and nervous than to be centered and still. With this wisdom living in my body I can hardly maintain anxiety and nervous tension without knowing that I am fooling myself and all others.
We tend to kid ourselves bout why and how we play sport. Having a need to get it perfect and be recognised for what we do in sport isn’t a healthy start. This need creates a drive that will get us to sacrifice our body in order to achieve our goals (pun intended!) Playing sport from a fear of losing is like learning to swim from a fear of drowning. What can be a joyful, playful experience becomes an activity driven by fear and anxiety.
When we look to others constantly to see if we are doing it wrong, it always feels wrong. We are not meant to be in a constant state of seeking approval. Each situation and person requires a different ‘right’ behaviour, there is no set rule book, thus enhancing the fear of getting it wrong. What I find feels right is to be at ease with myself, and do what is right within my body (if the ease and spaciousness leave then its not ‘right’). This brings a stillness, harmony and quiet sureness to me where I don’t need to check in with anyone.
I think it is great that you have nominated how well and how much effort we put into hiding our anxiousness. The statistics that show anxiousness is widespread seem like the tip of the iceberg to me. Most of us have developed a persona where we don’t let people see how anxious we are. We become easy going, super efficient, jokey, arrogant etc to hide how anxious we are. Some of us seem to be gliding along like ducks but our feet are paddling fast under water.
“This way of living never felt right, yet I let it become a part of me, ingrained in everything I did or did not do”. I can relate to this feeling of low-grade anxiousness becoming my normal way of being. In recent times when I check with my body and find my tight stomach or that feeling of being ready for what is coming next, I actually find it easy to drop. I become more solid and present in my body and what seems like a permanent state can disappear in a moment. I don’t actually talk myself out of feeling anxious, I just recognise that it is a way of being I have chosen that has been comfortable, but I equally have the option to not choose it and allow myself to just be.
Trying to live something other than who we are be that a role, picture or ideal, it’s little wonder that anxiety kicks in
I have experienced that the more i know myself and am willing to live me in the world, breath my own breath and dont seek or need the approval of others, play a role, play it safe or dumb it down, that anxiety has no oxygen to run
With a great prevalence of anxiety in society from younger and younger ages, it is very needed to bring our awareness to this health issue
Remarkable is your rediscovery of you and a true way of living. It is very inspiring to learn of you overcoming chronic anxiety and that there is such life-changing support on offer through CoUM and Universal Medicine.
‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’ ….. this is beautiful, Brian, what an enormous shift for you to feel in your body, that you are no longer a victim to your anxiety and nervousness. What you share is so true for any ‘dis-ease’ that we’re feeling in our bodies …. it’s an opportunity to trace back and look at the choices we made that have led to us feeling the way we do.
I can relate to much of your sharing too Brian. Anxiousness has undermined me (I have allowed it to) in many areas of my life. I have held myself back in expressing how I have felt and in day to day living and working situations. Many times I have not taken those important steps forward in my life by allowing anxiety and nervous energy to undermine me. Through Universal Medicine and the teachings of Serge Benhayon I have learnt to manage this detrimental issue.
Thank you for exposing how imposing anxiety is on others Brian. When we are feeling anxious, there is a tendency to think that it’s just our own internal issue, and that it doesn’t impact on anyone else. But when others are deprived of our true expression and reflection, how can it not be imposing? We are all connected, and we all feel the disharmony each other is in, whether we are aware of it or not. Sometimes we take it on, sometimes we react to it and push it away, sometimes we go into sympathy. Any which way, it all leads to further disconnection and separation from each other, which is counter to the natural pull of humanity which is true connection with one another. While we allow anxiety and other such light-minimising energies and strategies to own us, we are living in a way that is unnatural and in opposition to evolution.
While I have come a long way in re-claiming my natural confidence in some areas of my life, verbal expression is still an area where I hold back a lot and I can see how anxiousness underpins this. Your blog is a great reminder to bring more awareness to this, and to allow myself to surrender into my body more deeply. When I am connected with my body, mind and body become aligned, and expression flows naturally.
What you have shared Brian is very important, as the majority of people in the world live with some level of anxiety. This is considered normal and written off as one of the trivial little side effects of progress and development, Whereas you are exposing it for the plague it is, and particularly illuminating how debilitating it is when it has you. While the plague of anxiety has humanity in its grasp, quietly suffocating them in its toxic embrace, the outplay is that very few are living their true potential and very-few are expressing truth. Through your lived experience however, you are reflecting to the world that there is another way to live. When we are able to see anxiety for the pernicious energy that it is, and start to develop relationship with our body, with our breath, the return begins, to who we truly are.
‘Living this way never felt true…’ – There are so many messages coming from outside of us demanding, pushing, rewarding us for being something we are not. Your re-connection to who you truly are and what the truth is, is growing everyday. What a beautiful reflection you are bringing to those around you especially those also confused by the mixed message from the world outside of themselves. Thanks Brian.
I have heard the course ‘Understanding Anxiety in Men’ as presented by The College of Universal Medicine was excellent in the level of understanding it bought to this subject.
Anxiety has been a strategy I used for most of my life to keep myself small. But the game’s is now up and I am able to see it for what it is and how I allowed myself to be played big time. And I’m also discovering that as my relationship with my body is growing, that my body exudes a natural, inbuilt confidence, that has been there all along. In the moments when I claim my natural confidence the true me is allowed to shine, and it’s impossible for anxiousness to own me.
‘Confrontation scared the pants off me. I would do anything to avoid confrontation when communicating with people’. I was also once a person that avoided confrontation at all costs, until I learned that not expressing what I felt, internalised tension that never really went away. Confrontation reflects something we need to see about ourselves, not runaway from.
I am learning more and more how anxiety is truly a choice. I can only connect to this truth when I feel and know what is there in my body without anxiety and nervousness. This I am learning to cultivate more and more.
I can relate to almost everything written in this blog. I still find myself doing a lot to avoid confrontations. I am very, very tender and sensitive, yet showing when I got hurt is still something I’m learning. The disconnection from my body has been extremely ingrained and thanks to all the self-caring and self-loving choices I’ve made I’m allowing myself to show more and more of what’s really going on for me. Which has led to both more Joy as well as feeling alive! Life’s beautiful, without anxiety or stress if we but only truly Live it!
Thank you Brian, it is so true – we are not any of this nervousness and anxiety, we are love first – and how important to see ourselves for who we are – and not the behaviors or patterns we present. This is what I have learned by Universal Medicine the difference between who we are in essence and what energy comes through us – either love or not.
How do we actually come up with the idea that harming ourselves would protect us from getting hurt by others? Not only are we not protected but also do we abuse ourselves. There is much more to heal than just the anxiety.
There is a deeper psychology at play with anxiety as may be obvious. As long as we only understand ourselves to be victims of a condition we will stay ignorant of the part we play in creating it. That might sound unusual or somehow offensive to those who suffer from anxiety but that is not intended, it simply is about acknowledging that we have much more say in our health and well-being than usually assumed.
Anxiety is paralyzing, but as much as one may feel being helpless or a victim it actually is a coping mechanism, hence it needs to be explored also from this side to understand the underlying deeper cause otherwise we will only be able to manage anxiety better but not truly heal it.
In my experience this is true for me Alex. I can feel how I use anxiety as a way to avoid feeling or reading a situation that is in front of me. Understanding that it is a deliberate choice to go into anxiety not just something that happens to us is one of the key things that has supported me to decrease the intensity and frequency of anxiety in my life. For if I am choosing it then I can ‘un-choose it’!
I am very familiar with anxiety myself. Once I was in it I had no idea or means to change it. Today I still can find myself going into it but through the deep understanding and the techniques of Universal Medicine I am very well equipped to arrest it and come back to being me.
How often do we have a behaviour simply to cope with our anxiety – when we live with a constant low grade anxiousness, we have to find way to cope and out let the excess tension
Thank you for being so honest Brian, I feel you are not alone in your nervousness and anxiety I feel most of the population feel the same but are not so willing to express it. I know I have gone through most of my life being nervous or anxious but I learnt to mask it well by not putting myself in situations that would expose that I was anxious. What I have learnt is the more I am open and honest and very much present in the moment, not letting my mind race ahead, that there is no room for either nervousness or anxiousness to take hold.
“Confrontation scared the pants off me. I would do anything to avoid confrontation when communicating with people, even when playing sport. The funny thing is, sport by nature is confrontational” I can so relate to what you are sharing here. I had always been scared of confrontation too – I had been used to hiding behind ‘nice’ so as not to have to deal with the fallout of others reactions, however when I played sport at school I used to be quite competitive and love attacking – the polar opposite to the persona I had created. It was as if all my pent up frustration at lack of expression could be taken out on the court or pitch. If I scored a goal in netball or hockey I felt recognised too and it was an incentive to keep going with both the sport and a counter my choices. This didn’t really work though as any “victory” was very short lived and the feelings of inadequacy remained.
I also used to live with so much anxiety and nervousness too. The thing that has helped me the most, is first recognizing how that actually feels in your body. This came with learning The Gentle Breath Meditation. http://www.unimedliving.com/meditation/gentle-breath-meditation/what-is-gentle-breath-meditation.html It gave me the ability to be able to feel a ‘stop’ and get to stillness in my body. From here I am able to observe, and feel much more. This practise over time gave me a greater awareness of myself, my behaviours and movements in daily life. Mostly these days, I am able to look at ‘anxiousness’ as if it were a game of tracking back to what triggers me. These are usually false beliefs about having to do something a certain way. A big one was rushing to get something done, because I had created a pattern of never giving myself enough time to do what needed doing.
I thought that self doubt was normal and to question myself and every decision was also normal. I perfected being nice until I couldn’t tolerate it any more and then avoided people so there would be no confrontation or an explosion into an irrational flood of tears because I was so overwhelmed. Learning to express clearly and responsibly how I am feeling and what I am seeing is taking many years of refining daily. There are moments where I still surprise myself with a level of frustration that has built up and that comes blurting out. Rather than going into shame, these provide an opportunity to go even deeper.
The more I have developed a relationship with my body the more alien those feelings of anxiety and control are becoming. Over time we get taught to override our feelings and take on, champion and not question living in fear, anxiety and the controlling behaviours we use to keep it all underwraps and appear successful. But as you’ve shared here Brian is that that is not us in truth and we can have a relationship with anxiety that doesn’t have it sit on top of us! That we are the authorities of the quality we allow into our bodies and our bodies are the quality control director.
Getting to know how all emotions and feelings actually feel in our body is truly liberating, teaching us the repercussions of the choices we make.
Brian, I love how you have connected how when we hold back what we feel or need to say that we are contributing to the anxiousness that is being experienced. This point alone brings a whole new understanding to what is going on with anxiety.
“I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” I love how this states so clearly how the anxiety and nervousness are not you.
So true Rebecca, it is a very clear choice. So often we allow anxiety to overpower us so it almost becomes an addiction to living that way. it can feel stange without its presence in your body, but oh, such a freedom when it is gone. The fact that it can leave, just like that, when we choose to recognise it is not us and we are more than it and have a choice to be fully ourselves, shows us how it is just an energy we allow to inhabit us.
I used to think that the only way to not feel anxious and nervous was to avoid situations in life, such as refusing social invites because I would have to talk to people I did not know – this used to be my worst nightmare and I would have a couple of drinks early in the evening to give me confidence, but I used to get so ill on the alcohol that in the end I refused to go to the military functions, even though they were compulsory for the spouses.
The Universal Medicine courses here in the UK regularly have 200+ people and this is the first group this large that I have ever felt truly at ease with. So to me this shows that it is not the people I was avoiding but the effects of the anxiety and how that feels in the body and the avoidance at dealing with life and situations.
Something precious and simple I have been inspired to consider through attending Universal Medicine presentations is that being gentle, vulnerable, sensitive, aware and All seeing and feeling is not a weakness. I spent so many years trying to numb and deny what I felt through using reactions like anxiousness, and did not see or be honest about the potential of true power of love in it. To know Love and express it, it is essential to be open to feel All.
It’s very interesting what you shared about sport in this article Brian. It can absolutely be a catalyst for anxiousness and nervousness, and encourage people to be in a great amount of tension on top of how they already feel due to the importance put on ‘winning’ and the devastating idea of losing/coming last.
I used to get super anxious when it came to study, I realised that I used it like a block, I told myself I did not know anything, I would be almost paralysed. The last time I studied I began to change this reaction and look at study another way. When I got tense and anxious, I would pay more attention to my breath and breathe gently, allowing it to fill my whole body. I would come back to a knowing of stillness in my body, through this I was able to read books and revise without shutting down and so allowing myself to remember what needed to be remembered.
I have found that building a truer relationship with my body and being more honest about feelings and symptoms that come up has really supported to have an inner connection that is more steady and settled regardless of emotions I pick up or go into. That unease and anxiousness has pretty much been eliminated and if it does come up it is more of a sign that there is something to look at, rather than habit.
I was very unsettled for years, on reflection I would call this anxiousness, some time apparently low level, sometimes very obvious, but always there. I would use TV, relationships, food etc to distract me, but I wouldn’t sleep well and felt uneasy pretty much most of the time. It is interesting to reflect on what we consider ‘normal’ so often we live with habits and behaviours that deeply impact on our quality of life but have some how imagined that they are just part of it.
‘In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.’ This line deeply resonates with me. I can feel how I still approach life in this way so it’s great for its effects to be exposed so clearly. Thanks Brian.
That drive to get things right can be so strong that it stops us from even having a go, in case we get it wrong. This is such a crippling and stifling pattern. I have observed it in myself and it is very common in the young people I meet in schools.
It is interesting that when we chose to be one way we are relinquishing connection to the true us. I always thought it was me choosing a certain way of behaviour but in truth if it is not of my essence it is not me.
More men should come clean and talk about anxiousness. It is a disease that affects most if not all of society to some degree. Some of course learn to manage it, but that does not mean it does not exist, having an effect on their vitality and body. Thankyou Brian for your refreshing honesty.
I agree Adam. Attempting to meet the standards that society places upon us, or at least the perception of these standards, is causing most men to experience Anxiety. We dare not show this. It could be seen as being a weakness. So we disguise it, camouflage it but do nothing to address it. In time this will play out in our bodies.
The world is full of timid people, the silent majority. We are not lambs amongst wolfs; we have just forgotten our true essence we were born with.. Having anxiety in our lives is like a curse we carry with us to always be some standard that something outside of us has made us believe we must have to be complete. Is this not just brainwashing? It is hard to imagine the number of lives that we have wasted in just not being ourselves. It is a slow road back to who we truly are, but it is the best!
This is a blog to read again. I can relate to lots of it. An eye opener has been the cause of you nervousness and anxiety. I know I have accepted it as being part of my life for many years without examining the underlying causes. I like how you say that anxiety and nervousness are not something to fight. If we try and fix ourselves and make ourselves wrong for feeling these emotions, it creates more anxiety. Allowing ourselves to observe and track back to the trigger is a great starting point.
“I can now feel how my being caught up in nervousness and anxiety affects people around me.” This is very humbling as I know when I get caught into nervousness and anxiousness I find it very difficult to think of anybody else but myself but it is so true what you say here. We have so much more responsibility than we generally realise or accept.
Anxiety can be such a debilitating feeling, and as Brian says has a strong effect on those around the anxious person. And ultimately being anxious can often be like a distraction from how simple things can be. How many times have I worried about something then for it to come to pass and not been anything like worthy of the anxiousness I went into. Trusting in myself and that appreciation of self is a great way to avoid such feelings.
It is an awesome achievement when we realise just how much our anxieties affect other people, an awareness that grows the more we practice observing the world around us rather than absorbing it. And once felt we have the ability to make different choices and again observe the results. My experience of Universal Medicine is that it restores the science to living, the ability to choose, feel and assess the results of everything we do in life.
I know this sensation so well – where something has built up inside for me to say but it is confrontational… and so I swallow it, or only let the half of it out (which always makes it confusing because the other person can feel all of it). Not only does it harm me by not saying what is there to be said, but also the other party is allowed to continue living in a way that is not supporting them with no clear reflection. The rot is allowed to continue, and I am complicit in that.
I find that when I expect something of me that I cannot truly deliver from where I am at with myself and my body, I put undue pressure on myself, which then leads to anxiousness. So for me accepting where I am at, making that my starting point and then living life in full from there onwards is key in stopping anxiousness.
Thank you Brian, it is so empowering to read that nervousness and anxiety are not emotions we need to be helpless about and cannot do anything when they grab us. But that there is a choice we have to build a relationship with ourselves and our bodies that can support us.
Belittling or finding fault with oneself before others get a chance to do so is quite a dirty trick to stay small and contracted; and as you rightly point out, it serves no one. You have really made some amazing changes.
Such a great blog Brian, I wonder how many men are running on an underlining energy of anxiety and nervousness. Your expression in your words is superb and super healing for all to get this subject out in the open so we can all address it if it is at play in our lives.
I would say that anxiousness and nervousness are a worldwide issue that many feel unsettled with experiencing, having a way to truly deal with these behaviours that allow you to address the deeper issue is as profound as it is supportive.
I can see how these behaviours run in the family and how I certainly picked up this way of living through what I had seen from around me, it has been really necessary to stop and make changes to end this unnatural way of living. Serge Benhayon and other students of Universal Medicine have really supported this process for me.
Looking around you would think that this way of living was normal, and yet as you have shared Brian it is not and it is something that can be addressed and changed should we choose to.
I can very much relate to what you have shared here Brian as I have used anxiousness and nervousness daily which has shown me just how much I have been wasting my own energy and in turn not enjoying life whatsoever.
When I read your first line about nervousness and anxiety being your two best companions when you were a child I thought, ah ha, I recognise that one. Not only were they my best companions too, but I spent most of my formative years looking like a rabbit in the headlights, trying to figure out life and what went with it! What supported me were the presentations of the Ageless Wisdom by Serge Benhayon. I realised that these emotions were just a choice, and therefore the choice could be made to look honestly at myself, begin to appreciate who I am, acknowledge my nervousness and anxiety and take steps to deal with it by allowing it to come to the surface, and not remain hidden any longer. My whole demeanour is beginning to change thanks to the esoteric healing modalities and Serge Benhayon and my choice to not hold onto unwelcome emotions any more by bringing more love for myself into my life, and not wanting to bury nervousness and anxiety in my body any more, because when it comes to living to true me, they do not belong.
I really enjoyed reading this blog again, what came to me this time was how appreciating ourselves to the hilt can help quell any insecurities we may have.
I have also experienced a lot of anxiousness and nervousness Brian and your blog today has caused me to ask myself “How much of that time could I have spent in appreciating myself?” I have found appreciation has opened up and supported my relationship to myself, which has had a positive effect on lowering and eliminating nervousness, anxiety and self doubt for me. Self doubt and self loathing has also seemed to create more anxiousness etc within myself. Appreciation of myself has helped me build confidence and a sense of calm in my body – as well as joy.
You bring up a great point Brian of how we can use various activities to hide how we really feel and sport is a great example of this where we can easily bury what is going on for us by pushing our body physically so as not to have to feel what is truly there.
I agree Donna, and this can be buried in the feeling of excitement and competition as expressed in this article which goes to show us that we really have to choose to make changes in our lives as they cannot just happen without an intention to change.
“The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.” –
So true- I also have suffered from anxiousness and nervousness all my life and have found Esoteric Yoga to be so supportive in reconnecting to the stillness within. What get’s exposed is the choices that I have been making in my life that have been done in disregard. I get to feel the real me, underneath the anxiousness and nervousness, and know that it is an energy I have allowed in to run me, but it is not me.
We often expect women to be anxious and nervous and forget that men can be too. Trying to get it right is something many of us can get anxious about and it becomes so ingrained we may not be aware that we do have a choice, we think it’s just us.
Is it possible, that the suicide rate in men is so high from the inner conflict of what we have been told a man must be and the anxious and nervousness that creeps in?
In saying no to anxiety and nervousness I’m getting that this comes from a surrender to be yourself – and not a hardness. This is so lovely to read and something I can build on myself – surrendering to myself, feeling the nerves aren’t me so I can let them go – way easier than when I panic at the hint of having let the nerves in and going blank in the situation I’m in and just abandoning ship then not trusting myself which exacerbates my belief I can’t trust myself. So every choice to make to remain aware and with myself is rebuilding the trust I have in myself.
True Karin, surrender is a key to work with symptoms of anxiety. Surrender to our inner connection, within there is an age old steadiness and knowing that can support us sail our ship through storms that rage. When we are open to feeling the stillness that lies within.
It’s Interesting how by holding back we can add to the energy of anxiousness and nervousness.
Recently I had experience with how strongly anxiousness can play out when we start to allow it to run… having a uni assignment due I could feel old ways of anxiety starting to build, and feeling quite strongly the detrimental affects on my body, made a choice to not go there but to study at every opportunity with focus and the assignment was in a few days early! By choosing to not run with anxiety and waste precious time, purpose became clearer and what needed to be done was done without fuss. It all came back to choice, and choosing to feel what was happening in my body was key, and so simple. Its when we override what we are feeling in our bodies with our minds that life becomes tense and complicated.
For me, nervousness and anxiety has been a place to hide myself behind, so people couldn’t see (or so I thought) my true essence and light and then I could not get hurt. Much like what you shared Brian. It’s quite clear to me now, that the hiding and choosing the energy of anxiousness was actually hurting me more then I realised because I was running the body on an energy that is not true to it. I am not anxiousness or nervousness, I am still and harmonious, harmlessness and grace, and when I go into anxiety it feels very much the opposite of these innate qualities.
It is quite interesting how much we are in control even when we feel that we are diminishing ourselves or are far from perfect.
Gorgeous sharing Brian – another life added to the many who have turned everything around and started making choices to reclaim the core of who they are… and with all thanks to Serge Benhayon – what a man!
After writing my last comment, I am wondering, is it our lack of control in any given situation that makes us get so anxious?
If I wasn’t trying to manipulate or control the outcome, I wouldn’t be so nervous or anxious, I would instead surrender, trust, allow and accept. Hmmmm, most of my life I have honestly tried to control everything and the results have not been so great so perhaps its time to trial the another way. Even just thinking of the word surrender makes me nervous, as in Oh my god, I will have to let go of all control!
You are right here Rosie. It is all about control. We create an image of what something might look like, an outcome.We get anxious that this outcome may not be what we foresee. So we try and control what is about to happen, but we become anxious that we can not control it. A twisted web that takes us away from ourselves, step by step.
I never thought of myself as an anxious person growing up or in adult life, but more recently l’ve realised I just had a way of being in life that controlled the situations I might feel it in. Now that I don’t exert that same control, I feel more anxiety… which means I can address it, rather than continue to manage it as I did.
Ah Jenny I love the clarity of what you have shared and I can relate to what you have shared so well. I have used control my whole life to prevent myself from feeling anxiety, disappointment, anger, frustration, in fact anything that I have wanted to avoid. What this has meant is that yes I have avoided feeling but I have actually avoided feeling what I have needed to feel in order to deal with the underlying issues that are in my body. I am loosening my grip on my surroundings and learning to deal with what comes up as a result and it’s actually not as bad as I have been anticipating.
Yes Alexis, there is so much to uncover in understanding the complexity we weave into life and why… and appreciating the presence of anxiety as symptomatic of something is a far more empowering approach I find than attempting to manage the situations I might feel it in.
I can relate to your experience Brian, living with an underlying anxiousness my whole life – thinking I had it well hidden and life under control when in fact everything I’ve done, said or thought has come with that nervous tension… and would be clearly felt by everyone – no hiding that at all! And all this time it has been affecting my body until it goes stop, take notice of how you are living.
It is beautiful how you share that when you hold back on expressing or saying something, how that not only effects you but the other. I feel that I have at times worried about how the other will react, so I don’t say something and the consequences can be major. I try to control the situation out of anxiety. This can then affect a whole sequence of events and change a whole relationship. The more that I have become aware of this, and the more that I have loved and accepted myself, the more confident I feel in expressing and sharing, and it is okay to get it wrong, it is okay if another reacts, sometimes they will and that is okay if we don’t need to control the situation and are able to be open and allow and accept.
Thanks Brian, beautiful to hear a man of your generation expressing in this way… I can certainly relate to what you’ve shared, nervousness and anxiety are common companions for many and getting underneath why we experience them is profound and clearly deeply healing.
A great blog Brian exposing the reality that we always have a choice – we can react with whatever emotion we choose, or we can choose to feel what is happening in our bodies, connect to who we naturally are and respond to life from that inner knowing.
Anxiety is what we are left with when we choose to invest in creating a life of love-less choices. We lose sense of who we are, we lose sense of the power of our Truth and Love within and we instead scramble with uncertainty to seek any sort of recognition or fulfilment. All the while our bodies are screaming for us to return with our next move. A choice that will always remain whilst we have a breath to take. I have suffered with anxiety for many years and have come to understand its energy and the choice that I have to be a part of it, or in whole with me.
I wonder how many people are also living like this Brian – on the outset appear all capable and well functioning but on the inside are living with their own form of anxiousness and nervousness that would play out in their own way. I am guessing in the millions if we were honest. It is so important to have these conversations, thank you.
With the levels of anxiety and nervousness increasing exponentially world wide, this blog needs to be front page news Brian!
As I was reading your blog Brian I could feel how freeing it is to be able to name those two things, that is anxiety and nervousness that have been your constant companions throughout life. Just being able to give a name to what we are experiencing is very freeing in itself and then to be able to get underneath why it is occurring in the first place is what releases us from it altogether.
It’s interesting that you say you learnt to disguise your anxiousness. I feel I have done the same, but I have no idea when I decided I needed to do that. Today at the age of 35 the anxiety has become more and more obvious. And I realise now that I have actually been anxious for most of my life, but I had no idea simply because it so quickly became my normal. I started to notice it as my attention was being brought to the quality or lack there of, of appreciation and acceptance of myself. It’s quite exposing to say the least.
Amazing how good we are at covering something up to the point where we don’t even realise it’s there.
It’s inspiring that you have been so open to understanding why you have lived with such tension Brian.
I can relate to much of what you have shared here. Wanting to be liked and not wanting to get things wrong can be such a driving force through life. But at what cost? Ultimately if we can accept and appreciate ourselves, pleasing others is simply never going to cut it.
I agree Brian living with anxiety never felt right for me either, and still doesn’t. I now understand that it doesn’t feel right because this is not who we are and our choice to not live in connection to who we are, our Love, is why we experience anxiety in varying degrees. Through the presentations of Serge Benhayon I have learned and experienced how our connection to our bodies offers us the opportunity to be aware of when we are anxious. It is then through our willingness to be honest that we can then observe and address why it is that we have chosen to separate from living in connection to ourselves. An opportunity offered to return to Love, to be empowered once again to live our Love.
I realize it every day, more and more and deeper and deeper: my body is the most precious thing there is and it needs to be cherished and honored for all the wisdom it holds and communicates to me.
We have so many vices in our life to not feel our tensions or other uncomfortable things and sports is a big one for many of us. I used food a lot to not be aware of what I feel and to avoid my responsibility.
“sport by nature is confrontational.” The competition element in sport is actually against our divine connecting way of being. We don’t like the separation it brings with a winner and a looser, for we simply want to be in brotherhood and enjoy being together.
Your blog confirms to me how we don’t think and only choose from the choices we get offered. “The choices I was making in how I lived came from a man already in anxiety, constantly worrying about the future. Making those choices I would very rarely be the gentle, tender and loving man that I am.” If you are not connected to your essence the choices you make are not made by you and don’t have a loving foundation.
Thank you Brian for this beautiful sharing. You have undressed this unsavoury companion that many of us have walked with to expose how we have a choice to what we walk hand in hand with. As when we choose to walk hand and hand with ourselves, we can say no to this unsavoury companion moving in. As in truth when we are with ourselves, our house is full of Love in which there are no rooms spare for anxiety and or nervousness.
A great sharing, Brian, it takes much courage to admit that our choices in the past have been wrong. I can feel such a strength in you now, through your sharing of your story, with no holds barred. I feel very little of that scared little boy that you felt for so much of your life, and can understand just how helpful the course you attended would have supported you. We all have the freedom to change the choices we have made, and you had the courage to do so, with absolutely amazing results. That little boy has fully grown up, he is living life now to the full. Wonderful.
I can so relate to this, Brian, “Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in. That was the story of my life. I was so filled with anxiety that I just could not get the words out. So when I did speak up, it was in a garbled form, not the way that I truly wanted to express how I felt. My mouth would dry up, and my voice would break, it is awful to look back at the way that I held back on so much that needed to be expressed. I have come a long way since those days, since I began living the Way of the Livingness. I have learned so much through the support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, through this, my ability to express what needs to be shared is becoming easier day by day, with far less of the great anxiety that I always used to feel. Thank you for sharing your story.
I have never really been too anxious or nervous, but recognise the underlying feeling of not being enough. For me this can manifest in trying to do too much to compensate for my perceived weaknesses or failings. Connecting to my body, feeling how I am in all situations and knowing that I am enough supports me in dealing with the thoughts that come in to suggest otherwise.
When I had my first session with an esoteric practitioner I remember saying that I can no longer continue living with the levels of anxiety I was carrying in my body (or words to that effect). The level of anxiety was so extreme that it consumed me all the time. To manage / block out the anxiety I would go to yoga classes and drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes but nothing lasted. I had come to accept anxiety as normal, part of life and something that I just had to get on with. I have now changed the way I live and if I feel anxious it feels so foreign to me that I will not accept it for long.
This is a very honest and beautiful account Brian of unfolding parts of your life that have not been you to reveal the real you. Your awareness is inspirational and yes there is always choice.
The choice between anxiety and nervousness, or Me is to accept we don’t need to be perfect, that there is no right and wrong and that we are all equal and play our own part in the universe, shine your light Brian as you do so beautifully through this blog and thank you for expressing that which needed to be expressed.
‘Nervousness and anxiety have been my all too often companions.’ I feel many of us can relate to this sentence, I certainly can. Yet they do not belong to us. As you have shared Brian we do have a choice and the more we choose to connect to ourselves the less room there is for nervousness and anxiety to hang out with us.
It is so empowering that we know we have a choice, to not let us become overwhelmed by anxiousness, although at times this seems very hard, like you say building a relationship with your body is fundamental in understanding and letting go of anxiety and nervousness.
The game changer here is awareness, as long as we think anxiousness is us it is very hard to let it go or change it. When we become aware it is not us but something we do or choose by how we are living there is an opening for change.
I’ve found that anxiousness usually has been allowed to come in when we dismiss and go against our first impulse in a situation… what was meant to be said, what was needed to be done etc. Like when we say yes to something or continue a conversation when we need to go, that our whole body feels the choice and knows what will come next.
I love the honesty, vulnerability and humbleness of this blog, written with no judgement or criticism or considering of self as less because of these past behaviours. It’s very clear that Brian now sees the he is not an anxious or nervous person and instead these are behaviours that have been chosen to cope when one is not choosing to be themselves. When we instead choose to be and live ourselves we don’t need these behaviours because we know who we are and feel confident and strong in being it.
We can all read about nervousness and say ‘oh thats a shame’ or ‘how challenging to live this way’. Yet do we see how fundamentally ingrained this way has come to be, that we live our life constantly in fear? Whether it is loosing our job faceless strangers who may attack, cars that may derail our path, what if our perception of safety is upside down and inside out? And it is this very momentum of living in anxiety that is what is attacking and destabilising us? The nervousness you describe Brian is a disease that keeps us from feeling the absolute presence and trust of God, that holds every one of us in the most careful way on this earth every day. All we need to do is move and choose to honour this as the truth, then no longer will we entertain the crazy nervous anxious way.
I love the choice you pose here Brian, being ourselves our nervousness and anxiety. It is not always an easy or obvious one though and as you say it takes becoming aware of and building a relationship with ourselves and being in our bodies.
‘As I sit and feel these things about the way I have lived, I do not dream about what might have been, but look to what is.’ – A super important point, not judging or getting stuck in what is in the past, but learning to understand and accept where we are at in each moment.
When we water down what we have to say or communicate in a way that is set out to avoid or minimise reaction this is felt by those we communicate to and will cause a reaction because of the contraction not because of the truth we originally felt to share.
‘The choices I was making in how I lived came from a man already in anxiety, constantly worrying about the future. Making those choices I would very rarely be the gentle, tender and loving man that I am.’ – It is amazing to feel your huge change as the essence of this blog is no doubt deeply tender.
“and what I say can sometimes be confusing because I hold back on what needs to be said.” I really understand this one and didn’t realise the full impact until I experienced it with awareness of what was happening. When we hold back we create trust issues as you are not expressing honestly so the other feels this even if its not said. It really is so destructive to the very thing we all want which is love! I have learnt to express even when I don’t know what it is, I just say what I am experiencing without judgement but more curiosity.
Brian it is such a wonderful sharing about how you have dealt with your anxiety. It is very inspiring as you made it very clear that it is a choice we have to be run by this kind of feeling or not.
Anxiety can be really crippling and it is on the increase, people feel ill equipped for life and are offered lots of solutions but what is offered with Universal Medicine via what Serge presents is a way back to quality of presence and then it really disperses with the anxiety felt by most.
We overlook anxiety – it is almost as if it has become so common that we don’t really stop and check in with ourselves or each other on anxiousness.
But as is shared here – it really does effect us and others around us.
It is an illness in itself that we don’t pay enough attention to how we are living or feeling and that we don’t have to just put up and live with being uncomfortable or withdrawn or nervous.
It’s really tough being a boy or a girl for that matter, if there is no true role model to connect with. We are then left to work it out from the many options like magazines or the movies to construct what we consider the way each gender should be. So much emphasis on success from talents, looks and little to nothing of just being ourselves as that is our own version of perfection.
Boys are being asked to grow up much sooner than they need to with little time just being boys. I have heard the words ‘toughen up’ or ‘be like a man’ which in my opinion are unnecessary and detrimental to these precious boys who have so much playful love to give. We don’t take a grade seven boy and put in him the grade twelve class, so why treat him like a man when he’s still only a boy, and so the great wall of protection begins.
Hi Ariana The fight that I engaged in became a fight with myself over the choice I had to make. I was not aware of this and my mind would have a great time playing with me. Having an understanding of what was happening gave me the awareness that allowed me to recognise that it is a simple choice. Anxiety or Me.
Thanks Brian, your blog clearly shows that anxiety is not something that just happens to us – but is the result of choices we make. Through building a relationship with our body and making different choices in the way we support ourselves we can get to a point of saying no to the nervousness and anxiety, creating a space where we can appreciate and allow ourselves to be who we truly are.
Appreciation of our own qualities allows us to break away from the grips of anxiousness and nervous energy as it is us claiming more of who we are and surrendering to what is.
Such an open and honest sharing Brian, thank you!
I’m also fascinated by what you say about how you disguised these feelings of nervousness, tension, anxiety. I can so relate to that. Not necessarily those same emotions, but the way we learn to disguise stuff. Through meeting Serge Benhayon and the unwavering support that he has shown me; with no excitement at the ‘god bits’ or judgment of the ‘bad bits’ – he has consistently met me and communicated with me with an absolute equality, which has allowed me to let go of the decades-old layers of protection. Then the true me begins to shine forth and it has surprised me often how that is sometimes very different from what I have been projecting or what the world has been seeing. I feel that this is so true for so many (perhaps even almost all of us?). Transparency is key.
It seems to me that the simple fact of seeing and accepting that we have a choice is a massive hurdle to cross in dealing with anxiety and nervousness – indeed I would say, all of life. Certainly it is huge for me. Whatever I may be feeling, if I can consistently live by the fact that I always have a choice then every single situation can be dealt with. As soon as I walk away from that fact, then I am lost.
I think many can relate to the feeling of putting themselves as less, and that sense that of feeling nervous or anxious as their normal…. I know that it has only been in the last 6 years that I have been able to feel the difference between feeling me, connected to myself, confident and powerful versus the anxiousness or nervous version of myself. I know which one I prefer and what feels better in my body that is for sure. The anxiousness leaves me feeling shaky and exhausted.
Choosing to say no to this behaviour is the simplest way to deal with emotions, and this is constant – continuous. If you choose not to stay connected to your body it becomes comfortable and your awareness drops. I’d rather be connected, feel this akwardness in my body and have an abundance of awareness .. followed by reimprinting and reinstating your way.
A really important sharing Brian! Its so important to claim our space in the universe! Anxiety and nervousness don’t allow us to trust our expression and the people around us, which leaves a situation unclear and unresolved.
In the same way when you quit smoking, next time you have the feeling you want to smoke, it is not about fighting the wish but understanding what the sudden wish means and what has to be done in order to avoid a self-detrimental choice. Everything changes then and the wish is gone.
I can relate to feeling the nervousness and the anxiety and thinking that I was good at hiding it but really on reflection I can see how all my life, everything that I have done has been laced with that anxiety. It is great when we start to see this and realise that it is not us and that we don’t have to live from this place anymore.
While I read through this blog, I was wondering who this boy was who has grown into a man and has shared his experience of anxiety and nervousness. Well done Brian, it was beautiful to see your name at the bottom of the blog and to know you and see you make some amazing changes over the last few years since meeting Serge Benhayon.
Thank you for reminding me that i choose my nervousness. Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for supporting me in making more loving choices in my life.
It is also fascinating how we create the perfect setup that makes our attempt to just being who we are an impossible task.
We have the capacity to align every aspect of our life to an overall goal. Such is the capacity to control we exert on ourselves (and often times others).
It is fascinating what we accept as normal what is not. Our normalised view of the world is part of the problem since it stands in the way of the possibility to our moving forward.
We can learn the art of disguise and master it, but this fact will not change the detrimental effect of what produces our ill being on the body. We can hide it from the world but not from us.
“I water it down to minimise what I think the reaction may be from the other person.” So often i have done this. and so often i have been anxious or nervous about the reactions i think might happen and how i picture the conversation going in my head. Usually for naught. as how people react is nothing like what i picture…just ends up that i’ve wasted a tonne of time being nervous for no reason. The more i’ve started to live life from me, the more I am unaltered by the reactions around me as i am able to stand on my own two feet more.
Gorgeous Brian. What an awesome support that the course would have offered. I noted how the more you be yourself, the less anxious you become… a lot of things can be changed the more we be ourselves.
Anxiety is so often aroused when we are “forward thinking”, hurrying on to do the next thing before we have finished the last, but then it is circular, for that drivenness and mental anxst come from trying to fill ourselves up so we don’t have to feel the anxiety. A real trap. The key as you say Brian, is to bring ourselves back to being present enough to make true connection with ourselves and develop a relationship by being aware of what is going on, and admitting honestly how we feel. This is the journey you have undertaken so honestly, and which benefits everyone, not only those around you but the whole of humanity, for each one of us who stop to make connection with ourselves contributes to building a more harmonious and loving community.
The full extent of the way anxiousness effect our behaviours and the person we will say is us is often not fully realised. I have lived my life with huge low grade anxiousness and so much of what I would say makes me me, is really just a product of the anxiousness playing out. When we arrest this, we get an opportunity to learn who we truly are.
I love it: ‘I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me.’ and Me with a capital M. I feel the strength and power and the tenderness and fragility in you all at once. Very beautiful. Thank you for opening yourself and sharing in this way. It is rare that we allow ourselves this in the world today.
This is beautifull to read Brian because as I was reading I was feeling you claim who more of the wonderfull person you are and that you are able to both feel and see this anxiety and nervousness is not really you. Re-connecting with the body and building a loving relationship with ourselves is a great way to do this. I never thought of myself as an anxious person but after attending a few Universal Medicine courses held by Serge Benhayon I could feel, as most people I have been living with a low grade form of anxiousness most if not nearly all of my life! This is still work in progress but I feel far more steady and present in my body than I have been before. Food and drink can either add to the nervousness and anxiety or help to keep it at bay e.g sugar, alcohol, coffee etc …. not great!!!!!
I too am learning the way out of anxiousness and nervousness is to build more of a relationship with my body, Brian. I had previously tried to build my confidence with mind games which have never worked, but actually feeling more of myself with knowing my gorgeousness in my body has enabled me to express more. It is a journey still, but I can feel how it s building. It’s a very tender description of yourself as a boy and I can feel how you are blossoming now.
Anxiety and fear have been big in my life for many years, but gradually with support from Universal Medicine Practitioners and understanding my part in letting it into my life . It has made a big difference over the past few years to become more self loving and nurturing and recognizing the love that I am.
Brian I love you blog as I can completely relate to it, especially the point you make that “In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. “. It also helps me appreciate the changes I’ve made in my life over the last decade and the inspiration to continue to deepen the care for myself in the way I am in all I do.
Anxiety and nervousness come from the fear of what may but has not yet happened, learning to stay present in every moment is so powerful in terms of dealing with anxiety. I have found that the gentle breath meditation as presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine is invaluable in developing this presence.
By letting go of protection more and more and becoming more aware of my body and inner states I found myself often very fragile and raw in a sense. It is a feeling that reminds me of anxiety but it is different. The moment I become aware of it and accept me as being very sensitive and fragile it is more a feeling of discovering the true me again. To share my true me, which is fragile and sensitive I claim back my natural way of being and so be connected to a strength as well. To express who I am again is powerful – even I am very very tender. That I am the one who gave up on ME gives me the responsibility and the power to claim ME back and than I am not depending on others recognition or ‘good will’.
Also I found with the changes I make and bring here, my constellations/relationships with others change what brings an instability at first – but a good one! The foundation I had with others was build out of deals/bartering – recognition for recognition, safety for safety, or what ever – now it changes into a foundation of truth and this is wonderful. This process is maybe accompanied from a bit of dizziness and new orientation – a reflection of a transformation. A transformation back to our original.
Great sharing here Brian about what is going on in you and your body. Nervousness and Anxiety have such an huge impact on our living and expression. And from which point/state of being and how we express is our way of communication, what again does design our relationships. How could our relationships be ‘successful’ if our start and what we bring in is already blurred? To take responsibility here for a healing is key for our all connection. Great you take it and share this.
I love how you counter the title with, ‘A sacred little boy’ that despite the nervousness and anxiety our sacredness is always there underneath. This is the gift that Serge Benhayon has shared, that we are all whole and full underneath the layers of emotion we live on top; all that is needed are simple practical techniques to connect to the grace inside and live from there.
Brian, that pattern of nervousness and anxiety describes exactly how I have lived too, “In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok.” I was under the belief that if I ‘bashed’ myself first it would hurt less than being ‘bashed’ by others. Now I look at it in a different light I can see how crazy that is, but the investment in this decision affected every interaction 24/7 as I made myself lesser in every situation. This is an intense way to live life.
Over the past 4 weeks I’ve been doing exams at College and it’s interesting to observe the obvious choice I can make to go into anxiousness or maintain a steadiness in my body. There was a particular exam where I felt my heart beat spike up, I began to have thoughts about failing the exam or knowing nothing on the topics that would come up, I felt racy and so forth, but I learnt from this and in other exams experimented with changing my state of being to let go of the raciness and nervousness.. We do indeed always have a choice to let in the anxiousness or say no to it.
‘I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no’ – Wow Brian, this is a powerful statement. You’ve exposed that not only are nervousness and anxiety CHOICES that we make, rather than unstoppable forces that affect us, but that they are also things we can say NO to. This is incredible, as anxiety as a condition is through the roof and many people are living with intense nervousness all over the world – it’s empowering to have someone like yourself showing that we can make a choice to say no to this tense way of living.
Brain I love how open and honest you are about anxiousness and nervous tension which affects so many people. It’s fantastic that you are bringing up this subject for men to ponder upon for themselves, and know that it doesn’t have to run the body. We do have a choice. Great to see that your life has turned around from from holding back in life, and feeling lesser to feeling my empowered, and taking responsibility.
Anxiety nervousness or me ? this is a very empowering choice and offers us a real and honest way to live from such a harmful way of being in anxiousness and nervousness that is so common and accepted in society today.. The appreciation and responsibility you have come to is beautiful and very inspiring to read and know for everyone also.
‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’ They are not the enemy but useful indicators of the choices I have made. Rather than beating myself up I can be grateful for what I am being shown and make different choices from now feels a much more positive way of approaching this when it happens.
Thank you I could relate to a lot of what you have shared and anxiety and nervousness is not something really talked about unless we have extreme issues and or behaviours. It is not until the last few years that I have been able to see too that I choose to become anxious or nervous rather than staying with me and the flow in life. There are times this behaviour can seem irrational and if I am not ‘on it’ can quickly escalate into something it does not need to be. The key has been catching when the first feelings of anxiety come in so I do not then make further choices from this place and the behaviour that follows go unnoticed.
Thank you Brian for sharing so openly how it has been for you and the choices you are now making, as someone who has only recently recognised how much I have been run by anxiety I am still developing my awareness and exploring my choice to be Me rather than let nervous energy, and the anxiety that comes with it, take over and dictate how I live my life. One of the key elements of this has been developing my appreciation for all I bring and choosing to express whatever is there to be said without my default editing button that so often stops me opening my mouth.
Brian, I can relate to what you have expressed here, it is still work in progress for me and an amazing journey.
Being honest about the affect that anxiousness and nervousness has on other people is great. This opens the door for further discussion on why we do it in the first place, why, when we are naturally so loving, would we choose a way of being with other people that is imposing upon them.
It’s great to read an account from a man who has suffered anxiety and nervousness, and is well aware of how it can shape us into someone we are not. There seems to be an internal struggle to control the effects of anxiousness from outwardly being shown to the world and in some cases it can be extremely debilitating – it just goes to show that with all of this going on inside how we then have to adapt ourselves in order to appear normal and to mask what we are truly feeling.
I can so relate to how you tried to make yourself less, as a form of protection. ‘Scared of being wrong and not being liked’ – that was me too. Learning and now knowing, through the presentations of Serge Benhayon, that every one of us is an amazing loving tender human being, enabled me to transform my life. There is always more to shed that is not the true me, but goodness, life is so very different to how it used to be since removing my armour of protection ( which didn’t work anyway!)
“Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in.” I wonder how often we do this throughout the day, holding onto unexpressed words. I can certainly relate to this Brain, not wanting to say the wrong thing and in doing so not allowing all of me to be seen and heard, in other words playing it safe.
Thank you for your honest and open sharing Brian. To live with nervousness and anxiousness us exhausting. Listening to our body is so important, and then choosing to make different choices, but so many of us treat our cars better than we do ourselves.
Thank you, Brian, a great summary of how anxiousness can dominate our lives. Through our choices we can turn things around, as you say, by reclaiming the connection to our essence inside, the part of us that is unaffected by the ideals and beliefs we have imprisoned ourselves with. It may not always be an easy choice when challenges occur in life, but it is a deliberate choice to feel the power of who we truly are, rather than giving ourselves away to external circumstance.
Thank you, Brian, for this insight into symptoms that run in many men today.
I use to believe that I would always live with anxiety and self doubt, to now find this is not the case. As you say Brian ‘I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no’. With awareness and connection to my body, I spot signs of anxiousness, trace their source and choose to not let it in and control me. I don’t ignore it, but observe it with understanding and let it go.
Thank you Brian for sharing something so personal and sensitive with the world. The things you describe are common in so many of us, we all carry so many un-resolved issues from our childhood years that impact on our behaviour as adults. What is so extraordinary is that a. you were willing to take a deeper look at yourself and b. that with the support of Serge Benhayon and the Universal Medicine courses and healing modalities, you are discovering that things you felt were beyond your control are very much under your control, that all these things are a choice and there is another way to live life.
‘For most of my life I have been a nervous, anxious person, though not on the surface, as I learnt to disguise it quite well… or so I thought’. Brian you say something many will relate to, that often the face we present to the world is false. Most people harbour insecurity, anxiety, doubt and unease, but to get by in the world put on a ‘brave’ face. I know for years this was a game I played, suffered anxiety and felt less but on the surface appeared calm. It was my cover, protection, guard. Like you Brian, I thank Serge Benhayon for allowing me to be honest with myself and make changes in my life,
What an incredible testament to the unknown internal conflict men must have and how it affects every aspect of out life. We spend our life being told we must be hard. Being tender, caring and loving are words let alone felt are never mentioned. We disguise who we are by become something we are not. Over time this contraction from life from who we truly are wears away at the vessel we live in and dim our light till it is forgotten we have one. But, we never lose who we are, and the light is always ready to shine in all we are it is just a choice away.
Thank you sharing so honestly, Brian. So many men I am sure, myself included, will relate to being nervous and anxious from putting up a front of confidence but in fact are nervous and anxious because of not wanting to ‘get it wrong’ and wanting recognition. For a long while I would not have admitted this and even be in denial but like you through involvement with Universal Medicine have come instead to greatly appreciate myself and the nervousness is consistently diminishing.
If we fight ourselves and our reactions we don’t allow the distance from them to be able to look at the cause of why they’re happening. It’s very liberating what you say Brian when you write you were able to “look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.” This really shows we can take the power back from feeling at the mercy of these thoughts and emotions, to actually understanding where it all starts and making a different choice.
It is interesting how we tend to callibrate ourselves down by not expressing truth when it needs to be expressed and how this adds to anxiety and nervousness.
Loving your blog Brian, there’s so much in it, it’s awesome to hear your feedback on the course run by the College of Universal Medicine; ‘Understanding Anxiety in Men’, it clearly addressed something that is affecting men but seldom really spoken about. It’s great to bring awareness to courses such as these.
“The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.” I also find that to connect to my body allows a space between what is happening (or what I might be reacting to) and allows me therefore to have a clearer understanding of what is actually going on.
“I put myself in a position of already thinking that I had been hurt, believing therefore I was not able to get hurt by anything they said. I convinced myself that I was not their equal.” Wow Brian, this is a great example of the behaviours we go into in order to uphold an idea that has in the first place, come from not connecting to who we truly are. I love the way you explain your connection to your body was your way in to feeling the true you – and your way away from this untrue thinking.
Thank you Brian for sharing your awareness of how anxiety can affect us like a disabling disease that so many of us suffer from in one way or another. Presentations by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine workshops offer the opportunity to feel the power and love of who we truly are and let go of the self-judgement of all that we are not.
Totally amazing article Brian, I know exactly what you are talking about as from time to time you could have been talking about me, I used to cover my tracks with alcohol and make out like I was really laid back but a lot of the stuff you talk about sounds really familiar. What a healing for all men who read this and relate, and know they are not alone.
One of the many groundbreaking and game changing aspects that Serge Benhayon is inspiring in people is men starting to express from their vulnerability and sensitivity. When more and more men (and women) are living this level of honesty as Brian describes we wouldn’t be in the misery we are facing today.
We always have a choice. This is a great testimony of how we can choose to change what we have considered “normal” for most of our life and that we can choose to leave the comfort of this self created misery and express who we truly are.
Brian what you are raising here is huge, because your story raises the question ‘who are we?’. Once upon a time you thought that the nervousness and anxiousness were actually who you were and yet now you are coming to feel the beautiful man that was always underneath the nerves. So this really begs the question ‘ who are we ?’
‘The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.’ Brian what you have shared here is pivotal in bringing about lasting change of any kind. When we know something from our body then it’s unoccoquivically known. That deep knowing is the tool that supports us to shift any behaviour or habit, however seemingly ingrained it may be.
I love the openness and honesty that flows from every word of your very touching blog Brian. What you have written I, and I am sure many others, can easily to relate to; in fact replace “scared little boy” with “scared little girl”, remove the sport, and this could be my story. How wonderful that you have begun to heal the anxiousness and the fears of the little boy and started to embrace the beautiful man that you are.
I am sure there are a lot of scared little boys and scared little girls out there who have become adults and have just accepted anxiety to be ‘ normal’. Relationships cause a great deal of worry, tension, anger, jealousy, tears, comparision, and anxiety…. but until we deal with our hurts and develop a relationship with ourselves by listening to our bodies, nothing changes. Self-care and self-love is how we can support ourselves and when this deepens, we begin to trust, trust in ourselves, trust in life, trust in others. Trust replaces our anxiety….
This ‘getting it wrong’ was huge for me. When I felt I did, or got, something wrong I would be so hard on myself and would automatically self-bash, just making it worse, and very harming for my body. Needless to say if someone else hurt me, they did not get a second chance and I would close my heart to them, not realisng that in closing my heart to one person I was also closing my heart to everyone – In the end I was hurting myself!
It is only because we are not connected with our inner most we have lost connection with the all, the bigger rhythm we are part of, and the tension of this is felt in the body and disrupts it in its natural order. Therefore it is important to build that inner connection with our inner most, that part of us that is connected with the grander all we are part off – connected to the natural rhythm and the stillness within.
This post helps me to see that I have spent my life attempting to protect myself by hurting myself first. It sounds ridiculous because it is and yet so many of us do it. Thank you for sharing your experience in such a relatable way Brian.
Just expressing our experiences like you have Brian, is a tremendous support in connecting to the truth of who we are. It is there inside us because when we feel a tension, something is up! So there has to be another known way for us to even know that anxiety and nervousness are not it! Ah ha, the body again – it knows all!
I love that you have shared this and in doing so supported others how to choose to let go of the fear and anxiety that holds them back.
Thank you Brian, I felt the confirmation in your sharing that anxiety and nervousness are simply a choice! The more I understand this the more steady and consistent I become in bringing myself back when these choices are made to be anxious and nervous. Our bodies are absolutely there to support us when we commit to living in a way that honours them and anxiety and nervousness certainly does not!
I never ever thought I had a choice when it came to being anxious or nervous. My everyday was this and even though I thought I desperately didn’t want it, I now see how much I at times hid behind it. Life is so very different when we choose us, and it was lovely to read of how you have chosen this too Brian.
Thank you for the honesty and transparency with which you describe your nervousness and anxiety; plastering it over hasn’t really worked and it is very inspiring to hear that true healing and the comeback of the lovely man you are is possible and that you are doing it.
Thank you Brian for lifting the lid on what is probably a very common trait / experience for many people… “I have a choice: anxiety and nervousness, or Me…” What fabulous wise words to empower oneself.
Brian I really love what you have shared because you have written it from the absolute wisdom of your body and therefore it is the unadulterated truth. Powerful, powerful stuff.
“For most of my life I have been a nervous, anxious person, though not on the surface, as I learnt to disguise it quite well… or so I thought.” Whenever I found myself in a situation where I felt unsure of myself my weapon of choice was a false sense of confidence/bravado. Even though I knew it was an act I used to think I got away with it – but did I really?
I love your honesty Brian and I can relate to a lot of what you have shared here as I too used to carry a lot of anxiousness in my body for a long period of my life. When we hold back how we feel and what is there to be expressed it can cause tension and stress on our bodies. Awareness is definitely a big game changer and helps us see where we can make changes for our way of living in a loving and supportive way.
Thank you for sharing with such openness and honesty Brian. Anyone who reads this will be able to relate albeit according to their own level of experience with nervousness and anxiety.
Beautiful sharing Brian. For the moment I felt that I’m reading my blog but the hiding behaviors are different. Thank you for bringing back to self awareness and relationship with self.
Many of us have a radar for each other and we can pick nervousness or anxiety and then use it for our purposes. We can ignore it and behave as if it isn’t there, we can be solicitous, we can bully, we can feel safe and reassured but each of these is a response to the nervousness.
I’ve found that anxiety can be very controlling in the sense that it can control how I am in life (ie I worry about what others are going to say, what I’m going to say, how I say or do something, whether I’m going to offend, be liked, be singled out etc). And what I’ve found is that when I’m anxious, I’m so busy worrying about being anxious that it’s hard to focus, stay on task and to really do what feels right for me at any one time (ie I end up doing what I ‘think’ I should be doing not what I actually feel I want to be doing). I often end up offending more, feeling more uncomfortable and making more mistakes when I’m anxious than when I’m not – so what I’m learning with this, is that when I don’t connect with my body, it’s easy for anxiety to take over – however when I ‘do’ connect with how my body feels, there’s less and less space for the anxiety to take over. I know which one I prefer!
It is interesting to note how fuelled with coffee and sugar we are in our society today, and how this would also be contributing to feeling more stimulated, nervous and anxious… and also leading us to exhaustion, another issue so many are facing. The further we roam from our inner connection and the natural rhythm of stillness within we are then having to compensate, and our bodies are feeling the consequences of the separation.
So beautiful to read a man expressing with such honesty and tenderness, and sharing about his internal landscape – how refreshing is that! Thank you, Brian.
That final line says it all Brian, ‘anxiousness and nervousness or me’ – beautifully expressed. What strikes me is how our anxiousness doesn’t just affect us, but also others around us and how it’s always seen no matter how much we hide it, and ultimately it comes back to us and our body, allowing ourselves to feel what is there and learn to express it.
Thank you Brian for sharing so honestly what has been going on for you. I too have lived with anxiety most of my life, I was good at covering it up even to myself because it did not fit into my perceived ideal, I have come to honestly feel when i have anxiety happening in my body and know this is not me, but an energy I have let in. I just love these words Brian, they make me smile. ‘I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no.” well done.
Beautiful Brian. I can relate to much of what you have shared here. For me the watering down of what is there to be expressed is something I used to do in bucket loads, just so I wouldn’t get a reaction – but I have learnt that you always pay the price further down the line, one way or another.
It is great to bring more of a focus to anxiousness as so many are living with varying degrees of it and our bodies are suffering the consequences of our choices. It is our natural rhythm that we appear to have lost connection with, living ahead of ourselves (it makes sense) will create a stress and anxiety. When we wind it back and reconnect to what is happening before us, being present in the moment we are in, we are less likely to create tension and anxiety. When we lose connection with the natural rhythm and order we are all a part of our bodies register the disharmony.
“The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.” Brian what you write here is pure gold and so supportive not only for men but any one of us who experience this. I love your openness and sensitivity which feels really powerful. Another man letting go of the layers that cover up who he truly is by simply choosing awareness.
“I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me. I am glad to report that most of the time, I choose to say no.” Absolutely, Brian, it is our choice if we let ourselves be run by the nervousness and anxiety that we feel. Beautiful that you have become so much more aware of what is going on in your body and can make the right choice now, to not live that nervousness and anxiety in your life. This blog makes it so clear to me, the great similarities there actually are between men and women. We, all of us, suffer from the same lack of confidence, feelings of anxiousness, of not being good enough, suffering nervousness and anxiety so much of our lives. Under the skin, men and women are truly so alike, have very similar problems. For all of us, the antidote is to truly connect to our innermost, feel the love that we are there, and live from that space. It is amazing how all these things that we feel we are suffering seem to just disappear, they cannot exist when we learn to truly love ourselves.
Loved reading your blog Brian and especially your comment – ‘Many times I have felt my chest filling with words that needed to be expressed but I have held them in’, those words are finding their way out and are allowing so much healing for yourself and for others. Nervousness and anxiousness happen to many of us and I have discovered that when I allow myself to be held back by these then I am seeing myself as less than. Today I remind myself regularly that I am ‘more’, I am Divine and this truth settles like a warmth that wraps around me. Thank you for your honesty and sharing your experience. I have found your words and honesty to be profoundly healing.
The fact is that the majority of people live in some level of anxiousness. But we rarely talk about it. It is lovely that you have so honesty started the conversation here Brian.
Thank you for your very honest and open sharing on nervousness and anxiety. The realisation you came to that you don’t need to fight them but take responsibility to look at how you have been living that allowed then in is key to letting then go. My experience has also been through building a forever deepening relationship with my body by learning to love and respect myself and listen to my body I am able to feel the anxiety nervousness I once thought was a part of me and had no idea it even was anxiousness and nervous energy entering me.
Thank you Brian for your honest and sensitive sharing. What a great realisation that we do not have to identify or be owned by the behaviours we take on as a form of protection. It is empowering to choose to stay present and connected to what is being felt in the body and not let our minds run the show.
Wow, Brian, this is such a heart-felt sharing from you, I love it. Even as a woman, I can relate to so much of what you have shared. So many of us (men and women) live in this world in this way, fearing to express exactly what we are feeling, scared that people will not like us. It is so beautiful to read such a story from a man who has become open now to expressing how he feels about life. Thank you.
I don’t think i know anyone, bar a handful of people, who do not live with levels of anxiety or nervousness, even though on the outside it may appear like they have everything in order, confident, having fun, successful etc. What I’m noting more and more, is that anxiousness and nervousness are increasingly not being able to be as disguised or camouflaged anymore, and are becoming more and more obvious in people. It is now a normal way of living for the majority of people…that shows our way of living in dis-order is increasing.
Brian I can relate to all the words you have written as you explain what happens when you go into anxiety and the words that you feel gathering in your chest that do not come out. How precious and beautiful must be the words that we feel to express, and powerful! that we would ever think to hold them back. I love what you shared about the simplicity of your connection now being about you and your body and not what you have or haven’t said or done but what you’ve already chosen before this. Your blog is an inspiration to so many people as it shares an honesty and openness that supports us all to know that we continue to learn if we want to and there is no perfection to attain in the end.
“The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are” – totally agree with you Brian, as both these qualities destroy there being connection to the body, and so the more we can be connected in our body and remain there, the less imposing those qualities are/run us. It is our choice whether to be in our body, or to leave and escape into our mind.
Your honesty with what you share here Brian is so great as it can help so many who are struggling with the same issue. I can relate too Brian, as I ran on nervous energy for most of my life, always trying to be perfect and avoiding things if it meant I couldn’t do it perfectly. I can still go into that nervous push, and when I feel it’s uncomfortable drive, I know it’s time to stop and feel what choice has been running me and call it out.
I can very much relate to what you share. It has been and sometimes still is such a automatic reaction to any situation, one which I can feel I make my self less in an instance to not be hurt by someone else making me feel so. This is such an unnatural way of living and I can see that the way out is letting myself feel all of me and live in appreciation of this all the time, knowing that I am more than enough and know me to the core.
A brilliant blog Brian, on how living with anxiety influences the whole of our lives and the way we approach the rest of the world. For me anxiety became so normal that it felt strange if ever I was without it, which was not very often, as there was always something on my mind, uncleared, about what I may have done to offend someone, or got something “wrong”. Everything is defence, and from defence comes aggression, very often unspoken or acted on. What you have discovered through the inspiration of Serge Benhayon, is pure gold, the ability to choose yourself before the anxiety, and recognise it is only another energy that is not love passing through you, never the true you. I love the way you are releasing yourself from that prison where you have lived for so long.
“As I sit and feel these things about the way I have lived, I do not dream about what might have been, but look to what is.” – A great perspective to have, we cannot change the past but we surely can take responsibility for how we are moving forwards.
Brian I love your blog because you are so open and honest about how you have felt which is generally a difficult thing for a man to do. But you, along with many other men who have been inspired by Serge Benhayon, are now willing to show the world that it is ok to express this tenderness that all men naturally have inside them. It is a blessing for all women, and other men, to hear a man talk about how he feels in this way. Thank you.
Knowing any emotion is a behaviour we have simply taken on and not who we truly are, brings us to a place to start to become familiar with the who we truly are; eventually the shift is on celebrating and enjoying feeling this aspect of ourselves and from there observing the behaviours; rather than being convinced we are someone terrible and lost in the behaviours. This is such a trick we get sucked into – everything in society and often in our upbringing convinces us we are not so great. How spectacular to read blogs like this to support us know it can be different. Thank you Brian for your reflection.
It is astounding with how much anxiety and nervousness we actually live on a daily basis, and call that normal. Thank you for showing that this does not have to be that way, that we can let go of the tensions in our bodies by observing ourselves in honesty and becoming aware of why we are doing certain things instead of accepting them simply as behaviours of ours.
Thank you for writing about such an important topic so candidly and honestly. Anxiety about being wrong and being rejected for that is one of the deep underlying issues that men deal with and react to every day. It is rarely spoken about and even more rarely healed fully in men, but bringing it out into the open is so important.
I think many people can relate to feeling nervous and anxious at some point in their lives but what you so beautifully shared Brian is that it is a choice to run with nervous and anxious energy. Once we realise we do have a choice, this is deeply empowering and freeing. Nervousness and anxiety doesn’t just happen to us. I used to think it was other people and circumstances that created these feelings for me but in truth it was my choice to run with this awful energy that was harming me and others. Awesome that you’ve also shared awareness is key to nipping nervousness and anxiety in the bud. With more awareness we can make wiser and more loving choices. In the past I was running on nervous and anxious energy without realizing until I eventually stopped to feel what was going on or when someone lovingly pointed it out to me, otherwise it would continue and escalate causing more harm. I too am building more awareness around what I choose throughout my day and how that affects myself and others.
Beautiful Brian. You have captured and expressed how empowering awareness is; simply to have the awareness and honesty to observe what is happening is key. And as we deepen the love for ourselves we become less judgemental and more able to simply observe. It is in the being less judgemental which is the true gold.
What I find fascinating about these blogs is the insights we gain into humanity and appreciating the personal, honest sharing that takes place. Brian, I loved reading your words today. I loved that you put pen to paper and shared your journey with anxiety and nervousness. It is a topic that we need much more discussion around and it is rare that you hear men talk about these topics, so thank you. I can so relate to what you have written here as anxiety and nervousness were a massive part of my growing up and early years. Like you, it is lessening the more I realise I actually have a choice and the more I care for myself and lessen the grip on being wrong/wanting to please.
The problem with -especially low grade – anxiousness is that we can easily mask it and because it is now so common it is no longer seen for the enormous problem that it is. We may seem ok on the outside but what goes on in our inner dialogue and the relationship with ourselves and the world around is can be something completely opposite. And as we just go on from day to day, seemingly fine on the inside, our body is coping with it to the point that it can no longer and and burn out is the result.
Brian thank you for your openness in this blog, It is great service to all men. I have suffered anxiety and self loathing for a great part of my life and this line is very telling : “I put myself in a position of already thinking that I had been hurt, believing therefore I was not able to get hurt by anything they said.” There is great protection in making ourselves less. I used to make denigrating jokes about myself just so that others would not. It is a very detrimental way of being and so far from the truth of who we are.
Thanks Carolien It is indeed, what we believe is a way to protect ourselves. But does it really protect us? It is a very twisted way of living that is not meant to protect us but just pull us further away from ourselves.
absolutely and in truth it is pure self abuse. Abuse is abuse whether it comes from others or from ourselves.
I love reading some of the comments in response to this blog…. and the wisdom that has been shared about not fighting or meeting the anxiety head-on, but honouring our bodies deeper, letting ourselves be even more honest and realising there is something we actually let in that runs the anxiousness even if it’s at a low tempo. I know for me, how exhausted my body then feels as a result — there can’t be that deep rest and surrender in my body if I’m running on low level anxiety. And it prevents me from deeply surrendering and thus resting… so what I’ve been looking at is why do I choose anxiousness over deep surrender?
“The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body” This sentence says it all as the more awareness we have of our body the easier it is to say no to that which is not in us at any given time. Anxiousness and nervous energy is not who we are and we can put a stop to them through our movements and connection to who we truly are.
I loved what you shared Brian about the fact that in that being scared and anxious we actually impart those feelings of unease to others around us as well. Clocking that is huge — we realise the ripple effect our state of being has and the responsibility that comes with that.
Hi Katerina I have had countless very short conversations. Uneasiness meeting Uneasiness. There is no where to go. A wonderful tool to ensure we have no connection with others.
This is a very powerful blog Brian, for the majority I people I feel have some level of anxiety. I know I have and still do. I used to chew my nails because I was so nervous. Both create such a tension in our body and is very exhausting to live in. But the truth is that neither of those states are who we are at all. It is not part of our natural way. It’s like we mentally prepare for every possible contingency in life – the what if’s.
This is a great sharing Brian thank you, and as you have described we use anxiousness and nervous energy to manage life and not to feel what’s there to be felt and it is through the connection to our own bodies and our expression of how we feel that we can loose its’ hold on us and be the tender beings that we are.
Hello Brian and this is the key to many things, “The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.” To often it would seem we want an answer to a problem and so we go and ask someone and then follow what they say. What if, like you’re example Brian about anxiety we start to ask ourselves and then be open to allowing the answer to unpack itself over time. That way the ‘answer’ we get is from us, from how we live and more often then not the same question won’t come up again. Thank you Brian.
If we let nervousness and anxiety rule the show it sure keeps us away from who we truly are. It is lovely to read your honest and open sharing Brian and it is one that I can really relate to myself, as it only recently that I have begun to leave my own anxiety and nervousness behind and claim myself as a woman in her power, leaving the nervous, anxious little girl behind.
The fear of not being accepted and hence measuring ourselves when we are with others is age old and a world wide epidemic. We have given up being love, to be liked. We have chosen to fit in, over truth. We have self-created inequality and separation. And how has this epidemic served us and the whole world?
When anxiousness and nervousness run us, we are not there, love is not there, but what is not love has taken over. Choose love and we choose to be our true self.
As a woman it hurts deeply to see a man hold back, therefore, as a woman there is deep responsibility to not hold back all our love and expressions of truth.
Such tenderness felt in this blog, that in reading it I could feel the beautiful essence of you Brian as well as of all gentlemen, the deep but gentle presence that every single woman craves for in a man.
The thing with nervous energy or anxiety is they are energies that are passing through our bodies all the time. The presentation on ‘Understanding Anxiety in Men – ONLINE COURSE’ brings a lived wisdom of how men and women can live and not absorb these ill energies, because we can never stop these energies coming through our bodies! Like Brian I would highly recommend this course for everyone.
Thank you for sharing Brian and reading your blog I can relate to a lot of what you have written. Being scared of getting something wrong has been a massive one for me and I can see how much anxiety this belief has caused. Over the past 18 months I have challenged this belief every time it comes up and as I have developed more self-love, it is having much less of a hold on me. I can see that it is something that I have chosen to hang onto so as not to live in the glory of the true me.
I am becoming more and more aware how the whole of society is set up to stop us from expressing the truth. It sounds really crazy and it is really crazy, but the thing we all most want and all avoid is love (in the true sense of the word) which is the same as truth. If you start to truly express love it exposes all that is not love in yourself and everyone else, and that can be very confronting at first because we have identified ourselves as the person who loves football, loves a cup of coffee, is a great mother etc etc and perhaps there are aspects of these identifications that are not actually true that we don’t want to look at and other hurts we don’t want to deal with.
What a beautifully expressed blog Brian, so clear and relatable. I feel what you write about affects pretty much everyone in some way or another. Some people cover it up by behaving in the opposite way so it may look different, but these are all ways we hold back on simply being and expressing the love we truly are.
Thank you Brian, I can relate to most of what you’re sharing. Only reading your honest sharing made me aware of the fact that I was reading in anxiety, rather than being connected to myself. There’s indeed a constant choice. And with this choice, there comes Responsibility. There’s a constant relationship that either allows me to deepen the relationship with me or sustains the anxiety and / or nervousness. I’d like to ask myself the honest question: why is it that I choose anxiety / nervousness / the smaller version of me over the loveliness to be with me?
Floris I really love how you have highlighted the fact that we are choosing anxiety. I lose sight of this fact and kind of slip into a ‘well this is me right now and can’t really be bothered to address it’. The interesting thing is though my anxiety has decreased considerably without me targeting it specifically. I put that down to the fact that I am making more loving choices in all areas of my life, which is raising the level of love in my body and it feels like it is pushing everything that is not love out!
“I can say no to nervousness and anxiety, or I can allow them to run me” – realising that we have a choice is the key. We are not the anxiousness, it is not who we are. It is not a personality trait or something we suffer from – it is something we choose. Why we choose that takes a deep level of honesty but we can get to the root cause of it. We may never be free of anxiety in that it will always be there for us to choose. But we can create a much wider distance between it and us which in turn allows for us to say no with much more ease.
From my own experience when I was run by anxiety and nerves, I had not a clue this was the case. I thought that was simply how I was and it was my normal. A few years ago I read something about anxiety and it dropped like a lead ballon and I realised I was anxious a lot of the time. The awareness paved the way for a different choice.
Thank you Brian for this honest blog, it is very necessary to open up the conversation about the agony of hurts and fears and how they can paralyze peoples lives, yet there is a lot of pretend that everything is ok and / or medication to handle the impact of it. You say ‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’ – What you are in effect saying is that your are looking at your own responsibility regarding these issues in your life and by applying this simple awareness ‘looking at what you have been doing that has allowed them in’, a true change can begin.
“The more I build a relationship with my body, the greater the awareness I have of what is happening in my body. This awareness allows me to understand what anxiety and nervousness are.” I have found that deepening this connection with my body allows me to feel all situations and deal with anything that arises, not only anxiousness. My connection to me is a marker and touchstone that I can always come back to.
Once you know what it feels to be connected to yourself, then you can choose you. The choice is always there, waiting for all that we thought was us to no longer be chosen, and the us that was always there to be chosen.
Thank you for sharing so beautifully from your heart, Brian. I’m sure many of us will relate to what you have shared. We all use the roles in our lives to cover up what is really going on or how we are truly feeling. With awareness we can make different choices and this can be life changing.
Brian thank you for bringing such great light and clarity to what can be hidden even from ourselves. What you share regarding the effect ‘anxious cover up’ can have on conversations with others is very true and I appreciate the depth of understanding you have brought to this.
We tend to think of nervousness like a state of extreme worry. But the fact is we can be calm, sedate and unruffled on the surface but underneath still totally run by anxiety. It is like everything we do is geared to prevent a situation we a scared of, from happening. So in this intricate construction we are still dominated and run by the fear. And as you wisely say Brian, ultimately this is not something to avoid or solve, but something to simply stop choosing.
Yes, Joseph, like so many others here, I too have realized that finding a distraction or a way to be calm on the outside did not change the fact that I was still run by anxiety; it sounds simple but with support of a very honest Universal Medicine practitioner I have gotten much better at not choosing anxiety; choosing to be present in my body instead… more ME more of the time and it feels wonderful.
Thank you Brian for your beautifully expressed blog. Anxiety and nervousness never allow us to settle into our body and be who we truly are. I have had plenty of experience of that in my life. And as you say, isn’t it great that – ‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.
What a very very big topic you are touching on here Brian. The fact is nearly every one of us are running with a level of anxiety and nervousness all of the time, even when we sleep and this is causing great harm to our general well being even if it is not always recognised medically as being the cause, it is still not healthy to live with. All the while, the underlying issue around this can be easily solved, by dealing with why we are anxious and/or nervous in the first place
a great point Joshua, anxiousness can even be experienced in sleep and is probably more common than we realise, there are so many conditions that we deaden with daily life to not be aware of.
For most of my life I have lived with anxiety, not even knowing what it was, let alone know that I knew it was there the whole time. For me it was also normal. Only when I drank alcohol, I would not feel it. Nowadays it is way less but it is still there. Like you, I make the choice to come back to my body and be present. For me anxiety comes up when I am not present.
Same here Mariette, when I am not fully present in my body then my old companion, ‘ anxiety’ returns.
I loved reading this Brian, it brings much understanding to why people sometimes make certain choices and how people act. In life I notice I often saw things as personal when people wouldn’t say much as I thought it was me that they did not find interesting, when they themselves might have been struggling with the issues you described.
Great to read your story Brian, I felt a lot of similarities in how I felt growing up, eager to please and be accepted. What I find most remarkable now is if I am in a group and rather than worry about how I am percieved, if I consider the feelings of others, that someone else may be anxious or need support. When I take the approach that others need me to be supportive, then my own self created issues melt away. It is the same if someone is wallowing in a problem, give them a purpose to be there for another and the issue disappears. I find this all quite magical and so very easy to see when we observe it unfolding.
Reading of your experience Brian reminds me of how isolating life can feel even when we are among many people. We are all bubbling messes of hurts but putting on a good front, trying to show the world that there is nothing wrong! By starting conversations like this it is very quickly evident that this isolation is not for a few but for the very many and it is only by being honest that we can start to clear these issues and encourage others to be honest about how they feel too. When we start to see a pattern emerging it is easier for the majority to collectively ask questions as to why these behaviour patterns exist, get underneath them and work on them as you have demonstrated. It feels like we really have to come together as a humanity and support one another with honesty, understanding and compassion admitting that we are all the same, and admitting that we all crave connection and love with self and with each other – the fundamental root cause of all our ills.
“I have become aware that I played sport not just to win but with a fear of losing”. I love this statement because it supports our understanding of why so many men go into competition. Society has this firmly held belief that we are naturally competitive but what if competition and needing to win (in all walks of life) was a simply a man’s way of dealing with his rejection issues?
Anxiety is a huge problem in society, with the problem masked by the many ways we hide from it, like alcohol, overeating, or busyness. We think we have it under control with these measures, but these are what makes it worse and wears the body down from the inside out.
What really strikes me here is the damage that we do to boys and men when we reject their innate sensitivity and gentleness. I really appreciate your honest self reflection Brian because it reveals how hard some of us have to work at putting up the walls of protection (I can so relate to this, but like an ostrich with our heads in the sand we don’t realise that everyone can see through this, but as we like to pretend that everything is ok we continue to play the game!
A really beautiful blog Brian. Clearly you are a very sensitive person and it really is no wonder that growing up as boy you became so anxious given that sensitivity in boys is not generally encouraged, and indeed rather frowned on by society. By sharing your story here you are also encouraging many others to stop and acknowledge what is going on for them too and by your example know that with commitment we can change our stuck patterns.
What I love about how you have tackled this tension Brian, is that you have stopped identifying with it and rather than seeing it as a part of you, you have come to the understanding that this is an energy that seeks to enter as a result of unexpressed feelings that boil up within. By separating the anxiety from yourself, it greatly diminishes its hold over you so that you have the clarity to see it as a choice – “anxiety and nervousness, or Me.” So simple.
Thank you Brian for this beautifully honest and open sharing of the hold that anxiety and nervous tension can have over our body and the being (us!) within it – I can totally relate. We belong to a universal order that has a certain rhythm and flow to it. When we are in sync with this, we feel at ease with our surroundings even if they are disharmonious. But, when we fall out of sync we become breathless as the panic sets in. This is because deep down we have sensed our move away from the divine order we are held in and by and that we are an important part of. In separation to this we are like a rudderless ship in a wild storm unable to connect to the stillness within. Therefore the key to smooth sailing seems to be to develop a strong foundation within the body that is able to weather any outer turbulence. That is to say, it is fine for there to be a storm on the outside so long as we are not creating a storm on the inside as well. This for me is also a work in progress.
Love the awareness and honesty you are able to express and bring to your writing Brian, from having lived these experiences and the changes you continue to bring to your life. This paragraph puts into words so well, something that was the only way I knew how to cope with life and people prior to meeting Serge Benhayon. That was when everything was ok as I began to re-connect to my body and make different choices.
“In reality I was just scared of being wrong or not being liked. I was under the belief that it was easier to make myself ‘wrong’ in the first place and then I thought everything would be ok”.
Brian Piper, this blog is awesome as it exposes the myth that men and women are supposedly so different in how we all can feel underneath the mask that we present. Apart from the reference to sport, this blog could have been written to cover a large proportion of my lifespan, covering everything from the anxiousness, stress, ingrained doubt, fear of confrontation, looking for recognition, making myself less. Equally so, a big ‘ditto’ to your experience in the changes in your way of being and living since attending presentations by Serge Benhayon. Totally cool! Here we are, male and female, experiencing similar emotions, feelings and changes to our lives.
It’s really huge what you present here Brian, that anxiety is not something that just happens to us – but is the result of choices we make. This is super empowering because it means that we have to opportunity to make different choices and to develop a relationship with our body so that it becomes easier to make choices that support us, rather than leave us in a stressed, anxious or unsettled state.
Brian what a stunning blog – thank you so much for sharing!! I love how you bring anxiety back to a simple choice – “anxiety and nervousness, or Me”.
This is a fantastic example of how beneficial it can be to really feel into what it is we call normal, and whether this is in fact a truth or not.
Wow, this is a pretty amazing blog to read Brian, one that many could relate to in one way or another. We always feel like a child when we are not in our true power and we are always anxious when we are out of our body viewing the world through our hurts and fears that we have carefully filed away in our head to recall at any moment as a strange form of comfort. These hurts and fears come from projections that have nothing to do with what is going on in the moment and the reason we can no long feel what is actually going on is because we are not in our body! Not being in our body is definitely something to be anxious about!
Thank you Brian, this a deeply honest sharing from the true quality of tenderness that as men, we hold equally within. Beautiful to feel this expressed in all its Power and Glory
you bring up a great point Brian, ‘Putting ourselves as less’ in the first place so there is no possibility of being hurt! It is quite a wonder how we can perceive situations of hurt or unfamiliarity, and go into an automatic behaviour to not feel who we might be.
I can relate to this blog in many ways Brian. I had a nervous stutter when I was younger because I had suppressed my expression so much when I was little that my words came out as they did. This was from the lack of confidence to express what I felt and how it would be perceived.
The answer to my personal issue of suppressing my expression was express more and more. Through loving support of people around me I no longer stutter.
Brian,
Anxiety is something that I lived with and thought that it was my lot in life. Never did I even entertain the idea that I could live without it, and yet, for the most part, that I now do.
The steadiness and awareness I now feel is beautiful. I can, however feel the energy of anxiousness in many people and this greatly stills me. For it is quite the normal to run our lives in this heightened state. What I discovered was when I settled and became more still and present in my body and began to live from this point, my body changed on a deep cellular level. My thyroid condition improved remarkably. So is it possible that anxiousness running the body is the precursor to many illnesses?
Leigh I agree with you that a great many people suffer from anxiousness, in fact I would say that most people live with fairly high and regular states of anxiety. Knowing how this feels in my body and also understanding that we are all effected by how everyone else is feeling makes me wonder what the world would feel like if we took all the anxiousness out? I would hazard a guess that it would feel a lot less jittery and that what we now all take as normal is actually a very frenetic energy indeed.
Brian thank you for your openness,honesty and courage to write about nervousness and anxiety. This would have been a very tender and vulnerable subject for a man. At a guess this would have been a very guarded subject built with layers of guarded protection. It is beautiful what you have exposed and letting it not be the base of how you live now. How freeing and inspiring for you and others.
‘I now know I do not need to fight them, but look at what I have been doing that has allowed them in.’ Great wisdom here. A response that leaves anxiousness and nervousness out the door and brings kindness and compassion for oneself and an understanding that can truly evolve us
What an inspiration Brian, always having a choice is so empowering.