⏆Emotion Toolkit: FEAR + ANXIETY

I don't want to promote the illusion of control. I don't want these toolkits to suggest that you can outsmart or biohack the human experience. If emotion is 'the language of spirit,' as Ra pointed out, how else will we learn to speak with the heart of God?

Fear and anxiety are sensations. As you steward your fleshy vehicle through this current stage of evolution, emotions are the invitations to enter that inner garden and sit with the Creator.

Below is a collection of experiments for those days when you have sensations anywhere from mild anxiety to a full blown panic. I used many of these nervous system tools frequently in the beginning years of my deconditioning process, but I noticed the more I honor my Strategy + Authority and don't give into my Not-Self narratives (I need to prove myself, I should do this and that) the less I need them. It's as if my Inner Authority filters out so much of the bullshit, the root cause of what was making me anxious in the first place, that I don't need to symptom-manage as much as I used to.

However, life still does what it does. At the beginning of this year, someone in my immediate family was rushed to the ICU. We didn't know if they were going to make it. I found myself going outside, doing the Butterfly and Containment Hug, staring at the stars talking to God, and just listening to the silence. For the entire time they were in the ICU, I was doing EFT Tapping while I prayed each day. I would do these very basic practices as I tried to steward my nervous system toward surrender.

So whatever your self-narrative is, give yourself permission to drop all "strength" narratives. Please, stop. All the storytelling, "I am strong," how productive is it really? You just are, and that is exactly what you are supposed to be. So now, experiment. Wrap yourself in a blanket, lay on your stomach, eat some warm salty food, massage your ear to stimulate the vagus nerve, etc. Baby the hell out of yourself in private. Frame it as tending to your inner child or attending to your nervous system biologically, whatever gains your Mind's consent. Strip your fear down to its bones and remember: there is no fear you are feeling that hasn't been felt before, or isn't being felt by someone right now. Fear is of the body. Fear is not truth. But we still have to walk the path.

I also try to reframe my thoughts as I feel fear sensations instead of I am afraid. I try to remind myself that these sensations, however recurring, have a start and a finish every single time. I refuse to accept that we incarnated simply for survival. To experience fear and anxiety for the entirety of our trip. So... I hope some of these experiments aid you on your journey. I hope, as you do them, you unlock a tender love for yourself so you can keep watching the story that is your life.

SOMATIC TOOLS TO MOVE THE ENERGY OF FEAR + ANXIETY

I've separated the tools between quick practices and things that require more time or space to complete.

QUICK + SIMPLE

⧴ Have you eaten? Seriously, this is the first thing I'd ask. I've had moments where I felt myself descending into a real bad episode, ate something wholesome and filling, and the whole thing dissolved. In Ayurveda, fear is a Vata imbalance (cold, erratic, panicky) and warm grounding foods are its antidote. Eating also signals to the nervous system that you are safe. We don't eat when we're in danger.

⧴ Sour candy or extreme flavor. A sudden intense sensory input acts as a circuit breaker, interrupting the panic loop by giving the brain something completely new to process. Sour candy, wasabi, hot sauce, horseradish- same mechanism. The sucking motion also stimulates the vagus nerve.

⧴ Heat on the kidneys. Place a heating pad, hot water bottle, or warm hands on your lower back where the kidneys sit. In TCM, the kidneys and adrenals are deeply intertwined; the adrenals sit just above the kidneys and regulate your stress response. When fear fires the adrenals, warmth on that region sends a signal of safety directly to the source. Lie down and stay there. I also love my wrap-around heat pack I can wear while going about my day.

⧴ Scent. Pine, cedar, frankincense, vetiver. Grounding scents work fast because the olfactory nerve has a direct line to the brain. If you have Smell Cognition in Human Design or Gate 44 prominent in your chart, really experiment with scent to see how it makes you feel.

⧴ EFT Tapping. Like I said earlier, I really love praying or having my convos with God while doing EFT Tapping. It helps me to actually "embody" faith and integrate truth into my cells.

⧴ Butterfly Taps. Cross your arms over your chest and alternate gentle tapping on each shoulder. This is a bilateral stimulation technique used in trauma therapy.

⧴ Wrap yourself in a blanket and get on the floor. Prone is especially good. The weight, the warmth, and the contact with the ground all signal safety to the nervous system.

⧴ Massage. Experiment with around the ears, the jaw, the base of the skull, and down the sides of the neck where the vagus nerve runs. Here's a 2 minute example. Also, the sole of the foot is another powerful site: KI-1, or Bubbling Spring, sits about a third of the way down from the base of the toes in the slight depression between the second and third metatarsals. In TCM, when anxious energy rises and creates excess in the upper body, pressing KI-1 pulls it back down to earth. Use warm oil with a few drops of a grounding essential oil if you have it.

⧴ VOO breath. A Somatic Experiencing practice from Peter Levine. Deep inhale, and on the exhale make a low sustained voooooo from the belly as if you are a foghorn. Let the sound run the breath all the way out, then allow the next breath to come in on its own. Feel it vibrate your chest and gut. Repeat several times. 

⧴ Left nostril breathing. Close the right nostril with your finger or thumb and breathe slowly in and out through the left nostril only. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system and the lunar, cooling channel of the body.

⧴ Nervines and gentle herbal tea. I posted a more in-depth guide earlier on the nervine herbs I'm trying out to nourish my nervous system, but if you're in a jam and need something accessible, just try drinking a strong brew of chamomile tea, or holy basil. They're gentle on the body. I remember awhile back when I didn't listen to my Inner Authority and agreed to go on a trip that I hated the whole time. I was miserable and anxious. So I went to the nearest drugstore, bought a basic box of chamomile tea and plowed through that whole thing over the course of days. I can honestly say that it helped me to relax and get through the rest of trip.

⧴ Other simple, quick somatic movements. Full body tapping, heel drops, shaking, etc. These are great for a quick moment of recalibration:

LONGER + IMMERSIVE

⧴ Bath or Shower. A long warm soak is its own medicine. If you want to deepen it: Dr. Vasant Lad recommends adding one-third cup of ginger and one-third cup of baking soda to warm water. The ginger opens circulation, the baking soda alkalizes the body, the heat signals the nervous system to exhale. Soak for at least 15 minutes.

⧴ Abhyanga self-massage. Warm sesame oil, slow and deliberate, starting at the scalp and working down to the soles of the feet. The Ayurvedic practice of self-massage directly calms Vata and brings scattered energy back into the body.

⧴ Nature. I know this gets pushed a lot, but being in nature (even if it's just stepping outside of the building you're in) can truly bring a sense of calm to the body. Sitting or laying on the earth is even better. If you have an Undefined Spleen in Human Design, you may be especially predisposed to feeling unsafe or insecure. Nature is "Spleen medicine" according to Ra, as well as being around healthy animals.

⧴ Chant LAM. The seed mantra of the Root Chakra in Kundalini and Tantric traditions, pronounced to rhyme with thumb. The root chakra is the energetic address of survival, safety, and primal fear- exactly what's activated in a fear episode. Sit, place your hands on your thighs, close your eyes, and on each exhale intone a low sustained LAM from the belly. Feel where it vibrates.

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⧴ Kundalini Yoga. This is a 15 minute practice from YogiGems specifically for the root chakra, which helps us to ground and stay anchored. There are many simple movements and kriyas you can take away from each Kundalini practice as quick recalibration tools. For example, the Sufi Grind is a great simple movement you can do when you are in the middle of feeling your fear.

⧴ Be the Shaman. Go somewhere private and dance your fear. It might sound crazy, but doing wild movements, making wild faces... dancing it out crazy can either disrupt the anxiety loop or, better yet, help you process the energy. Don't be surprised if tears come, it is catharsis. You are transmuting fear into courage of heart by remembering that you are held just like the Shaman of Gate 25. You might even make yourself laugh, which is also great medicine.

⧴ The DARE app or Triple Flame. Many years ago I came across the DARE app, or the Dare Response, and used their "SOS" feature often for a period of time. I don't know if I was just going through a certain astrological transit, but I would freak out about so many little things going wrong. If you don't want to download the app, here is the SOS meditation that I found to be really, really helpful:

Additionally, I wanted to mention the Triple Flame app from Richard Rudd. "The Triple Flame’s pausing technique involves pausing for 3 minutes every 3 hours, alongside many people spread across the globe." I experimented with this a couple of years ago and really found it helpful for learning how to slow down. Which, over time, helped lessen my feelings of anxiety.

Traditional Chinese Medicine: The Kidneys + Fear

In TCM, fear is the emotion associated with the Kidneys. Where the Liver governs the movement of qi and is agitated by anger, the Kidneys govern our deepest reserves- our vitality and our sense of security in being alive at all. Chronic fear and anxiety deplete Kidney qi over time, showing up as exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix, lower back aches, a free-floating dread with no clear cause, or a sense of being completely unanchored.

The Kidneys are associated with winter and the act of going inward. Anxiety is often what happens when we keep moving at summer speed through a winter nervous system.

Supporting the Kidneys through food is one of the quieter, slower ways we resource the body to metabolize fear rather than store it in the tissues.

Foods that support Kidney qi:

⟜ Black beans

⟜ Walnuts

⟜ Bone broth

⟜ Seaweed/Nori sheets

⟜ Miso (stir a spoonful into warm water)

⟜ Blueberries and blackberries

⟜ Nettle tea (widely available in most health food stores)

⟜ Warm cooked foods over raw: soups, stews, roasted root vegetables

The flavor associated with the Kidneys in TCM is salty- in small, mineral-rich amounts it is considered gently tonifying. Not processed table salt, but the real trace-mineral kind. Good quality sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, miso, seaweed. Some people have also experimented with a small amount of baking soda in water. I haven't tried it personally, but the alkalizing effect seems to be what people are after. If I am not getting enough salt in my food during the day, then I'll have an electrolyte drink formulated for daily use like Nuun Daily Hydration tablets.

The throughline here is warmth, heaviness, and mineral density. When fear makes you cold and scattered, you experiment with feeding the body the opposite.

Anyways, I might update this list as I continue in my deconditioning process. There are many layers to fear, whether you view it through a spiritual lens or strictly a mechanical lens with Human Design, but sometimes we just need something body-based to get us through. I hope this toolkit can serve you.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. The entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you. -Rumi