A Gift of Anxiety & Anger

I held an Effiji Breathwork class the other night and someone asked the question ‘ How can what happens in the breath, be of benefit in your day-to-day life? I shared with them one of my own experiences…

A few years ago I was experiencing a lot anxiety. I had much turmoil in my life and simple tasks created massive overwhelm and stress for me. I then began to feel anxiety each time I would do the breath and my instinct was to push it away. But my teachers challenged me to stay with the feeling and to see what else was there. By creating space to feel what I thought was anxiety, I discovered something else that wasn’t anxiety at all. It was anger. Or more specifically, RAGE!

So I don’t know if this was a British thing, a human thing or simply a ‘me’ thing? But I had never felt comfortable feeling anger or rage. I always thought of it as a toxic or unhealthy emotion and definitely something that was not helpful to feel. But after the Breath when I shared this with my teachers, they suggested to see where this anger was coming up in my life.  To pay attention to it and see what gifts it could bring.  At the time, I had no clue what this meant but decided to try and see. What I learnt was that in my life, when I felt anger, I would push it away or squash it down. Then because I was not allowing myself to feel it, it had nowhere to go. And so it turned into anxiety. A more comfortable and ‘socially acceptable’ emotion for me to deal with.

I then discovered that when I allowed myself to feel anger as it arose, it became very useful to me.  It was showing me moments in my life when something was off. Perhaps someone would ask me for help with something that I didn’t want to do but would agree to it anyway. Or I would waste my time watching vacuous TV. I was learning that each time I was out of alignment with myself, a wave of anger would arise. But then, when I adjusted this and changed my mind by saying no! Or turned off the shitty TV programme, the anger would immediately dissipate and I would feel total peace.  My anger became and continues to be a helpful barometer for how I make decisions in my life. And the anxiety disappeared! 

Now as a facilitator, I see the many gifts available for people when they come and do an Effiji Breath class with me. As people breathe, I watch and see the emotions and patterns arising. I don’t need to understand the story around this -the minds way of organising what is going on-to see what is happening. But  if asked, I can help organise what is wanting to be revealed. Each person is different and unique, but all are searching for something. So what do you need?