Detoxifying Chronic Anxiety & Fear

Clearing the past to meet the present with clarity and courage

You might be feeling an increase in anxiety and fear during the recent years. These emotions are very common after trauma, and during ongoing traumas, like those continually unfolding in our rapidly changing world.

The increased chronic anxiety and fear that people are experiencing post-2020 isn't just about what's going on in the world right now. It's also because the current traumas taking place are triggering up to the surface the old, unresolved trauma from the past.

When we feel anxiety and fear, it feels awful. So the first temptation is usually to find something to distract ourselves from it.

These feelings are uncomfortable and it’s normal not to want to feel them. However, when we indulge in distractions, addictions and other forms of escapism in order to mask the feelings, the hole gets deeper it it becomes more difficult to find the way out.

You might notice that during the last 2+ years you've been unconsciously pulled more toward behaviors like workaholism, alcoholism, fantasy, increased use of substances, sex, porn, food, gambling, shopping, social media, etc.

You might also notice that these patterns are happening in cycles. Maybe everything seems okay for a while, then you feel the sudden urge to escape from the overwhelming feelings that emerge. This cycling is due to the trauma response that goes back and forth between numbness and hyper-reactivity.

Most people that I’ve talked with in my personal and professional life have fallen into some form of distraction to cope with the overwhelm of stress during these times. That’s okay, don’t beat yourself up for it. As you become aware of these patterns, you can create change and new habits that support your health and growth, even in chaotic moments.

As stress shows up in the present, it becomes even more difficult to clear the buried stress from the past. It can feel too big and too overwhelming. The past trauma is frozen and built up, lowering our resilience in the present. All of the new stress that isn’t dealt with eventually joins the rest of the past stuff that’s already frozen and stored in the body until we do the conscious practice of feeling and processing it.

We need to deal with the past in order to have more energy to deal with the present.

While you might not yet notice the negative effects of escapism in your life, if you take a closer look, you might realize that you have some habits that have consumed the creative energy you could be investing in your self-healing and growth.

We need energy to face, feel, process and integrate the trauma and difficult feelings.  We also need energy to keep going in this global stress marathon.

So how to we free up some of our energy for this process?

A great place to start is by implementing new strategies and techniques to deal with the chronic anxiety and fear. But first, it’s helpful to understand more about these emotions.

There are some similarities and differences between anxiety and fear:

• both involve a perception of threat

• both can be a response to a real threat or imagined threat

• both can be conscious (we are aware of what we are feeling) or unconscious (it’s behind the veil of awareness)

• both can be acute (sudden onset) or chronic (long-term) emotional experiences due to past and/or current trauma (as well as current trauma triggering past unresolved traumas)

Sometimes it’s challenging to name what we are feeling. Hopefully this will help you identify and discern these emotions, getting to know them better so you can self-regulate through these stressful times.

Anxiety is usually an unspecific threat.

Fear is usually specific, about something in particular.

Chronic anxiety is an upper. It gets the nervous system revved up to mobilize and deal with the sense of danger. When you’re anxious, you might feel an overload of erratic and chaotic energy in your body that wants to be released. You might even feel hot.

Chronic fear is a downer. It causes a collapse in the nervous system, which shuts down and immobilizes due to the ongoing sense of life threat. When you’re afraid, you might feel a sense of paralysis and an inability to take action. You might feel cold.

How can we tell the difference between anxiety and fear when we are overwhelmed? 

Presence and embodyment are your greatest tools for dealing with unpleasant emotions. Bring your awareness down into your body, breathe naturally, and notice what’s present in the moment with you. This helps you reconnect your body-mind-spirit and become more aware of yourself.

When your consciousness is connected and grounded in your body, you’ll be able to notice and feel what’s emerging. The more you practice this, the more consistently aware you’ll be of your emotions and current state. This will greatly increase your emotional hygiene skills.

Recovering your energy and power from these chronic emotions means growing your awareness and taking greater responsibility for them.

Emotions are connected to the body. They arise from specific areas in the body and they tend to travel in particular circuits. Emotions (energy in motion) are meant to flow, yet they can also get stuck in the body, and that’s where the problem starts.

Where are these emotions in the body and what do they feel like?

Anxiety rises from the heart. Common physiological effects of chronic anxiety are: chest tightness, heart palpitations (arrhythmia), tachycardia, difficulty breathing, sweating and insomnia. When we are anxious, the Autonomic Nervous System is mobilized, agitated and tight. Anxiety creates a drive to want to expand and move the energy outward.

Fear sinks in the kidney area. Common physiological effects of chronic fear are: a sense of paralysis, a sensation of heavy weight (particularly in the lower part of the body), a desire to curl into fetal position and stay frozen there. Chronic fear causes exhaustion and a drive to want to curl inward and collapse.

Chronic anxiety and fear can get in the way of living if we don’t take responsibility for our self-healing.

What are some healthy ways to deal with chronic anxiety?

Avoid escapism, addictions and distractions. This is the automatic thing that you’ll probably want to turn to because it's the easy button.

When the anxiety comes up, it’s so uncomfortable we just want to make it go away. Escapism, unfortunately, is only a temporary release, and the anxiety will get worse over time. The particular escapism habits you have might also have negative effects on your body and mind.

It’s helpful to become more aware of your typical escape mechanisms so you can notice these patterns in real time. It’s more productive to work with the anxiety, allowing the feeling to arise and being present with it instead of trying to numb it out. The more you deal with it consciously, the sooner it will reduce in intensity and frequency.

Deal with your anxiety so your mind will be more clear.

You can practice holding the Inner and Outer Gate points on your wrists. In Chinese medicine, these are the Pericardium 6 (PC6) and San Jiao 5 (SJ5). This regulates the heart energy and calms the mind and body. You can hold one arm for a little while, then do the other.

Find a comfortable position to do this. I took the awkward photo below laying down with the phone on my body since I needed both hands for the demo.

These diagrams illustrate each point, about 3 of your finger widths from the center of the wrist, on both sides of the arm.

This combination of points is deeply relaxing.

In Chinese medicine, the pericardium protects the heart and governs the balance between openness and caution in our close, intimate relationships. It’s the part of us that tells us when to open and when to close the heart, when it feels safe and when it doesn’t feel safe to do so.

The San Jiao is used in Chinese medicine for many physiological things and also to stabilize and harmonize family and social ties, the broader relationships in our human life.

Something else that’s really helpful for releasing anxiety is to go for a brisk walk or do some vigorous exercise. Exercise in general can be helpful to discharge the energy of anxiety. Walking, especially, will help you to process your thoughts, clear your mind and get new insights about the situation that's causing you anxiety. You might get some new clarity about solutions as well. Some people prefer to sit quietly with the anxiety and do breathing or stretching practices like yoga and meditation.

Dr. Andrew Huberman recommends a “physiological sigh” with a double inhale (through the nose) and a long, extended exhale (through the mouth). This kind of breathing is also used in some Pilates exercises.

In this video, Dr. Huberman talks more in depth about stress and anxiety, revealing that chronically elevated stress causes heart disease. He teaches the importance of breathing to modulate heart rate through the loop that includes the brain and Autonomic Nervous System.

Another great thing for anxiety is a salt bath. This can help with detoxing and purification at a physiological level. A high quality natural salt (NOT the harmful, chemical Kosher table salt) helps to rebalance the electromagnetic current of the body. If you don’t have a bathtub, you can fill a basin with some water and natural salt to soak your feet for about 30 minutes.

Listening to Solfeggio frequencies can also help to reduce the anxiety. You might even want to take a salt bath while listening to your favorite Solfeggio frequencies. This is my favorite YouTube channel for Solfeggio.

When the anxiety is interfering with your sleep, it could be helpful to listen to the Solfeggio frequencies on a low volume. As you lay there, tune into your body and feel the Solfeggio frequencies resonate in your body. You might also want to try placing one hand on your heart center and another hand on your dan tien or hara, the center point of your physical power, just below the navel. As you relax your hands on those areas, bring your awareness to your breath, breathing in through your nose and out your mouth. Keep breathing naturally and you’ll notice a deep relaxation taking place. You might even drift off to sleep like this.

What are some ways of dealing with the fear?

I want to be clear that I’m not talking about an imminent danger kind of fear (oh shit, a bear!) but rather the chronic fears (everything that stops you from taking action in life and going after what you want).

When you’re in imminent danger, your body will mobilize you to act.

However, when we get bombarded with fear on an ongoing basis, over time, the nervous system starts to collapse and the body can feel paralyzed. It’s not real paralysis, it just feels like that in your mind. Your body is so drained of life force energy due to the fear. You’re exhausted and it might even exhaust you to think of moving or doing anything. This continual fear can even cause the body to have a delayed reaction or avoidance of the mobilization that’s needed to face imminent dangers.

The best way to deal with chronic fear is to face it head on. Maybe it’s a noise that startles you in the house that you need to investigate or a tough conversation that you need to have with someone. Maybe it’s something to do with the global situation that you don’t really want to think about, investigate or have the energy to prepare for.

Deal with the fear by summoning your courage to face it.

Otherwise the fear is going to keep growing over time and your mind will make it out to be much bigger than it really is. You’ll talk yourself out of important things and you’ll feel too paralyzed to act. The more you get used to facing your fears, the more courage you’ll develop to do this whenever new fears come up.

When the fear is intense, you can get into a cocoon in bed to do this practice. Sometimes the fear can feel overpowering, so laying down in your bed is where you can feel warm, safe and comfortable, under the sheets and blankets. Fear often makes us feel cold, but if your body temperature isn’t like that, then use some lighter layers so you can feel the cocoon effect without overheating. Curl into fetal position then let yourself go inward toward the epicenter of the fear in your body. Breathe and keep breathing deeply into it and through it. Fully surrender to the feeling of fear instead of fighting it.

Surrendering to the fear, you might realize it's not nearly as scary as you thought. When you face the chronic fear like this, it starts to go away and you start to feel more courageous. This practice will help you break through the biggest fears that are paralyzing you from taking action. 

A grounding practice can also be helpful. Put your bare feet on the earth. Stand or walk around for a little while. You might notice that you feel more relaxed, supported and safe through this connection to the earth. Of course, take into consideration your environment. When I moved to Texas, I was warned never to stand still on the grass or walk barefoot. I was told, “You’ll only make that mistake once.” They were correct. The fire ants here are no joke!

Social relationships and connection are also important to help reduce and mitigate stress.

Our mammalian nervous systems were programmed to feel a sense of safety through social connection.

Unfortunately, chronic anxiety and fear can also affect our relationships in negative ways. The anxiety and fear we carry from the past can block our intuition and ability to sense how we really feel around people. These feelings can create disharmony and distortions of perception in our connections as well.

Chronic anxiety and fear could also cause us to react in dysfunctional ways that sabotage our relationships. Other times these feelings can cause us to feel resistance or avoid relationships all together.

One of the most common dysfunctional dynamics in relationships is the anxious and avoidant attachment match. Both people experience chronic anxiety but for different reasons and it causes them to react in opposite ways.

The person with an anxious attachment will feel needy and clingy, wanting a lot of closeness and reassurance, expecting their partner to always be there and constantly give them affirmations of their love. They usually don’t want to allow for any distance or space in the relationship. When their partner pulls away or takes some distance, the person with the anxious attachment might panic and test their partner’s love. This will usually come through pressure for contact by bombarding their partner with talking, calls or texts. They might even provoke arguments and fights just to feel connected.

The person with an avoidant attachment will need a lot of space and distance, expecting their partner to be very independent and self-reliant. They usually don’t want to talk about feelings at all. When they experience emotional intimacy with their partner, they might suddenly panic due to the sensation of feeling overwhelmed with emotion, affection or closeness. This will cause the avoidant person to become cold, emotionally unavailable and distant. They’ll usually pull away, disappear or find other ways to create space between them and their partner.

This dynamic becomes a painful power struggle for both people, reflecting the original one, based on the parental response to the infant's or child’s expression of needs. Both partners are attracted to that dynamic because it’s familiar from childhood.

Attachment trauma or developmental trauma during infancy and childhood is more common than not. Many parents are carrying unresolved traumas and chronic stress in their nervous systems, which unintentionally passes on the anxiety to the child. Nowadays most people are so attached to their cellphones and other devices that they don’t even realize how disconnected they are from their kids, even when they’re in physical contact.

There is a dance between the nervous systems of the parents and child, and when this goes well under optimal conditions, the child’s nervous system will be programmed to feel safe and social with human contact.

Other times, it doesn’t go so well. An attachment trauma means the child unfortunately missed the important "I feel you feeling me" connection with the parents or caregivers, particularly the mother. This means the nervous system of the child gets programmed to feel anxious about human contact.

These unresolved attachment traumas trigger "primal panic" due to the feelings of betrayal, abandonment, neglect or rejection from childhood. The child’s nervous system gets programmed to feel a lack of security and safety in social connection. This leads to a lifetime of painful and dysfunctional adult relationships (as well as increased chronic anxiety), unless the person becomes aware of their relational dynamics and faces their pain so they can create a more secure inner state.

Our insecurities can destroy connections and turn people off, which only increases our chronic anxiety and fears. It becomes a negative cycle.

Our unresolved traumas can lead to anxiety, fear, projection or even manipulation and abuse in relationships. We are subconsciously driven to repeat the unresolved past (abuse, betrayal, hiding things, walking on eggshells, escapism, abandonment, rejection, contempt, etc.) until we become more aware of our relational dynamics, our adaptation to the childhood wounds.

The more you deal with your chronic anxiety and fear, the better your relationships will be, the safer and more connected you’ll be, and the better you’ll feel in general. You’ll notice you can focus better, you have more motivation and energy, you’ll take action when you need to or deploy your prudence when it’s best to prepare and wait for the right moment.

The co-regulation we get through social connection is important and necessary to our health and wellbeing, and so is the self-regulation work we do internally, taking responsibility for our own stuff and growing into a healthier and happier individual.

Be careful who you choose to connect with. If you surround yourself with the wrong people, you’ll end up feeling more chronic anxiety and fear.

The clearer your mind is as you work through the anxiety, and the more courageous you are as you overcome your fears, the easier you’ll be able to navigate this crazy world.