Working on my Spring Goal (Anxiety)

Spring Goal: Stay in my body during anxiety and stop resisting feelings

Rocks:
1) Continue with the flow collective and journaling/models
2) Listen very closely to my intuition
3) Send myself loving and caring energy
4) Listen to music

Thought Download:
I thought I was “winning” at my goal. I was feeling really good about how I was noticing emotions and anxiety during the day, and then using my rocks and somatics to calm myself down etc. Then I started having a series of nights where I clench my jaw while I sleep (I have a long history of this) which usually happens when I have a lot of anxiety. After a few nights of this, I wake up with a terrible headache, puffy face, intense tightness of pain in my jaw, head, neck and shoulders. It’s debilitating and wipes me out all day. Below is my unintentional model and questions

UNINTENTIONAL
Circumstance: I woke up with a headache and jaw ache
Thought: I’m not processing my emotions right
Feeling: Determined
Action: Focus on relieving physical pain (bath, massage, sleep, eat, rest)
A: Research ways to solve the physical or mental symptoms (things to do differently)
A: OBSESS over new plan, repeat the new story over and over and over
Result: I don’t address the emotional pain, I look for ways to solve it.

Questions: How then do I know if I am resisting feelings or not? I thought that by utilizing my rocks and somatics I was being mindful of things I was experiencing during the day.
I rewatched the Models workshop and Maisie said, “Look at changing the thought before changing the action line”. I feel like the answer is on the tip of my tongue, but I am getting stuck. Is there a deeper feeling I haven’t worked through? I am very critical of myself and trying to be more compassionate. If that’s what I need to work through. How can I do it?

Unintentional Model

Circumstance: I am working on my spring goal
Thought: I am still self critical
Feeling: Frustrated
A: do models and ask a coach
R: ??

 

Answer:

Starting with your first unintentional model, it seems as though you either process your feelings and have nothing at night, or you don’t process and have symptoms at night. Are there any other options?

Processing feelings does not mean that they completely go away. It means you allow them to be there. You don’t use energy pushing thing away.

You know what you do to process your feelings. If you resisted them, what would you be doing? Looking at how you are processing and what resisting looks like for you, would you do anything differently?

In regards to your question on self-criticism, why do you think your brain does that? Our brains do things for a reason. Some answers may be that your brain thinks it is how you get better, or it is protecting from disappointment. Once you understand why your brain may do that, you can show yourself compassion. You understand why your brains is choosing self-criticism because it thinks it is helping. That is when you say “Thank you, brain. I don’t need that kind of help.”

It is that understanding of why you do something, feel something, think something that can provide compassion. It is understanding why it is there. You don’t make it mean anything bad or good. You understand it. Only then, can you consider if you want to anything differently.