Anxiety.

As so many of us know, it fucking sucks.

According to a 2016 Health Survey, 8.6% of Canadians have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, while a National Post article shows that nearly half of all Canadians identify as struggling with anxiety in some way.

It certainly seems that anxiety is on the rise in contemporary society, and unfortunately, I’m no exception.

For years now I’ve lived with generalized anxiety disorder, as well as what has proven to be some pretty crippling social anxiety—both of which have at times got in the way of living “normally” (whatever that means).

As a kid, I was shy and awkward (much like I am now) but it’s hard to say whether that was actually anxiety or not. Then, six years ago I was in an ATV accident that left me with a nasty concussion—so bad that I still haven’t fully recovered from it. It was then that, in addition to the excruciating headaches and perpetual brain fog, my mental health took a turn for the worst.

For the first time in my life, I really knew what it was to be depressed. I fell into a dark pit of misery and self-loathing, peppered with disordered eating, addiction, and yes—anxiety. So much anxiety.

For a while, I was put on medication to calm the anxious thoughts, but all it really seemed to do was put me to sleep. Not that I really minded—things were a lot easier when I was asleep. Asleep, I didn’t have to deal with the feelings of profound emptiness, a gaping hole filled only at times by self-deprecation and incessant worry.  

Needless to say, it was a pretty difficult time in my life, and a long road to recovery… So long, in fact, that even now I’m not sure if I’ll ever find its end. All these years later and I’m still taking medication to keep the headaches and migraines at bay. As for my mental health, it’s been forever changed by the incident, and the anxiety especially is something that I contend with on a daily basis.

Spirituality and Mental Health

But despite all of these lingering issues, what helped me the most back then, and what still helps me the most now when my mental health gets particularly bad is spirituality, and consistent spiritual practice.

During that especially challenging time in my life, what pulled me out of the dark place wasn’t medication, or even therapy (though of course, that’s not to say that therapy can’t be immensely helpful when struggling with something like this). It was actually dedicating myself to learning about religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, attending group meditations and spiritual events, and then applying these things to the way that I perceived myself, my journey, and the world around me. More than anything, it was this newly blossoming spiritual practice and worldview that not only helped me learn to cope with and manage my physical pain, but my psychological pain as well.

Before this, I had never really given much thought to religion or spirituality, simply considering it as something interesting to study, rather than actually applicable in my own life. But in embracing these teachings and practices, a path was laid out before me, and as I walked along it, I found that I was able to pull myself away from the grip of anxiety and depression that I once feared would consume me entirely.

And now?

While my spiritual practice has changed significantly in six years, the way I use it to help overcome my mental health issues hasn’t. I still have days where I feel completely overwhelmed by anxiety, and sometimes begin to fall back into those old patterns of self-deprecation. But times like these are a lot less frequent than they used to be, as I now have the tools and knowledge to deal with them. When these moments do arise, however, and my anxiety levels become especially high, it usually means that I’m slacking in terms of spiritual practice.

In those moments, it’s usually the case that the best remedy is to spend some time at my altar, or better yet, pay a visit to my church—nature.

So, for any of you who might also be struggling with anxiety, or any other mental health issues, and may be wondering what you can do, I’ve compiled a list of the seven key ways my spirituality is helping me overcome my anxiety on a daily basis.

Though I personally identify as a pantheist and as a Pagan (and also as a bit of a witch), many of the items on this list could apply to a variety of religious/spiritual practices and beliefs—theistic and atheistic alike.

So, here was are. Seven ways that spirituality has helped me deal with my anxiety.

1. Meditation

This is without a doubt the most obvious one, as most of us by now are well aware of the many benefits associated with the ancient Eastern practice of meditation. Many credible scientific studies have well proven that meditation can help a great deal in managing mental health issues like anxiety and depression, and in some cases can be more effective than medication.

The brain, rather than being a stable, fixed thing is actually quite mutable, an adaptability known as neuroplasticity. This means that something like anxiety, when experienced over an extended period of time, actually changes the shape of the brain, shrinking areas associated with memory, and enlarging the primary area associated with fear. But meditation, when practiced regularly, can also change the structure of the brain, and can actually reverse some of the damage done by incessant anxious thought patterns. It also balances brain chemicals and promotes overall brain health.

It’s true, however, that mediation can be quite difficult at first, and does take a considerable amount of regular practice to get the hang of. It can be hard to quiet the mind, particularly when you’ve allowed your thoughts to run wild and unchecked for so long. Once you’ve got past that initial threshold, however, meditation not only becomes a welcome break from anxious thought patterns, but helps decrease the overall anxiety experienced in daily life.

In many ways, meditation was my gateway into spiritual practice, and was really the first thing that helped me move out of the darkness surrounding the head injury. I went from being completely skeptical about the benefits of the practice and the religions associated with it, to meditating two or three times a day, attending weekly Kirtan and yoga classes, and learning everything I could about the chakras and Zen philosophy.

Nowadays, unfortunately I’m not always that great about maintaining a regular meditation practice, and when I miss out on it for an extended period of time, it shows. I’m much less grounded, and much more likely to let myself be carried away by uncontrolled anxious thoughts.

2. Mindfulness

Very much linked to meditation is the idea of mindfulness—the practice of being present in the moment, rather than getting lost in the past or worrying about the future. I’ve found that when my anxiety is particularly high, grounding myself in the physical world around me is incredibly helpful for managing this. By becoming aware of my surroundings—focusing on the scents, the textures, and the shapes of my environment—I pull myself out of my own head, and root myself in the world.

Similarly, I sometimes find it especially helpful to become mindful of the anxiety itself. This may seem counterintuitive, as a lot of guides you’ll find for coping with anxiety suggest a variety of ways for ignoring or escaping it, such as painting, or listening to music, or focusing on something else. And while I think this method can be great, and works well in a lot of situations, I find that sometimes, it can actually be more helpful to deal with the anxiety straight on by becoming mindful of it.

In these instances, I direct my focus to the effects of the anxiety: What does it feel like? What’s it doing to my body? Is it making my heart race, my palms sweat? What thoughts are resulting from this anxiety? Are they helpful, or are they simply stressing me out without having any true basis in reality?

Really feel the anxiety out. Explore its shape, get into its corners, and wrap your mind around its sharp edges. Be mindful of its presence and its effects.

By identifying and recognizing all of these things, suddenly you’re the one in control of the anxiety, rather than it controlling you. By knowing it, you gain power over it. And with that power, you are able to change it.

3. Focusing on the Bigger Picture

A couple of weeks ago as I was walking home from work, I found myself utterly consumed by a frantic spiral of anxious thoughts. I’d just started a new job, so naturally, I was worrying about everything I could possibly think of to worry about: Am I right for the job? Does my boss think I’m an idiot? Do they regret hiring me? Do my coworkers think I’m weird? Did I say anything stupid at the meeting? What if I failed? Had I already failed?

It was also cold and rainy as I made my way home, so my hood was up, my head down, and I was feeling stressed, anxious, and miserable.

But then, something caught my eye. A tiny flash of green.

I looked up, and saw that the row of bushes I was walking by were dotted with small green buds, just now visible for the first time this Spring (it’s been a long, cold winter where I live).

I immediately stopped in my tracks as I took in these little buds. I felt a smile spread across my face, and soon I was standing there on the sidewalk as the rain fell around me, grinning stupidly at a bush, while my anxiety began to dissolve.

I reached out to touch one of the new buds, and in that moment, nothing but the incredible magic of this world mattered. I was overcome by the beauty of nature’s cycles, the first sings of vegetative life returning once again as the wheel turned.

Rather than being overwhelmed by anxiety, I was overwhelmed by the profundity of it all—of life, death, and rebirth, of the resilience of this magnificent planet, and how absolutely lucky I am to be able to witness these small, everyday miracles.

As I continued on my way, my anxiety had left me completely. It seemed so silly then to be worrying about trivial matters like that—my concerns so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Whatever happens, happens. That’s just how it is sometimes. All we can ever really do is try our best. Leaves grow and fall, flowers bloom and die, jobs are taken and lost, and money comes and goes. There are some things we can control, but so many we can’t—so really, why worry about them?

In the bigger picture, the grand scheme of this incredible cosmos, everything is the way it is, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Because really, how could it be any other way? Again, being mindful of your environment, and thinking about things in terms of the bigger picture, can really help put things into context, and help with overcoming anxious thought patterns.

4. Personal Empowerment

Though for many people, the practice of witchcraft is completely detached from any religious traditions or beliefs, for me, it’s inextricably tied up with them.

The way I view witchcraft, it is an extension of my Paganism, and an expression of my pantheism. It’s about developing an awareness of the deep relationships that exist between everything, and learning to use those connections to catalyze transformation and incite action.

While I’m constantly in the process of defining what witchcraft and the idea of “being a witch” actually means to me, the one thing that I’ve associated with the practice since the beginning is personal empowerment.

My witchcraft is about being in control. It’s about realizing my own agency, and that I have the inner strength to make my own decisions, and ultimately determine outcomes in various areas of my life. It’s about becoming the person that I want to be, creating the life that I want to live, and not letting anyone take that away from me. Especially not myself.

It’s about truly knowing myself, understanding my own values, motivations, fears, and beliefs so that I can get out of my own way, and ultimately reach my highest potential.

This sense of empowerment that I’ve derived from the practice of witchcraft has helped me believe in myself in ways that I never did before. It’s given me a new sense of control that isn’t like the frantic need for control that anxiety brings. It’s much more subtle, much more solid… It is, for lack of a better word, a confidence in myself that I’d never really known before. And this confidence acts as a direct counterpart to my anxiety, pushing it aside so that I may stand up tall without it weighing me down.

For some witches who struggle with anxiety, it might also be helpful to do a ritual or spell to “banish” it, if you will, in order to solidify this sense of power over it. I don’t think that spells alone are every enough to overcome something like anxiety—there’s no such thing as a “quick fix” in witchcraft or spirituality, and there’s always a lot of other work that must go into it. But I do think that spells and rituals can be helpful in cultivating a particular mindset, or really setting an intention. If that intention is to overcome anxious thought patterns, then go for it—get out those crystals, candles, and cauldrons, and do some magick!

Remember, the true power of transformation doesn’t exist in the combination of materials or muttered incantations—it comes from you, and you alone. Everything else is just extra.

5. Connecting with the Body

For a long time, I was at war with my body.

I often became upset or frustrated with it—it was always too clumsy, too fragile, too unpredictable. It was flat where I wanted it to be curvy, and lumpy where I wanted it to be flat. Gangly, hairy, bruised, and squishy, I was ashamed of it, and attempted to detach myself from it. For some time I had convinced myself that my spiritual, mental self had to be separate from its material existence. A transcendent soul or “higher self” trapped within a prison of flesh.

But as my spirituality developed, and I began to understand the nature of my existence as necessarily both spiritual and physical, I began to realize that all my experiences—including religious experiences—were not only mediated by the body, but in fact constructed and determined by it.

It is because I am in this body and not despite it that I have come to know the divine nature of the Universe. It is by going through materiality, and not by transcending it, that I experience the sacred.

And now, as a Pagan, much of my practice and beliefs are rooted in corpospirituality (the notion that everything is sacred, for spirit and matter are ultimately inseparable), and in embodiment, as it is through embodied engagement with the world that we truly experience the divine. There is no ultimate separation between mind, body, and world, and spirit may be seen as the connecting thread that runs through all of it.

So much of my spiritual practice as it is now focuses on the body—on connecting to the material self through things like yoga, dance, and movement, rooting my experience in the sensual.

As a result, I’m learning to accept, love, and care for my body more than ever, and I’m becoming increasingly adept at paying attention to its signs and signals, particularly those related to anxiety.

The link between anxiety and the physical body has been well-documented, and when I’m tuned into my physical self, I’m able to recognize when my anxiety is manifesting on a subconscious level, where the signs may not be otherwise immediately obvious.

Things like chest and neck pain, headaches, tension in the shoulders and other areas of the body—these are all physical manifestations of anxiety, as are habits like nail biting, skin picking, leg shaking and hair pulling. Not to mention gut-related issues and digestion problems, as there is in fact a deep connection between anxiety and gut health. If gut bacteria is out of whack, psychological systems may become unbalanced too, and vice versa. It’s not surprising then that I tend to experience a lot of stomach-related issues around particularly stressful periods in my life, such as moving cities or starting a new job.

Anxiety, then, is not limited to the brain, but is actually a total body experience. By developing a spiritual practice that emphasizes embodiment, and in learning to nurture and listen to my body, I’ve been able to gain a much better understanding of how my anxiety really works, and then deal with it accordingly.

6. The “Law of Attraction” and Positive Thinking

The Law of Attraction (LOA) is certainly a buzz word in many spiritual communities today, particularly among the New Age folk, and with many practitioners of witchcraft. In a nutshell, the LOA is the concept that “like attracts like”—basically, that your thoughts manifest your reality. In one sense, this can be interpreted to mean that the kind of vibes you put out into the world are the kind of vibes you get back. On another level, though, some people take it to mean that if you focus your thoughts on attaining that which you desire (a new car, say), then the Universe will deliver it to you.

People like Deepak Chopra and others like him have attempted to explain the underlying science of the LOA using theories adapted from quantum physics, but there’s no real evidence for any of this. Rationally speaking, the LOA is metaphysical pseudoscience.

And yet, my own interpretation of the Law of Attraction forms the basis of much of my witchcraft and spiritual practice.

Why?

Well, for one, because magick need not be confined to the limits of rational thought and scientific empiricism. And second, because in a sense, the LOA works.

While I definitely don’t think it’s as simple as thinking about a new car, and then somehow getting a new car, I also think that just because explanations that appeal to quantum physics don’t necessarily have any solid basis, doesn’t mean that that the LOA is completely invalid.

The LOA is very much based around the notion of intention—we set these clear goals for ourselves, and focus on attaining them in order to manifest that which we desire. As Srinivasan Pillay notes in writing about the neurobiology of the LOA, the brain regions involved in intention setting are very closely linked to those associated with action. It makes sense, then, that the stronger the intention, the more likely we are to take action.

My witchcraft is all about setting that intention and opening myself up to receiving that which I desire. But the thing is, it doesn’t stop there. I also need to be actively taking the steps that will move me towards that goal.

See, it’s not like you can just chuck some cinnamon and lavender into a cauldron, light some bay leaves on fire, chant some magic words, and sit around waiting to win the lottery.

It doesn’t work like that.

For me, at least, a spell is only ever just one small part of the overarching process of working towards a goal. It’s a way of solidifying my intentions, and giving myself that extra push of motivation. And that, I believe, is kind of what the LOA really is: focusing on one’s desires in order to incite action, which in turn leads to the manifestation of those desires.

And a lot of this ultimately comes down to perspective.

If I have a generally positive outlook, then I’m going to notice more good things happening to me, whereas if I have a negative mindset, I’m almost certainly going to pick up on the bad things a lot more.

Thoughts are exceptionally powerful in their ability to shape reality. But we mustn’t forget that we are also powerful in our ability to change our thought patterns, and to transform how we perceive the world. This understanding has helped me immensely in coping with my anxiety, as I’m able to catch myself when I’m spiraling into these worrisome patterns, and recognize that these anxious thoughts are really only attracting more anxious thoughts. In this sense, like really does attract like.

So, with the LOA in mind, every day I work towards fostering a positive outlook, and keeping my anxiety in check. I practice replacing anxious thoughts with calm, mindful, positive ones, and focus on attracting more of that into my life.

7. Self-Love

Finally, my spirituality has taught me so much about how to accept and love myself completely and unconditionally.

When my anxiety was at its peak, I would constantly find myself worrying about whether or not I was “good enough.” My mind would often be flooded with thoughts like: they hate me, I’m so stupid, I always say the wrong things, I’m a mess—a failure. Who could ever actually love me?

I still have these thoughts from time to time, but I’m a lot better at catching myself, and stopping them before they get out of hand. Why? Because I love me.

Sure, I make mistakes all the time, and can be awkward as hell sometimes. I have trouble reading social cues, and find most social situations challenging to navigate. I’m not always going to be good at everything, or fulfill the expectations people have of me. I’m a weird, awkward little human, and that’s perfectly okay. More than okay—it’s fucking wonderful.

Because I am an integral part of this Earth, of this Universe. It is I, and I am it, like a drop in the ocean that is at once the entirety of that ocean. I am not separate from nature, but I am nature, and like everything in nature, I am exactly as I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing.

As Alan Watts puts it,

When you look at the clouds they are not symmetrical. They do not form fours and they do not come along in cubes, but you know at once that they are not a mess. They are wiggly but in a way, orderly, although it is difficult for us to describe that kind of order. Now, take a look at yourselves. You are all wiggly. […] We are just like clouds, rocks, and stars. Look at the way the stars are arranged. Do you criticize the way the stars are arranged?”


The Tao of Philosophy: Edited Transcripts

Of course we don’t criticize the way the stars are arranged. The stars, in their disorderly existence, are breathtakingly beautiful. They are perfectly imperfect in the way they dot the skies, just as we too are perfect in out imperfect humanness. And if we don’t criticize the stars, we shouldn’t criticize ourselves either.

That’s not to say that we can’t work on improving ourselves, but in order to even begin to genuinely do so, we must first accept and love who we are now, in this moment, all wiggly and disordered.

My spiritual practice and ever-evolving beliefs have shown me that I am perfect like a tree with a crooked trunk and asymmetrical branches.

Perfect like the chaotic patterns in the spray of water as waves crash up against a rocky shore.

Perfect like how in a field of wildflowers, you’ll never find two that are exactly the same.

My spiritual practice has taught me not only how to appreciate the beauty in all aspect of the natural world, but also how to love myself as an utterly unique expression of that world. And that—that has really made all the difference in overcoming my anxiety.