From Worrier to Warrior: A Journey to Anxiety Relief

Anxiety Relief: Are you a Worrier or a Warrior?

Are you constantly looking at all the “what ifs” in life and excessively thinking about what could or might happen?

Are you noticing yourself always thinking about the past or the future and never being fully present with what’s happening right NOW? Do these excessive thoughts keep you from anxiety relief and cause you to experience symptoms like fatigue, restlessness, and even insomnia?

If you answered yes, then you are a Worrier!

(Don’t worry! There’s good news.)

As a past Worrier, I can tell you thinking about the future and worrying about things that MIGHT happen isn’t serving you. It’s a FEAR state created by the ego. It depletes your energy and takes you away from being mindful of the present moment.

If you’re a one of the people out there who is in a constant state of worry, I encourage you to start changing your mindset to be less of a WORRIER and more of a WARRIOR.

But, how do you accomplish that? What does a Warrior look and feel like?

In this post, I’m going to take you through a few things:

Get clear on what worry is and what it does to us as Worriers
Help you create a vision of your Warrior self and show you how that can affect your journey to anxiety relief
Share some powerful practices to shift you from Worrier to Warrior!

So, if you’re currently falling in the Worrier camp, keep reading! All is not lost. This post was made just for you so you can find some anxiety relief!

What is excessive worry?

Excessive worry, or being a Worrier, is one of the most common symptoms of anxiety disorders. Worry is when you are overly concerned with a situation or problem and feel very uneasy about it. This excessive worry can put your mind and body into hyper-drive because you’re constantly focused on “what could happen.” It can even provoke anxiety and panic attacks in individuals.

Looking at it from the energetic side of things, like I do in Holistic Healing, worry is what happens when you are afraid of the unknown and what the future might hold for you.

These behaviors in your psyche are actually doing one vitally important thing: taking you out of the present moment.

When you’re out of the present moment and not living in the NOW, you’re not able to be in flow with life and will often feel out of alignment with yourself. (If you’ve ever had a day that just felt “off,” or just “don’t feel like yourself,” these can be signs from your intuition that you’re out of alignment with your highest self.)

This constant state of misalignment can lead to a lack of trust in the perfection of life and also a lack of trust in yourself.

Lacking trust in yourself is a HUGE deal for anxiety sufferers.

When you’re constantly worrying about your decisions, actions, and what the future could/might hold, you’re telling yourself that you don’t believe in YOU. That you don’t believe in your intuition. This is because you are not living in the present, living in the now, and living in your flow!

And sadly, this creates your lack of self-trust.

Self-trust is one of the main pillars for self-love, which is SO important when you’re working for anxiety relief. So, if you’re constantly out of flow, constantly worrying and losing trust in yourself, you’re going to be depleting your self-love cup too.

When you start to lose self-love, you also start to grapple with loneliness and low self-esteem more often. This all starts a vicious cycle of energy draining reactions that can make it all the more difficult to cope with anxiety!

Okay, so now you know a lot more about being a Worrier and some of what we’re working against, so what do you do about it?

Keep reading future Warrior because I promise you’ll be equipped with some helpful tips ahead!

What’s it like to be a Warrior?

I like to start off with the definition of a Warrior: a brave or experienced soldier or fighter.

When you think of this definition and relate it to overcoming anxiety, I encourage you to think about being BRAVE and rising to meet your anxiety.

I’m not always in love with the word fighting, as it can have a bit of a negative connotation. I’m ALL about the power of positive language! (You can read about HERE if you missed the blog on that.) So it’s more about cultivating the courage to meet your anxiety and work with it and NOT giving in to worry.

There are a lot of Anxiety Warriors out there. I like to think I’m one myself, and so are my clients that work with me! And when I think about YOU being an Anxiety Warrior, I like to think about being brave enough to challenge negative thought patterns that are no longer serving you.

This work isn’t always easy, and you have to decide you want to be responsible for yourself, your mindset, and your healing. That is why I love the part of the definition of Warrior that speaks to being BRAVE.

Being brave and having courage is the first step to shifting yourself from a Worrier to a Warrior!

One of the ways I help clients find this courage and bravery is by doing a visualization exercise. I’s as simple as this:

(Read through the steps and give it a try right now! No time like the present!)

1. Close your eyes and just begin to notice your breath.
2. Cycle through a few deep inhales and exhale, and just sink into your body and the present moment.
3. Think about yourself being free from worry. Then think about what it would feel like to just have TRUST that you are safe and everything will be okay.
4. Envision yourself in full alignment with your highest self. Think about how it would feel to trust your instincts and your intuition in the moment.
5. Feel into this flow. I often encourage clients to think about floating down a river. Instead of holding onto a branch at the edge of the river, just let yourself float on an inner tube along the current knowing and trusting in that flow and that it will take you exactly where you need to go.
6. See if you can feel some peace, calmness, and tranquility as you continue to breathe deeply and see yourself fully in flow.
7. Sit in this visualization meditation for as long as it feels good. Even if you notice random thoughts coming in, do not worry! We all get them; just acknowledge them, and let them pass. Focus back into what it would feel like to be fully present and free of worry.

Repeat this visualization meditation exercise every day for 28 days (even if only for 5 minutes a day).
You’ll start to feel more brave and trusting in yourself as you become more present and step into your Warrior self!

Coming to a place of presence and finding our inner peace is a huge part of the healing journey, and getting out of the “battle” and having to “fight” all the time is really important.

That’s why creating a vision for your Warrior Self (a strong, peaceful, powerful, present YOU), can help you start to re-cultivate belief and trust in yourself. Being brave enough to start to hold this vision of yourself and look at what you need to improve is a HUGE step on your journey to anxiety relief!

So what else can you do to shift yourself from being a Worrier to a Warrior? I’ve got a few final practices to share with you to do just that.

Powerful Practices to go from Worrier to Warrior and find Anxiety Relief

The shift out of excessive worry isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s going to take daily practice and self-awareness to create better habits that will stick with you for the long-term. With that in mind, I’m going to share a few quick and easy tips you can start to incorporate into your life to help you get into your Warrior Self for good!

First, when you catch yourself worrying about the unknowns of the future, try to become aware that you’re thinking about the future and bring yourself back into the present moment. This simple act of self-awareness can produce powerful results!

To bring yourself back to the present moment, begin by noticing something in front of you. Check in with all your five senses. Take a deep breath, and just notice the feeling of air in your lungs. Or, notice the taste you have in your mouth or the feeling of your clothes on your skin. Anything you can do to come back to the present moment can help you alleviate worry. (For more tips on living in the present moment, read this.)

Second, you can engage in a healthy activity to help bring your mind back to the present. When we get ourselves actively involved in something, it helps us shake off the swirl in our minds because we have to be present to do what we’re doing!

Things like going for a walk or run, coloring, or tidying up the house can be a great way to bring yourself back to the present. Even walking your dog, petting your cat, or cooking a healthy meal for yourself can do the trick.

And to really get your mind off the future fear and worry train, consider engaging in a healthy self-care activity to start filling up your self-love cup and free yourself from excessive worry.

Finally, to really become a true Warrior, change your perspective.

Our energy flows where our attention goes. That means if we have constant negative internal dialogue, we’ll always be fueling energy to the negative.

Understand that you have the CHOICE to focus on the positive. Choose to incorporate more positive self-talk when you catch yourself worrying. Continuously catching this in the moment over time and shifting your perspective to the positive will help with long-term success of letting go of worry and finding anxiety relief.

The Journey to Anxiety Relief

So, are you ready to cultivate your Warrior mindset and begin your journey to anxiety relief?

I wrote this post for you because over the last several weeks and months I have been digging DEEP to figure out how I want my life to be and how I want to show up for you — my tribe! I’ve certainly learned anxiety relief does not happen overnight. It’s a journey we must take.

And I’m here to share these techniques and some wisdom with you so you can be brave, too. I know you have it in you to do the work and show up for yourself and your tribe too!

Hopefully you’ve learned ways to identify your Worrier-Self and how to create more awareness in the moment when that worrier shows up.

And once you can recognize your worrier, I hope you’ve learned how to create a vision of your Warrior-Self and how you can begin to call that Warrior forth more often!

By incorporating these techniques daily over a few weeks with the powerful practices I shared above, you can shift yourself from being a Worrier to a Warrior in no time!

I promise you: if you do the work, healing is possible!

I encourage you to journey within, take some honest, brave looks at your inner dialogue and true self, and see what you find there.

Because when you’re brave enough to do that, you can become a Warrior and let go of your Worrier.

And if you want guidance and support on your journey to anxiety relief, I’d be honored to lead you. I’m always excited to speak with you about what we can do together to help you align with your truest and highest self so you can alleviate anxiety for the long-haul.

Remember, you are worthy and deserving of peace, tranquility, and happiness, dear ones!

You’ve got this, and I believe in YOU, future Warrior!

Much Love,

Susan Renee