Close your eyes. Visualize yourself as flexible and fluid like Gumby or the Incredible Elastic Being. Anxiety tightens us up, typically causing us to feel frazzled and clinchy. This happens in our thoughts as much as in our musculature. Visualize that you are loosey-goosey, able to bend around corners and flow with whatever comes your way. A few moments of holding this image may inspire you to stretch and loosen up. Roll your shoulders, swing your hips, stretch and yawn. Shake yourself like a dog. Use the body-mind connection to loosen your thoughts and ease your emotional experience. Emotions may seem to rise up out of nowhere, which can feel so disconcerting. Yet there are always contributing factors, even if they are incrementally piling up or comet-tailing back to long ago. Apply conscious awareness to easing your anxiety by visualizing yourself as stretchy and fluid. Open your body and breathing to that sensation—and if it feels goofy, all the better! You may not be able to laugh at yourself (anxiety has never felt ‘funny’ to me) but if what you do makes you smile, you are experiencing a light moment. Added up, those moments can stretch us out of the ‘clinch’ of anxiety.
