There are many ways to work with your anxiety on a personal, community, and medical level.
Personal
There are many strategies to cope with anxiety on a personal level. Some ideas are:
Journaling
Writing down (or typing) your feelings can help to put them in order and start to see patterns and figure out which fears are realistic, and which are not. However, you do not have to write your reflections anywhere, if you are more comfortable using them as thought challengers, that is okay!
Prompts:
What sensations have you felt in each quadrant of your being when you have felt anxiety? You may not be able to identify all of them, so try to revisit this prompt. Example: When I am anxious, I physically feel nauseous, tense, and get a headache. Emotionally I feel irritable and get anxiety attacks. Mentally, I have trouble concentrating. Spiritually, I have trouble connecting with my surroundings.
Pick one quadrant of your personal being and evaluate how each of the sensations in that quadrant may affect your other quadrants. Example: When I am anxious, I mentally feel a fog and have trouble focusing. This makes it harder for me to identify my feelings in my other quadrants. It also makes me have to work harder mentally which leaves me more physically tired.
Look back on the sensations you experience when you are anxious. Do any of these more often coincide with each other? How do these affect your day and how you interact with the world around you, your community, the natural world, your family, and friends? Example: When I am tense due to my anxiety, I take a longer time to fall asleep, leaving me tired the next day. When I am irritable, I snap at my family and friends, affecting both my relationships and my spiritual relationship to my community
Look at the causes of your anxiety
What “triggers” you? What is your current way of dealing with your triggers? Example: I start to feel very anxious when I am asked to speak in a meeting.
Set a goal for dealing with your anxiety/triggers
This goal should be realistic and specific. Make sure to note the specific reason for the goal to remind yourself of your intentions. It can be helpful to make a goal that you can measure. Example: When I notice myself worrying about something I will write it down then put it out of my mind for the time-being. I will set aside 15 minutes each day to revisit those worries so that I can put them out of my mind the rest of the day.
Try this journalling checklist when you are experiencing strong sensations you associate with your anxiety.
- What is your current situation?
- What is your main feeling and which aspect of your being is most strongly affected?
- What may have triggered your anxiety?
- What are the effects on your other quadrants?
- What are your urges? What do you want to do as a result of your feelings in each quadrant?
- What would be the short-term consequences if you were to/ have already turned this urge into an action.
- What would be the long-term consequences?
- What are some improvements you could make in the future?
Focus on noticing patterns through your journaling
Remember to grant yourself grace when noticing patterns, keep in mind that the seven sacred teachings such as love and respect apply to you as well
Take time to understand that there is often nothing you can do about what is stressing you out. It seems obvious, but often the best thing you can do is to acknowledge that something scares you but that it is also out of your control and that you can put it out of your mind.
“Let it be that way.” - Larry Fayant, Michif Old One
Try to lower your screen time
Try setting limits for how long you can spend on your phone, especially social media
Meditation and Mindfulness
There are many forms of meditation and mindfulness and finding one that works for you can help to maintain control of your mind in times where you may have started to panic.
Exposures
Exposures are helpful tools to get you used to environments and situations that would otherwise cause you anxiety. Exposures can be putting yourself into a situation or imagining yourself in a situation.
- Example: I get anxious in crowds, so I am going to go to the grocery store during rush hour with a loved one.
- Example: I get anxious speaking in class, so I am going to imagine myself speaking in class and doing well.
Community
It is important to acknowledge that reaching out to your community is never wrong as long as you approach people and spaces with respect and are open to learning! Healing can be carried across the generations so many aspects of healing can be practiced with family and friends.
Reach out to loved ones
Reaching out to a loved one can remind you of the personal connections you have and that you have a support system as well as strengthening the bonds you have. Sharing your anxieties can help to put them in perspective and validate feelings.
Seek guidance from an elder
Seeking guidance from an elder can help get fears off your chest and provide a cultural path.
Attend ceremony
Attending ceremony can help to bring a sense of understanding and connection which can help to relieve some senses of dread and loneliness.
Sharing circles
Sharing circles are helpful to get feelings out in the open and to feel more connected to your community. They are strong forms of connection and can have very healing effects.
Seek out cultural organizations in your area- they may be putting on events that can help to connect with culture and community and if they are not, joining the community and helping to put something on can give purpose and confidence.
Examples of events:
- Round Dance
- Powwow
- Language classes/camps
- Dance or jigging groups
- Basket socials
- Set up a community garden to grow plant medicines
- Live music like drum circles or fiddle
Communication with members of your household
By communicating with the other people in your household, you can set up systems to benefit your wellness. Some ideas are:
- Setting up an area of the house to be reserved for mental health breaks like quiet time, prayer, or grounding techniques.
- Having household sharing circles and/or regular conversations centered on the wellness of each household member.
Live musical events in your community
Live music is a great way to connect with community and can be very spiritually impactful.
Dancing can also be a wonderful way to connect with community and center other aspects of your being with your physical body.
Wellness Wheel exercise
This is a good exercise to do often and is an exercise you can do with your family or children. With young children it is helpful to use the questions to guide them in self-reflection while older kids can find the visual of the wheel helpful. To do it in a physically tangible way, you can use a paper plate to draw all of your quadrants.
What’s on Your Plate Exercise
This exercise can also be done as a family or with children, although some aid may need to be provided for kids.
Medical
Talk to a therapist or counsellor
Talking to a medical professional can help alleviate some anxieties and provide personalized strategies to deal with your anxiety. Some counsellors may also have access to traditional healing methods and could put you in contact with a medicine person or traditional healer. This can be helpful for some people as it keeps holistic healing and cultural significance in mind.
Medication
With a diagnosis, some people choose medications to help regulate the chemical imbalances in the brain that cause anxiety.
Seek accommodations in your place of work or education
Seeking accommodations from your place of work or education can help to make professional situations more comfortable and accommodating.
Traditional medicines
With the proper protocol and guidance in mind, it can be spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically healing to gather and use medicine directly from the Earth yourself. Make sure to seek proper guidance from your Elders and Knowledge Keepers and offer the proper prayers before attempting.
Anxiety is a natural reaction from our body that tells us when something is wrong. While for many, anxiety only comes when our body and minds feel it is necessary, for others their anxiety seems harder to control and often appears when it makes no logical sense. For Indigenous people's anxiety can become more apparent due to external and internal factors, historical, generational, and environmental.
Our anxiety has helped us survive for thousands of years, but sometimes it can react too quickly or often, which is something we must learn to control. It can make life difficult and hard to navigate when one deals with hyperactivity anxiety. This is why it is important to find strategies to best deal and manage one’s anxiety, like what is provided through this article.
Learning to understand your anxiety not as your enemy, but a partner in your survival that at times needs to be controlled and managed can help one learn to live with their anxiety. Anxiety is a nature part of our being, but overly stressed anxiety is not. Finding resources, support systems, and strategies to best manage it can help those who suffer with anxiety. When you are in need of support or resources, you can always return to this course, rely on your community, friends, and family, or consult an Elder.