Ep 42: How to Love Yourself Through Anxiety and Overwhelm
With NICOLE BARTON
On the Secret Witch Show today, Nicole dives into how a symptom of being a Secret Phosphoric Witch (who doesn’t know her own magic or power) can often be anxiety and overwhelm. She explored how women can begin to learn to love themselves through this, in a way that all is welcome, in order to reconnect to their whole-souled expression - rather than attempting to ‘fix’ it as if it is something ‘wrong’.
In this episode we explore the different views of anxiety from the mainstream and magical lenses, how the Witch came here to find the gold in her wounds (including anxiety and overwhelm as an expression of our wounds), and how to love ourselves through all of that, to see the deeper wisdom contained within our melt downs.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
The mundane lens looks at anxiety and overwhelm as mental illness, but there is starting to be research that sees our different cognitive styles can make mental disorders valuable to society, not burdensome and something to fix
The magical lens often also treats anxiety and overwhelm as something to ‘fix’ (and to be fixed by an external) - and this is often because healers have (innocently) tried to fit magic into a mundane box to make it more palatable because they don’t feel they can be unapologetically magical (and this is a path that doesn’t honour the real magical technology available to us)
There is scope for a model (which is what I’m creating in this path of Wild Apothecary) that transforms the ‘healing sickness’ model of traditional ‘woo’ into a model that teaches people to return themselves to their whole-souled expression - to heal themselves, so that they can fully express who their soul was born to be
A generative and loving focus which welcomes anxiety with love, is what helps us to return to our soul - unlike a degenerative compensating focus that has us try and ‘fix’ our anxiety (and it’s helpful to know that we are always manifesting whatever our focus is on)
A witch came here for the human darkness - so if you’re listening, know you have got this, and you can hold your anxiety and overwhelm - and in fact, it can actually be a gift that points you to some gold (although it may not feel like it at the time)
It is loving and welcoming our anxiety that will help us to alchemise it magically. The more we can love ourselves, the more healing we can create for ourselves. You can start this process by tending to your nervous system, and being in the enquiry of “what’s the deeper fear of even allowing myself to hear what my anxiety and overwhelm wants me to know?”
Resources and things that we spoke about:
Psychology Today article: Are Mental Disorders Evolved Cognitive Styles?
Join our Social Sisterhood: Secret Witch Circle Facebook Group
Nicole’s next Invoke your Wild Apothecary Crucible - in the New Year
Thank you for listening, we’d love to know what comes alive for you in this week’s episode, so please let us know.
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Thank you,
Nicole xox
