What do you do to take care of your mental and emotional health in an ‘emergency’, when you find yourself triggered, upset, anxious, stressed and generally out-of-sorts? 

It’s important in these moments to have an Emergency Tool Kit at your disposal to bring you back into your heart, back into balance so that you can breathe again.

And this brings me to my first ‘go-to’ when we feel anxious or stressed, and that’s breath work.  Breath work is so easy and natural to do.  We need to breathe in order to live, so why not use the moment to begin to heal and let go of what’s not working for us with breath work?

When we are upset, anxious, afraid, etc. we usually start breathing in a very shallow manner. We may even unwittingly hold our breath.  As we do this, we tell our body, we send the message that our life is in danger and we need to go into fight or flight mode, which is not helpful.

Step one is breath work and here’s three breathing techniques I recommend:

#1 Breathe in and out of your nose with the out breath longer than the in breath.  Repeat 10 times.  When our out breath is longer, we are physiologically telling ourselves that it’s okay to rest and relax; it’s okay to let go of what’s happened and come back into balance.

#2 Breathe in through the nose and hold, then breathe out through the mouth with an ‘Ahhh’ sound and hold.  Repeat 10 times.  This breath work is a great way to release any stress we are still experiencing.  It’s the mind-body’s second signal to unwind and let go.

#3 Breathe in through the nose and out through the nose with no pause through between the in breath and the out breath, also known as Conscious Connected Breathing.  This helps us to align to love and center in our hearts.  It helps us to connect back into the essence of Who we are.  It helps to affirm that I am more than just a body-mind.  I am a Soul having a human experience and I’m so grateful for all my experiences!

Step two is grounding, to be fully present in the body here and now. 

We can do this by visualizing huge roots of light coming out of our feet and anchoring deep into the core of the planet.  It’s like being a strong, sturdy tree that’s able to withstand all manner of wind and storms, where it feels like someone or something trying to knock us over would be an impossible feat. 

We can test this out with someone we feel comfortable working with.  First, stand in a relaxed and see how easy it is for someone to push us off balance using a finger. Next, visualize and feel those roots of light grounding into the core of the planet and have them try again. Notice the difference in that experience and then reverse roles.

Step three is ‘cutting cords’. 

When we are triggered by someone, a group of people or even a country, we establish energetic connections with that person, group or country. Unless we cut cords, we will feel everything they are feeling. 

Whenever one, some or all of them have a ‘bad hair day’, we feel their reactions and their feelings as if they’re our own.  The only thing we can clear or let go of and replace with love is our own feelings.  That’s why cord cutting is so important.

One way to cut cords is to visualize a golden cylinder down coming around our body and cutting all energetic connections that are not about love, just gently cutting them and healing where they were with golden healing light. 

You may need to cut cords every day or several times a day. Anytime we interact with or think about this person, group or country, cords are reestablished; and the same applies when they think about or interact with us. 

To keep unwanted thoughts and feelings that are not ours out of our bodies and systems, we need to constantly aware and diligent.

It’s important to work with our Emergency Tool Kit when we feel okay, when we feel calm and balanced.

And it’s important that we practice a lot.  Any world class athletic or musician has practiced more than we can imagine for years and years until their craft becomes second nature to them and they don’t have to think about it. It just flows naturally from and through them because it’s become a part of them.

If we want to have a new experience when faced with stress, challenges, obstacles, and unpleasant events we need to practice, practice, practice. Practice makes permanent. I love this affirmation: Practice makes permanent.  How cool is that?

Remember, also, that mistakes are opportunities to learn and grow. 

Anytime we forget to engage with our Emergency Tool Kit, it's simply an opportunity to learn and grow. It's counterproductive to beat ourselves up or engage in negative self talk. 

When we make a mistake, we can ask ourselves, “How can I learn and grow from this mistake?  When I face the same or a similar situation again what could I do differently? How could I act? What would I say?  How would it feel? What would support this new, more loving way of being?  And then visualize and feel that! 

Our Emergency Tool Kit is an amazing gift, and mine is just a suggestion.

What works for you?  How do you bring yourself back to center, back into balance and into your heart when ‘life happens’? How can you best support yourself to experience more love and less fear?