From anxious and angry to calm and self-compassionate
Are you working hard on yourself through your own personal development work or talk therapy, but you still don’t see the changes you want in yourself and your behaviour? Why?
Because to make life long shifts you ALSO need to engage with the unconscious patterns held in your body.
Core Energetics is a process that helps restore you restore the natural flow within your body and connection to the Core of who you are, so you can experience more pleasure and fulfilment in your life.
At CoreExplore online, we focus on you. What you hope for and what your unique gifts are, and then guide you step by step at your pace to resolve the unconscious patterns holding you back.
Samantha’s journey below is just one example of how the Core Energetics process and our CoreExplore principles of change, work in practice; and how they can help you make lifelong changes that can completely change your life.
Before connecting with Dana from CoreExploreOnline, Samantha ‘was incredibly anxious and often quite moody and angry’.
‘I felt gloomy and was often filled with rage and fear. I would often find that I was allowing rage to control my speech, thoughts and actions. I was not prioritising my physical or mental health. I would get so anxious that I would regularly call in sick to work because I felt like I couldn’t face the day’.
Samantha sought help as the impact of her anxiety on her life was becoming impossible to ignore.
‘I was anxious and isolating myself which led to several weeks of missing work. A close friend suggested seeing someone. I realised I could either keep living in the past and bottling things up, or, I could ask for help’.
Samantha connected by booking a free discovery call with Dana.
‘In the initial phone call, I felt as though I was finally speaking with a person who would not only show kindness and compassion, but someone who would be straight forward honest with me.’
With all our clients, we are constantly working with our 6 key principles of change.
A lot of our early work with Samantha was centred around moderating and soothing spikes of sensations, feelings and thoughts that Samantha labelled as ‘anxiety’.
Samantha’s nervous system was constantly switched on, with a focus on work performance and controlling her environment.
Samantha knew that she carried ‘a lot of tension’ in her body but did not connect her physical experience with her emotions.
In the early sessions we focussed on giving Samantha an experienced of what a regulated nervous system and body could feel like by using breathing, movement and vibration suited to Samantha’s body and energy pattern.
‘I noticed that incorporating the exercises and stretches into my weekly routine has helped me process what my body is feeling and has also given me time to slow down and truly breathe. This has also been a huge help. Since I began therapy, I have noticed myself slowly relaxing and allowing my body rest’.
As Samantha’s body could experience a reprieve from the constant anxiety, she began to grow awareness of how she lost touch with herself.
‘I became aware of how out of touch I was with my own physical body and emotions. When my rage controlled my behaviour, I was not fully aware of myself’.
Samantha would become paralysed by anxiety or react in anger to others before she could perceive what was going on within her. Growing awareness of what happened before the reaction was crucial in shifting the habitual bodily and behaviour responses. This meant Samantha needed lots of support to slow down, long enough for Samantha to become conscious of the glimpses of the feelings underneath her anxiety and rage.
‘I became aware that I struggled to allow emotions to run their course and was often shoving them down, which would result in a build-up leading to anxiety attacks or snapping at others’.
Over time, Samantha built more of more capacity to feel the feelings underneath, which allowed her anxiety to reduce.
‘One of my biggest wins is that my anxiety has significantly decreased. In the past I would regularly call in sick as I could not face the day, however this has dropped down to almost zero as I now have the tools to breathe and move through those feelings’.
As feelings became more conscious, we were able to delve more deeply into the origins of those feelings from the past and work through the original experiences and patterns in childhood that created the patterns of anxiety and lashing out for Samantha. Samantha’s reactions were often an unconscious way to keep more tender feelings at bay.
As Samantha’s feelings were able to flow more freely, moment to moment, some of Samantha’s beliefs that kept some of her behaviours in place began to surface, particularly around work and relationships. The rigid and sometimes superhuman expectations that were placed on Samantha and that later she placed on herself began to loosen their grip. Samantha began to treat herself with more kindness and compassion.
‘On the rare occasion that I do feel anxious and need to take some time out, I’ve found that I hold a lot less guilt around this since I now understand that my body needs to process this and may require rest’.
We were also able to unpack the angry reactions over time, the suppression of any angry expression through Samantha’s childhood, along with being the receiver or some genuinely cruel behaviour, meant that anger would bubble up and explode out instead of using heathy aggression to implement self-affirming boundaries in her work and life.
‘One massive win is that I am far less angry. I have been able to work on the causes of this rage and slowly allow myself to think clearly and feel far more at peace than before’.
Samantha is more and more conscious of staying present in her reactions.
Samantha’s progress within herself was noticed by those around her ‘after our sessions began, a co-worker commented on how I seemed far less anxious’.
‘Because of our sessions, I began to feel lighter, I was able to think more clearly, and I was less prone to angry outbursts’.
After one year of therapy, Samantha is excited about the changes she continues to see in herself through her journey.
‘I can see myself changing more and more after each session. I have come a long way in a year, and I can’t wait to see how much further I will grow!
After one year of therapy, Samantha focus has shifted beyond simply managing anxiety and angry outburst and is growing toward building deeper relationships and finding more meaning in her life.
‘I look forward to continuing my work with anxiety, now that I have come this far, I know that it is something that I can one day look forward to living without. I am especially look forward to expanding our work on working with the body and breathing exercises and developing trust in relationships with others’.
Thank you so much to Samantha for sharing your experience so generously and courageously.