Episode Transcript
<p><!--block-->Alara Sage (00:14.274)<br>Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Ecstatic Woman podcast, where we inspire and activate women in their power, in their authenticity, in their bliss. I'm your host, Hilara Sage, the Ecstatic Life mentor, and I help women to embody, embody their power, embody their wombs, embody their wisdom, to really actualize and create the life that they desire.<br><br>Yum, yum, yum. And one of the things that I'm sure most people don't desire is anxiety. I don't think that's on the top of people's lists of desires.<br><br>I don't think that's the thing that every wakes up in the morning and says, I want to create a life of anxiety. No, probably not. And yet<br><br>I find that a lot of people experience it.<br><br>Alara Sage (01:22.286)<br>Today I want to talk about the hidden power of anxiety.<br><br>As always in these solo episodes, I bring in my own experience, my own story, in hopes that it'll help you connect perhaps to yourself a little bit deeper, bringing you some insights, and who knows, maybe make you laugh.<br><br>So the interesting thing about today's episode is I don't have a lot of anxiety.<br><br>Alara Sage (02:00.038)<br>I am not one of those people who experiences anxiety a lot, but that absolutely does not make me better than any of those people because...<br><br>I've actually just gone past anxiety into shutdown, into numbness.<br><br>Alara Sage (02:25.474)<br>The important thing to understand about anxiety.<br><br>Alara Sage (02:32.047)<br>and perhaps not anxiety.<br><br>is the nervous system.<br><br>Alara Sage (02:41.442)<br>For many years in my life, I believed that I was just solid.<br><br>Emotionally solid, emotionally stable.<br><br>Somehow I had cracked the code.<br><br>This is before my awakening.<br><br>Alara Sage (03:05.15)<br>after my spontaneous Kundalini awakening.<br><br>which if you're not aware of, you can listen to the episode from numb to ecstatic.<br><br>I realized that I wasn't emotionally stable and solid, and I hadn't cracked a code.<br><br>I was numb.<br><br>Alara Sage (03:31.846)<br>Many years later, I learned that that's what happens to the nervous system. It's not just fight or flight. It's fight, flight, freeze, or fawn even.<br><br>Alara Sage (03:50.518)<br>We can absolutely numb ourselves. We can absolutely shut down. We can absolutely freeze. We can absolutely withdraw. And those are all expressions.<br><br>Alara Sage (04:06.411)<br>ultimately of fear.<br><br>And when that happens regularly, it happens often. We don't know how to process our trauma. We don't know how to process the constant stimulation that occurs in.<br><br>most people's lives.<br><br>We acquire what's called a dysregulated nervous system.<br><br>Alara Sage (04:34.238)<br>In 2019, I started seeing energy in my client sessions as I was working on clients. Energy started going into their nervous system and I was watching it happen and I heard Vegas Nerve. And at that time, I didn't know what the Vegas Nerve was. But after it happened in two clients, I was like, hmm, this is a thing.<br><br>Because that's what would happen in sessions. There'd be a thread.<br><br>a similarity between several clients, different sessions, different people, but the same thread of consciousness, the same thread of evolution. It was always very intriguing to me.<br><br>And so I looked up Vegas nerve. What is the Vegas nerve? And I started to learn. And very shortly after, like a month after this.<br><br>my higher self started telling me that the Vegas nerve in humanity.<br><br>Alara Sage (05:47.254)<br>was.<br><br>deeply dysfunctional.<br><br>Alara Sage (05:59.04)<br>Cough cough<br><br>Cough cough<br><br>Alara Sage (06:13.274)<br>And that if people didn't learn to slow down, if people didn't learn to take better care of themselves, they were going to start getting slapped. This is always symbolic. I do the two quotation marks with my fingers as I say slapped, because it's symbolic. It's symbolic slap. It means whenever my higher self.<br><br>uses that terminology with me. It means that they're going to have something happen in their life. A wake-up call.<br><br>Well, then we had COVID-19.<br><br>Alara Sage (06:53.842)<br>And I watched more and more nervous systems go through healing as practically the entire world shut down.<br><br>Alara Sage (07:05.802)<br>And the healings continued and there's been many layers to the healings that have happened to the nervous system of humanity.<br><br>Alara Sage (07:20.654)<br>Through my own process, I learned and realized that there was still more of me that was shut down, even after many years of very deep healing, regular healing.<br><br>I still had areas of my nervous system that needed assistance, that needed healing.<br><br>and<br><br>that were shut down.<br><br>Alara Sage (08:03.798)<br>And as I started to do this...<br><br>Alara Sage (08:10.574)<br>I started for the first time in my life, perhaps, let me not to say I have never experienced anxiety, but for the first time in my life, like started to experience it.<br><br>Alara Sage (08:25.766)<br>And I was kind of shocked. I mean, at this point, I no longer believed that I was this solid, stable, emotional person that I did before my awakening. I had long realized that I had just been shut down. However, I still didn't really experience a lot of anxiety.<br><br>Alara Sage (08:49.39)<br>But it was a wonderful offering, I felt.<br><br>Alara Sage (08:56.174)<br>to be given the opportunity to experience it in my body because I had clients who experienced it.<br><br>It felt like an opportunity to feel what it felt like in my body, to feel that anxiety.<br><br>And what did my body need? What did I need in those moments?<br><br>to help release, to help shift the anxiety.<br><br>Alara Sage (09:36.106)<br>And this is where.<br><br>hidden power of anxiety comes in.<br><br>Alara Sage (09:45.218)<br>Because being shut down, the thing about being shut down, the thing about the freeze stage of the nervous system, the dysregulated nervous system, the thing about<br><br>numbness.<br><br>is that you don't feel.<br><br>Alara Sage (10:12.298)<br>And because you don't feel you often aren't even aware that you are shut down, that you are numb.<br><br>Alara Sage (10:26.358)<br>That can be a problem.<br><br>Alara Sage (10:31.03)<br>Because I always say what we don't know, we don't know.<br><br>Alara Sage (10:37.378)<br>And when we're not aware that we're shut down or numb, we're most likely not going to take any action that would help us to reconnect to our aliveness, because we don't know it's missing.<br><br>Alara Sage (11:03.182)<br>I would say that is a really challenging space to be in.<br><br>For me, I was, again, in that space, and I was blessed to have a spontaneous Kundalini awakening that, quote unquote, slapped me upside my head to the realization of how numb I was and the ecstatic bliss that was possible.<br><br>Alara Sage (11:36.362)<br>But anxiety, that's different. Because I'm pretty sure anybody who has experienced anxiety and experiences anxiety regularly will absolutely contest to the truth that you feel anxiety. Anxiety is a feeling. It's a very strong feeling, in fact.<br><br>Alara Sage (12:01.162)<br>And so it offers you that opportunity of placing your hand on a hot stove, where you feel the heat and you pull your hand away, right? But if your hand was numb, well, you could just place your hand on the hot stove and it could<br><br>melt away. And you would notice until, well, you started to smell it, which should be probably not a good sign.<br><br>Alara Sage (12:39.826)<br>Anxiety is here to show us something. It's<br><br>just like the nerves in our hand placing it on a hot stove. It's sending red flags, flashing red flags through your nervous system.<br><br>So it's interesting, isn't it?<br><br>that will play so much emphasis on the pain felt by placing your hand on a hot stove. Well, that's very logical, right? It's clear that the hot stove is causing you the pain. Humans love logic.<br><br>Alara Sage (13:27.734)<br>But who really thinks, geez, what is causing my anxiety?<br><br>Could there be a hot stove that I am insisting on placing my hand upon? And could my body be trying to tell me something?<br><br>Nah, that couldn't be the case. I'll just take a pill to make myself feel better.<br><br>Now, I obviously realize that not all of humans take pills to alleviate their anxiety. And if you're one of those people who does not take a pill, I deeply honor you. And there's really nothing wrong with taking medication if you need it.<br><br>Alara Sage (14:25.358)<br>cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough<br><br>Alara Sage (14:36.811)<br>for a short time.<br><br>perhaps to get you out of the cycle, to help you have a shoulder on your head, head on your shoulders, to figure out what's causing the anxiety. But if you're just going to take a pill and never do anything about it, you're not really taking your hand off the stove.<br><br>Alara Sage (15:05.814)<br>You're just numbing your hand and perhaps pinching your nose. So you don't have to acknowledge what's really happening.<br><br>Alara Sage (15:20.494)<br>Pretty interesting, isn't it, when you think of it like that? And yet, most people are so resistant to really looking at why they're feeling the anxiety. In fact, sometimes.<br><br>Alara Sage (15:36.75)<br>purely the question of why they're feeling anxiety gives them more anxiety. And again, there's absolutely no judgment on my end. Worked with a lot of clients helping them with this exact thing.<br><br>So what is the secret power behind anxiety?<br><br>Alara Sage (16:02.07)<br>Well, for one.<br><br>It's about what we talked about earlier with the nervous system.<br><br>And understanding that if you're hitting anxiety regularly or somewhat regularly or more often than not, right? Then you're functioning with a dysregulated nervous system. It's okay to move into anxiety and then you should move out very quickly and very easily and feel very grounded and centered and calm and joyful and all the other energies.<br><br>Alara Sage (16:42.53)<br>but to be anxious regularly is.<br><br>dysregulated. So what that means is that you have unprocessed trauma. So you have unprocessed trauma.<br><br>Trauma that you haven't processed through your body. Trauma that you haven't perhaps acknowledged.<br><br>perhaps haven't forgiven yourself or forgiven other people for, you haven't released the experience from your body. You know, it's said that when lions and tigers and bears, oh my, you know, chase prey, that oftentimes if the prey survives, it will do these crazy shakes and...<br><br>do this little weird body movement. And they do that because they're getting out the adrenaline that just shot through their body to maintain their safety. Well, humans don't have usually a lion or tiger or a bear that we're running from. We have heightened levels of stress that we place upon ourselves and then run high levels of adrenaline.<br><br>Alara Sage (18:05.602)<br>to deal with the stress. And then we don't give ourselves and our bodies the time and the space and the love to release the adrenaline, to balance our cortisol levels, to process, again, the stress.<br><br>Alara Sage (18:29.294)<br>So one thing is that it's pointing to the fact that.<br><br>Alara Sage (18:35.69)<br>you're actually in a lot of pain, maybe not physical pain.<br><br>Alara Sage (18:43.042)<br>but emotional pain.<br><br>Because unresolved trauma is very emotionally painful.<br><br>Alara Sage (18:57.17)<br>And when our nervous systems are dysregulated, it's very uncomfortable to be present in the body. It literally feels very tight and tense and, ah, like you just wanna get out, and that's what you do. You get out up into your mind. And so with anxiety comes a lot of mental jargon, right? Your mind will just be spinning like,<br><br>crazy. It'll be what ifing and projecting into the future and worrying nonstop.<br><br>and overanalyzing everything.<br><br>Alara Sage (19:50.442)<br>And there is no power to that.<br><br>Alara Sage (19:56.706)<br>So I started waking up.<br><br>very early in the morning at like three o'clock in the morning with this jolt of anxiety moving through my body. And I was like, what is going on?<br><br>Alara Sage (20:17.79)<br>And it felt like electricity in my nervous system, and this like chaotic, like, oh my God, I'm going to die. Not in the physical sense, but my life.<br><br>Alara Sage (20:37.514)<br>And yet, I didn't believe any of that. I didn't actually feel that.<br><br>And so in these moments, I would take a couple of breaths into my body and ask my higher self.<br><br>What's going on? What do I need to do? Why am I experiencing this?<br><br>And what my higher self was telling me and showing me were those parts of my nervous system that I was talking about that were still healing and still releasing trauma. Releasing trauma from my 30s, releasing trauma from my 20s, releasing trauma from my teens, releasing trauma from my childhood, releasing trauma from my toddler years.<br><br>Alara Sage (21:35.63)<br>And so my higher self would have me breathe into my body and really, really feel all of the discomfort.<br><br>There is so much power.<br><br>to feeling your discomfort.<br><br>Alara Sage (22:02.142)<br>Again, probably not on the list of desires that everyone wakes up with. Today, I want to feel all my discomfort, but let me tell you, if you really give yourself permission.<br><br>Alara Sage (22:14.886)<br>not only will it shift the discomfort into<br><br>feeling good or ultimately can shift it into bliss, euphoria, ecstasy. I've done it many times.<br><br>Alara Sage (22:34.09)<br>It will also empower you.<br><br>Alara Sage (22:39.67)<br>because humans resist what makes them uncomfortable, or they resist what they think is going to make them uncomfortable. The amount of choices that are made subconsciously off of option A might make me have to feel uncomfortable going with option B.<br><br>Alara Sage (23:05.294)<br>constantly happening in your subconscious mind. You may or may not notice it, you may or may not be aware of it, but it happens. I implore you to take a look at your choices.<br><br>Alara Sage (23:23.134)<br>If you're not living by option A lights me up and is a hell yes, then you are living.<br><br>Option B might, that's the biggie right there, might potentially could cause me discomfort. And therefore, I'm not going to choose that option. When that option B could actually lead to.<br><br>your desires, your brilliance, your genius, that everything you actually want. But yes, it could first take you down a road of discomfort. That could happen. And we resist that. So willingly giving yourself permission to feel discomfort is so powerful.<br><br>So I would lay there and breathe into my body and surrender and relax. That's the key about discomfort. You have to relax into it. If you just sit there tense, tensing against the discomfort, you just create more discomfort. You create more tension and no energy can move. That's what tension does. It restricts the energy flow through you. You want the energy flow.<br><br>So when you relax, energy flows.<br><br>Alara Sage (24:53.711)<br>So I would relax and breathe and.<br><br>These nerves would just be firing and firing and firing, and then they would relax. Ah, and I would feel my whole body just, ah, like sigh. My whole body would just thank me. Finally, we released that moment of embarrassment from being six years of age.<br><br>funny, but I'm not really joking.<br><br>Alara Sage (25:34.936)<br>So.<br><br>Alara Sage (25:38.93)<br>I just kept doing that because I would wake up several times, you know, not every single day, but it would happen repetitively early in the morning always. I would be jolted awake with this very intense anxiety. And again, I learned so much about the feeling of it. And<br><br>Alara Sage (26:02.058)<br>and the hidden power of it. Because had I not felt that anxiety, would I have known?<br><br>Alara Sage (26:11.934)<br>that I had unprocessed emotion in that part of my nervous system? Maybe, right? Because I spend a lot of time consciously healing myself. But what about the person who doesn't?<br><br>Alara Sage (26:28.034)<br>Do you feel anxiety?<br><br>Have you spent time asking why? Have you spent time feeling into where you're feeling the anxiety in your body and what that anxiety really feels like?<br><br>Alara Sage (26:53.426)<br>And have you spent the time?<br><br>Breathing.<br><br>Alara Sage (27:02.254)<br>moving your body, using the modalities of energy healing to shift yourself. Because you can, my love. You absolutely can. I can for sure help you to do that if you ever need assistance.<br><br>Alara Sage (27:26.55)<br>but I really invite you to...<br><br>Alara Sage (27:32.49)<br>see the importance of your anxiety. Yes, it's uncomfortable. Yes, it can be really uncomfortable. And honestly, it can come at times where you just really wish it wouldn't, right? Like I was asleep. Hello. Did you have to come at 3 o'clock in the morning? Because oftentimes, I wouldn't really get to sleep after that. And then it'd be time to wake up and all the things.<br><br>but I was still really deeply grateful for it. And if you take the time to hear your body and hear why it is screaming at you, screaming at you.<br><br>Alara Sage (28:24.834)<br>then you can really resolve it.<br><br>Alara Sage (28:29.846)<br>Because if you're anxious and you're up in your head and you're thinking and you're overanalyzing and you're worrying You are not in your power my love<br><br>You are not in your power and you can't really create the life that you desire.<br><br>because those energies continue to create those energies. And they continue to create experiences of not feeling safe.<br><br>Alara Sage (29:05.834)<br>Why should you feel safe? Because you're carrying around a bunch of unresolved trauma and pain. Of course your body doesn't feel safe. Of course you don't feel safe.<br><br>Alara Sage (29:22.934)<br>But you don't have to continue living like that.<br><br>You can heal it and resolve it and create something differently.<br><br>Alara Sage (29:39.47)<br>And so whenever I feel anxiety, whenever I have those moments, if and when it happens again.<br><br>I'm very present.<br><br>through the experience. Now, I will say, if you're having a panic attack where you can hardly breathe, then please take measure to get your breathing under control, of course. A panic attack, a full-blown panic attack where you are hyperventilating.<br><br>is not a time to sit there and feel into your body. And you know.<br><br>Alara Sage (30:23.354)<br>your discomfort. It's a time to establish your breathing again. I've had a panic attack once, one time that I recall. And it was when there was literally trauma releasing out of my body. It was so intriguing. I was with my partner and we were talking about, I was going through something and I was emotional and I started talking out loud about it and as soon as I started telling him<br><br>what I was feeling, my whole body started shaking and I started hyperventilating and I had a panic attack. And he just kind of held me and I just kind of let my body do what it needed to do, even though I felt like I couldn't breathe. And the energy moved through me and it was just kind of like that gazelle. It was just kind of like that prey animal.<br><br>that needed to like do a shaky to let it all out.<br><br>Alara Sage (31:29.57)<br>But I'm not saying that all panic attacks are like that. And again, I want to be really clear that you have to always take care of yourself, right? And so if you're having a panic attack, then by all means establish your breathing and make sure that you feel safe. But if you're having anxiety, and if you're a person with regular anxiety, you<br><br>I recommend that you start doing what I'm speaking of here today in the moments where your anxiety is maybe coming in, but it's not full force. I always say, you know, set yourself up for success. And if you've never felt into your anxiety, if you never breathe into your body and really allowed yourself to feel the discomfort there, it's probably not the best idea to start with one of your most, you know, intense episodes.<br><br>right? Because it's going to just be a lot. It's going to be a lot of sensation in one go. So set yourself up for success. Start with times where it's less, it's not as intense. You feel capable of breathing into your body and feeling it. And the more you do that with the smaller episodes, then you're going to gain mastery or gain conviction.<br><br>and understand how to work with yourself to do it in big episodes. But I promise you that if you start doing this with even the small episodes, you're going to start to shift your nervous system. It's not going to be instantaneous. You know, the nervous system takes a solid 90 days of really doing regular nervous system exercises every single day to start to really shift it. So, you know, feeling into your anxiety here or there.<br><br>Is not going to shift it even within 90 days, right? But it will start to shift it and You know, you could definitely look into Ways to work with your nervous system. I also can help you with that and there's a lot of other Modalities and resources of how to help to regulate your nervous system again<br><br>Alara Sage (33:47.926)<br>My point to this conversation is that your anxiety is trying to tell you that you're placing your hand on a hot burner.<br><br>It's trying to tell you that your body has so much held trauma and pain that you can't hold your awareness in it.<br><br>Alara Sage (34:15.53)<br>trying to tell you that you're stimulating and triggering yourself throughout your day or through your experiences and re-triggering your trauma that you haven't processed. It's like having a scar on your hand where you placed it on the stove and putting it back on the stove again.<br><br>Alara Sage (34:46.51)<br>So I hope that if you're somebody who experiences anxiety, I hope this has inspired you to start to become curious. Curiosity is a tremendous.<br><br>Alara Sage (35:00.358)<br>energy that really allows for information to open. When we become curious, our world opens up for us very much like Alice in Wonderland. Nothing like Alice in Wonderland, but you understand what I mean as far as like her world really opened up, did it not? You can definitely say Alice in Wonderland's world opened up for her because she was curious.<br><br>So become curious and curiosity doesn't have any judgment to it. It's very playful. It's very childlike. Become curious about your anxiety. Become curious as to what is going on in your body where you feel so unsafe and so much in emotional pain that you can't even handle being in there. You have to be up in your head.<br><br>And what can you do? What does your body need? What do you need to start to release that trauma? Regulate your nervous system become embodied.<br><br>because for one, it's a lot more pleasurable.<br><br>Alara Sage (36:18.97)<br>Even compared to the numb state, being numb and shut down is not very pleasurable. Although, again, you don't really know that because you're so numb and shut down. Life is meant to be alive. Alive.<br><br>Alara Sage (36:43.49)<br>But we need a body that feels alive for us to experience aliveness. We need a body that feels safe.<br><br>Alara Sage (36:57.518)<br>to create what we truly desire.<br><br>Alara Sage (37:03.486)<br>As always, I hope this has brought you inspiration and tools and insight and wisdom.<br><br>Alara Sage (37:13.654)<br>Be sure to join the Facebook community, the Ecstatic Woman podcast community where I bring on extra bonuses and extra things. Plus it's just a great place to connect. And you can also join the newsletter on the website, the ecstaticwomanpodcast.com, to be nurtured and loved between episodes. As always, I do a solo episode on Tuesdays and a guest episode on Thursdays.<br><br>I hope that you have subscribed to the channel. And please, please share this episode with somebody that you know who has anxiety, who has experienced anxiety, or perhaps is numb and shut down, because that would help too.<br><br>helps me when you share the episode, and it helps those people that you share the episode with. As always, I love you so very much. Thank you.<br><br><br></p>
