Winter brought an asthma flare-up and with it, anxiety.
Obviously, not being able to breathe freely is anxiety-inducing (especially in a pandemic) and I’ve been healing with all the natural things. Eucalyptus, mullein, ginger, garlic + onions, hot tea, steamy showers and plenty of resting. But shadow work calls for me to examine the root of my anxiety and the root was fear.
Fear of dying [without air].
Fear of going to the hospital.
Fear of being trapped and imprisoned in colonial spaces.
Was this an irrational fear, I asked myself. Maybe I’ve never been trapped or imprisoned but my people have. My ancestors have been greatly harmed in these spaces —
they’ve watched loved ones suffer
they’ve been taken from their families
they’ve been poisoned
restricted from using their plant medicines
they’ve been experimented on and abused.
The pain of my anxiety is really the pain of my ancestors.
I am human so naturally, I’ve tried all the ways to avoid this feeling of anxiety — ignore it, bypass it, sleep it off, over self-medicate. Anything but sitting with it. Feeling it.
But Spirit told me to go ahead and feel, beloved. See yourself for who you really are, beloved. Speak the truth to yourself — about yourself and your pain.
When you speak on it, you transmute. You are alchemizing your ancestor’s pain. It reverberates thru the bloodline. It breaks cycles.
