Date: 12-15-2024
I’m learning to embrace anxiety as a tool for creativity and connection.
What if anxiety is one side of a coin? What if the other side is creativity & connection?
I’ll be the first to admit that when I get anxiety, all I want to do is find a way to make it go away. It’s an extremely uncomfortable sensation. It can feel out-of-body, alienating, and terrifying. We live in a world that makes very little room for the expression of anxiety, even though most of us experience it in some degree or another.
Fear Prevents us From the Fulness of Life
What if we make space for anxiety and allow it to teach us?
By honoring anxiety, getting curious about what its trying to say, and making space for it, we enlarge ourselves and create an opportunity for growth, creative expression, and connection with others.
“We don’t so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.” - Carl Jung
It’s important to be gentle with the parts of yourself that feel anxious, fearful, and overwhelmed. The last thing those sweet little parts need is to be shamed or ridiculed for feeling afraid. I’ve learned that a MAJOR factor in healing and developing self-trust and confidence, is radical acceptance and consistent self-love.
Something I read in Jessica Dore’s book Tarot for Change really spoke to me:
“Clarissa Pinkola Estes has remarked that in old stories, those who are gentle with what is undesirable or ugly are many times blessed. While those who scorn and reject ugliness are either barred from their desires or punished, often cruelly.
This lesson can be applied to how we respond to things about ourselves we don’t like… when we’re cold and rejecting toward the things in ourselves that we find grotesque and undesirable, that attitude yields consequences just as it would if we were to treat a friend that way: loss of trust, dignity, and personal power.
On the other hand, when we practice kindness and willingness to engage with parts of ourselves that we view as hideous or unlovable, we’re bound to receive a benediction.” - Tarot for Change - Jessica Dore
In Greek mythology, Pan, the god of the wild, was an archetype of anxiety, particularly that sudden, overwhelming kind of anxiety, like a panic attack. The word panic is actually derived from Pan’s name, reflecting the intense terror he was believed to inspire. Pan was associated with the wilderness and his presence in the lonely, unexplored places, along with his unpredictable, wild nature, often evoked feelings of unease or dread.
Pan was often found in remote, wild places, just like anxiety often arises in situations of isolation or when faced with the unpredictable and uncontrollable.
As a god of nature and fertility, Pan represents raw, untamed forces. Anxiety can feel like an uncontrollable, primal force within the human psyche.
Pan embodies both joy and chaos, and was seen as a carefree, playful god, but he also had a dark side. These seemingly opposing qualities reflect the duality of human emotions.
Pan’s association with both pleasure and fear gives us a more nuanced view of anxiety. It reminds us that the same intensity of feeling that leads to fear can also fuel creativity, connection, and joy when understood or redirected.
So how exactly can anxiety be used as fuel for creativity and connection?
Quote
You see both sides, so you have peace. If you only see one side, there is suffering. Once you see both sides, then you follow the Middle Way. This is the right practice of mind. This is what we call straightening out our understanding.” - Buddhist monk Ajahn Chah
- Even though it’s extremely uncomfortable, anxiety often arises as a result of an acute sensitivity to the world. This heightened awareness can make us more attuned to subtle details that others may miss, and that we can use in our creative expression.
- There is a TON of raw energy behind anxiety, which, when channeled intentionally, can be used cathartically in the creative process with surprising results.
- Creative expression - art, poetry, dance - that’s rooted in anxiety often resonates deeply because it captures the raw, unfiltered aspects of the human experience. This kind of vulnerability is super relatable, because most everyone can resonate with that feeling of anxiety, and its honest expression can create space for others to authentically express themselves.
- Just by being honest and open about our anxiety, we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and authentic with others, which usually invites vulnerability and authenticity in return. If we can be brave enough to just be real about the things we struggle with, we take the shame away from the experience, and make it okay for others to share their struggles as well.
Links to:
Pan, God of The Wild - Panic, and The Indirect Consequences of Repressed Instinct