Everyone has experienced fear, anxiety, or self doubt in their lives. For many people it  becomes a shadow that impacts their ability to fully embrace happiness, experience inner peace, and live fully.

Anxiety has its roots in a deep state of misperception - or confusion. For that reason it won't be solved with deep breaths, more yoga classes, or lavender oil, alone. While those things might relieve symptoms or sensations in the moment, they don't begin to reach the core of the problem. Let me explain more... 

You're trying to solve the wrong problem.

The anxious mind craves security, control, structure, and stability. But just like the old country song goes "I was lookin' for love in all the wrong places...". You've been looking for certainty in all the wrong places.

You've been searching for it in the very place that uncertainty originates and exists - in the world around you. You simply won't find it there, no matter how hard you look.

When you try to find your stability, calm, clarity in a world that is always changing - and is often confusing - you might just end up feeling more...

• Anxiousness 
• Uncertain
• Overwhelmed
• Stressed
• Lonely
• Alone
• Isolated
• Stuck
• Depressed
• Worried

You're trying to solve the "certainty" problem by trying to control what you can't control - circumstances, events, other people, and the world at large. This tiggers more anxiety.

So, you think you have an anxiety problem. But you don't. You have a connection problem.

The real problem and the secret solution.

Anxiety is really just a symptom. It's a result (ultimately) of how you habitually think and focus your attention. You think, believe, and focus in a way that causes you to feel disconnected from where your power and certainty actually resides. It's this experience of separateness that makes you feel powerless and out of control. 

Your real power exists within you. It's that deeper part of you that is calm, confident, all-knowing, and wise. It's that aspect of you that probably gets very little of your attention or focus. Maybe you go days, weeks, months, or years ignoring or forgetting about this powerful piece of your being. 

The quality of your conscious connection with this part of who you are -not just knowing about it, but becoming linked with it - is in direct proportion to the amount of peace, stability, and joy you feel. This inner part of yourself is where your power originates - and it's where your certainty is, 24/7. 

I write all about this in my bestselling book, If I"m So Spiritual, Why Am I Still So Anxious? . When you develop an unwavering relationship with your wise inner guide (your true nature), then you tap into the secret solution to stopping fear and anxiety from keeping you bound and stuck.

The ancient yogis agree on this...

The very first teaching from The Yoga Sutra, one of the foundational texts of yoga, says that if you truly understood who you are at your core, you would not suffer. What a promise that is!

Often times people try to solve anxiety or any other problem with the same thinking that perpetuates it. The key to solving anxiety is to put more of your energy, thoughts, focus, and trust on that unchanging part of you - what I call in my book, "your soul circle" - than on the unchanging world around you.

No, you don't have to put your head in the sand, or pretend that life is perfect. But you do have to learn how to live from a place of certainty and discernment about where your power resides and where it doesn't. You must find clarity about what is changeless (your true nature) and what is always changing (everything else). Otherwise you might stay on a hamster wheel of solving the wrong problem and only getting temporary results. 

In the words of Viktor Frankl, "When you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself. "

So take a deep breath. Go to that yoga class. Smell the lovely lavender oil. But more importantly, take time every day to connect to the brilliancy, power, clarity and certainty of your own soul.