Yogic Cleansing:

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Join me today with Shaileigh, an endeavouring author/journalist, who has not only soaked up the sun this summer but the opportunity to ground her anxiety...

Yogic Cleansing:

Shaileigh is a 16-year-old, British, high school graduate, who was raised in Brighton. Despite the soothing setting of the seaside town, Shaileigh has constantly carried her companion alongside her; and was aware that it wasn't the best company:

"I think I've felt anxious for most of my life and not in the way most people feel anxious. It's like a perpetual dread for everything around me that's just impossible to control or curb. I feel like I'm in a constant freefall, where the smallest things can act as a catalyst for my spiralling thoughts."

"Being a headstrong perfectionist doesn't exactly help either. I wasn't always aware that what I was trying my hardest to suppress wasn't normal. I've always been capable of functioning like someone who isn't worrying about irrational and, sometimes, impossible things. I've also always been aware that those things are irrational which, in some ways, can make it harder to deal with them because you're constantly conflicted within yourself."

An inescapable turmoil, one of which seems to stir a bubbling cauldron overflowing with perturbation and trepidation. It was only back in June that Shaileigh hit her lowest moment while anticipating in the countdown towards her next exam:

"It was literally minutes before a Biology exam and I was absolutely convinced that the English exam I'd taken earlier that day had been an unmitigated disaster. English is my favourite subject, one of which I excel in. I find solace in literature, poetry and also in writing. It gives my constant whirring mind, thoughts and feelings an outlet and a way to articulate them into characters and situations. On this occasion, however, I felt like I hadn't performed to a standard that I would consider acceptable. And so I broke down. In the middle of the corridor with concerned teachers huddling around me. I just cried and sunk into a mindset that pushed me further away from myself."

Surprisingly, this catastrophe was a sudden realisation that:

"This summer had to be my time for developing ways of coping. One where I wouldn't have the constant stress of school."

Through deep appraisal, Shaileigh has discovered helpful coping mechanisms, of which I believe it's an amazing way of channelling your clinging anxiety. She has also uncovered a big, didactic lesson through her suffrage and well-needed self-care:

"Keeping a diary helps me to ground myself. There is no way of accurately recalling how you felt in a certain situation unless you record those feelings as they're passing through you. If like me, you have a tendency to dwell on things, then you'll build up false perceptions of the way you felt, often leaving out the positive moments. Having written evidence of my own thoughts helps me to remind myself that not everything is negative. I think it's important to remember that we are our own worst enemy. Nobody is going to be able to criticise you more than you do and the further away you are from an event, the worse that criticism will be."

"The biggest lesson I've learnt through working on myself and developing who I am is that putting yourself first is not a selfish thing to do. My anxiety isn't contained within the confines of my mind. It's like a magnetic field that stretches and captures those around me. You can't be constantly living for other people whilst you're burning out because you'll eventually become a background character in your own story."

"I feel like I'm finally in a place where I'm able to recognise the things that are bad for me, whether that be other people or my own self-destructive behaviours. I'm not perfect and I'm certainly not the person I feel I should be, but I am getting there. Slowly but surely."

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