Trick for offloading anxiety

For as long as I can remember, I've carried a bubble of forboding in my chest. It's heavy and cold to the touch, and it lives behind my sternum, a little off to the left. Some days it's bigger, some days it's colder and more tightly packed -- but it's always there.

Why I have it is the stuff of years of therapy -- but nothing I've done has ever made it completely go away.

I was surprised to read an article (which I can't locate at the moment, but will try to find) that addressed this issue, and gave a method for, if not getting rid of it, at least "tapping" it to release some of its contents. It's a three-step process.

Step 1 - Gather all of the anxiety together into a single bubble. (Imagine my surprise, learning that I wasn't the only one with a bubble of anxiety!) There may be little bits of it spread out throughout your body. Sieve yourself bottom to top to gather together the bits into a single bubble.

Step 2 - Mentally, insert a straw into the bubble to allow its contents to escape. I envision this like putting a straw into a juicebox, and then squeezing slightly -- the anxiety pours right out through the straw.

Step 3 - Once the bubble is depressurized, remove the straw.

It was shocking to me how clear it is that holding this anxiety is simply a habit, and the mental imagery of essentially bleeding it off helps me to relieve it. The article from which I got the image suggested doing it as often as needed, until you are able to maintain the habit of NOT carrying the anxiety to begin with.