How to Calm Anxiety Using Figure 8 Breathing – (A video for kids)

Anxiety will tell them a deficiency story - that they aren't brave enough, strong enough, powerful enough - but you know they are so much more than enough. You know it with everything in you.
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Sometimes they will believe this deficiency story, and they will hold themselves back from doing brave, hard things. This is when anxiety will slide in and try to steal their capacity for courage right from under them, so this is when they need us to show up and stand big, as the guardians of their brave.
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Protect their courage by believing in it so much, that they won't have a choice but to believe it too. The brain wires according to the experiences it is exposed to, so think of avoidance and courage as muscles. The ones they use the most will strengthen. If you support avoidance, their need to avoid will strengthen. If you move them towards brave behaviour - as distressing as this might be - you are exposing them to the experiences that will fortify their truth - that they can feel anxious, and do brave.
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It's okay if this happens in tiny steps. It's not the size of the movement towards brave behaviour, it's the direction that matters most. Move them towards brave, lovingly, gently, and confidently - because you know that 'brave' is in them, and anxiety doesn't change that a bit. When you are faced with the choice between believing in their anxiety or believing in their brave choose their brave, every time, and guard it with everything in you, because it's beautiful, and life-giving, and it's in them.
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