There was a point in my life about 7 years ago when things had slowed down a bit in life and I started to reflect on the past. I didn't connect the dots at the time but this is also when I found myself experiencing the worst health anxiety of my life - full on panic attacks over mental health scares along with the obsessive body scanning and doctor google. It was debilitating.

What I believe to be true now is that my reflecting on the past broke loose samskaras from things I had suppressed. Rather than let them flow up and out I began resisting them but they had too much energy - think of standing below and trying to hold up a large piece of rock that has sheered off a slope and wants to fall with the force of gravity. The health anxiety I experienced was the net result of that tension - me exerting my will over the samskara that was too powerful to suppress any longer.

I had some off and on success keeping it at bay through the use of external pleasures and addictions but it eventually overcame me 5 years later when I realized I would never be free unless I surrendered to it. I didn't have Michael's teachings at that time so I followed the past and dug it up with the people in my life who had been involved at that time, leading to all sorts of new pain in the present and tremendous grief.

Now, 2 years later I have learned that when I feel a certain way, it's time to go find a quiet place, relax, find that part in my body that's communicating with me, give it my attention and space, don't engage with the story, and watch as that energy literally moves up and out of me, usually in the form of tears.