Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] If you have been exiled from your land, your country, or your sense of home and safety because of war, tyranny or political violence, welcome.
[00:00:18] If you're a refugee, stateless, undocumented, or living with ongoing fear of deportation, welcome.
[00:00:32] If you're a survivor of war, genocide, mass displacement, or if you're living with a constant threat that the war mass displacement will happen, welcome.
[00:00:54] If your dignity and identity has been targeted because of your beliefs, ethnicity, race, religion, language, accent, welcome.
[00:01:17] If you live under surveillance, censorship or state control, they're speaking freely, carries risk and obedience is enforced through fear.
[00:01:34] Welcome if you're indigenous to a land shaded by invasion, forced displacement, and that history lives in your body.
[00:01:49] Thank you for welcoming me.
[00:01:53] War anxiety doesn't require proximity to the front line.
[00:01:59] It lives in memory, inheritance, displacement, and a constant anticipation.
[00:02:09] You are not invisible to me.
[00:02:13] Here in this community of excellent rising.
[00:02:17] You are seen, you are heard, you are welcomed.
[00:02:27] I am Anna Mael, host of Exile and Rising.
[00:02:31] I am Somatic Experiencing therapist for PTSD and Trauma Recovery and I run Somatic Trauma Recovery Center.
[00:02:40] I lived in the wars for many years.
[00:02:43] I'm a genocide and war survivor.
[00:02:46] I was displaced, I was refugee homeless. I lived in a war and through war for about eight years. And today I work with displaced genocide and war survivors, also with the child soldiers.
[00:03:02] One thing I deeply know is a war.
[00:03:05] And in a therapy we are calling this terrible knowledge because it's earned in a terrible way. And through my lived and professional experience, I know very well how anticipating war and being in a war has an impact on your nervous system, on your body, on your soul, on your heart, how you relate to the people around you, how do you relate in community and how you're showing up as a human.
[00:03:38] Today episode is about war anxiety.
[00:03:42] As you listen, please know that nothing needs to be fixed today.
[00:03:51] You don't need to calm down.
[00:03:53] You don't need to understand everything.
[00:03:56] This is a space to to arrive exactly as you are.
[00:04:04] Nothing in this moment requires urgency and nothing needs to be solved.
[00:04:12] You don't need to calm down, you don't need to understand everything or be resilient.
[00:04:20] Just welcome yourself as you are.
[00:04:24] All of you.
[00:04:26] If you are listening, your nervous system is already responding to a world that feels increasingly unsafe.
[00:04:36] And that response is not weakness, it is intelligence.
[00:04:42] War anxiety is not imagined, it is not exaggerated, and it's not your personal failure.
[00:04:52] It is what happens when your body is asked to live inside prolonged threat, prolonged uncertainty, collective violence, collective moral collapse and global instability without containment.
[00:05:17] And this peace is not about convincing you to feel better.
[00:05:22] It is about helping your body carry reality without collapsing under it.
[00:05:31] So what war anxiety actually is.
[00:05:35] War anxiety is not just fear of bombs or invasion.
[00:05:42] War anxiety we are seeing right now, and I can see with so many of my clients, it is a chronic threat response.
[00:05:52] It is a chronic state where you feel threatened without resolution.
[00:06:01] It is a chronic state of uncertainty.
[00:06:05] And it shows up as constant vigilance, difficulty resting, compulsive news consumption, sudden fear for your children, for your body, for future, for borders, for food.
[00:06:27] And it can be numbness mixed with guilt.
[00:06:32] Guilt can come in if you allow yourself to stay away from news or stay away from a family who are currently facing displacement and is currently in the war.
[00:06:46] Also, there is a quality that something terrible could happen at any moment.
[00:06:52] And for many people, the anxiety is not about one war.
[00:06:59] It is about history repeating.
[00:07:04] So if you have lived through the war and displacement, your body memory will recall exactly what happened.
[00:07:16] If your parents lived, and you as a kid listen the stories, or as an adult listen the stories, or you have listened the stories of your grandparents, of your family members, intergenerational trauma now will become alive in your nervous system.
[00:07:38] War anxiety, as I said, it's not only about the war.
[00:07:43] It is about violence becoming normalized, moral collapse being normalized, human rights being violated, normalized.
[00:07:59] And when your safety feels conditional and your safety feels safe only when you're quiet and obedient.
[00:08:12] So these are all signs of war anxiety.
[00:08:17] And the nervous system does not respond only to what is happening.
[00:08:23] It responds to what could happen and what has happened before in your lifetime and in the lifetime of your parents, grandparents, family members or friends, neighbors.
[00:08:43] You don't need to be in a war zone to carry war anxiety because war lives in displacement, in exile, in surveillance cultures, as we can see nowadays under the tyranny, censorship, obedience enforced by fear. Please check my episodes about the tyranny.
[00:09:09] And for others, it is emerging now through witnessing media saturation and the, uh, erosion of collective stability, of collective safety. And the nervous system does not make a difference between direct and indirect threat.
[00:09:33] So your nervous system is responding to meaning, to proximity, and to you being helpless.
[00:09:44] And not only you being helpless, but seeing how collectively, as a citizens, as a nation, we are becoming helpless.
[00:09:57] And we know this is not right. It is not just. You simply know.
[00:10:04] It doesn't make sense.
[00:10:06] And yet there is nothing you can do. That's the quality.
[00:10:12] That's the quality.
[00:10:14] And one of the most dysregulating aspects of, uh, war anxiety is moral injury. I talk a lot about moral injury.
[00:10:25] That's in my field, of my work, people who suffered moral injuries through the war, displacement, genocide.
[00:10:35] And now we can see the moral injury is becoming collective.
[00:10:42] And the feeling is I see suffering, I care and I cannot stop the suffering. There is a deep personal, uh, quality of injustice because we can witness what's right, what's wrong.
[00:11:00] And there is nothing we can do about what's wrong because of power over system, which is tyrannic or it's dictatorship.
[00:11:14] That's the quality. So I'm not saying you cannot do anything about this, but this is how body feels. And then it creates guilt for resting or shame for turning away.
[00:11:29] There is also the pressure to stay alert or deep exhaustion.
[00:11:36] We can see now in activists for human rights who are coming and protesting and doing their best to stop this.
[00:11:46] And there is no agency in containment to regulate because of the sense of urgency. And then we see many of activists are going to the place of deep exhaustion.
[00:12:00] And many people are not anxious because they don't feel enough.
[00:12:05] They're anxious because they feel too much right now without a place to put it.
[00:12:13] And regulation is very hard right now because your nervous system is designed to respond to threat and then the completion. How do we complete threat response is by returning back to the safety, right where your body can rest, your mind can exhale.
[00:12:36] In war anxiety, there is no place to return to.
[00:12:43] So we have a constant state of threat and that's what's uncertain.
[00:12:50] And what's uncertain is I don't know when my safety will be provided because there is no clear end, there is no containment, there is no completion signal.
[00:13:05] This is now over and done.
[00:13:07] I can exhale and I can feel safe.
[00:13:12] And what's happening in our bodies is constant updates, graphic imagery, pressure to stay informed, urgency for complete control and body is anticipating.
[00:13:30] Please know this is your nervous system doing exactly what is designed to do, but without the conditions it needs to settle.
[00:13:42] So we don't have any more the space for settling.
[00:13:47] And what doesn't help, forcing calm.
[00:13:53] Because your nervous system, your vigilant nervous system, who keeps you safe in the alert will not buy this. Forcing calm, it's not helping.
[00:14:04] Shaming fear, shaming anxiety, it's not helping.
[00:14:10] What's not helping is over consuming news.
[00:14:16] So you will not move to avoidance and ignorance.
[00:14:22] But over consuming is not helping as well.
[00:14:26] Or telling yourself to be grateful, collapsing into despair.
[00:14:33] None of this will help your body to feel safer because war anxiety cannot be reasoned away. Uh, and it must Be held. It must be held.
[00:14:48] Not argued, not deceived.
[00:14:52] This is the reality we are all facing now.
[00:14:59] And it's a new reality for many.
[00:15:03] But also many of us survived war and genocide. And we know what to do.
[00:15:12] That's what I called the terrible knowledge. It's earned terrible way.
[00:15:17] But we went through it.
[00:15:21] We gained some tools and some wisdom how to cope with this.
[00:15:28] Please check my program in the links below in the show notes where I will guide you step by step. What to do to regulate your nervous system and find a sense of safety when your body is going through war anxiety.
[00:15:47] Please know war anxiety does not mean I'm weak.
[00:15:53] It means my body is trying to protect life.
[00:15:58] My body is trying to be human.
[00:16:02] My body is trying to stand up against moral injuries.
[00:16:09] And the goal is not to remove fear.
[00:16:13] The goal is to prevent fear from becoming total.
[00:16:19] This is very important.
[00:16:22] You will feel fear. You will not be able to ignore it because it's all around us. The news are all around us.
[00:16:29] We live in the most uncertain times globally.
[00:16:35] But that fear will not have agency over you even it will be part of our lives. And we are living in times where fear makes sense.
[00:16:49] It m makes sense. Absolutely. Don't be fearful of your fear.
[00:16:54] It does make sense. It keeps you alert.
[00:16:59] And you're not broken for feeling it.
[00:17:02] You're not failing, for needing rest.
[00:17:06] You are not selfish for regulating.
[00:17:09] And war anxiety asks for gentleness, boundaries, embodiment, community.
[00:17:22] We need now more than ever.
[00:17:26] Space of community, place of holding each other, place of solidarity.
[00:17:35] And staying human in inhumane times is not passive. It is a form of resistance in any capacities you can do.
[00:17:47] And that being resistant can mean for you. If you're overwhelmed right now could be helping yourself between you and you to find a drop of safety in your day to day life.
[00:18:05] If you want to contribute to collective, your resistance can mean how can I spread what's moral, what's right?
[00:18:15] How can I help my neighbor?
[00:18:18] And as I close this today, and as you listen my voice, you can silently say, between you and you, in this moment, in this singular moment, I'm safe enough.
[00:18:41] Not safe forever.
[00:18:44] Not safe everywhere.
[00:18:49] Safe enough Right now.
[00:18:54] Right now. Uh, feel that.
[00:19:00] Let that be sufficient.
[00:19:06] You can also say, I trust that I will make a choice for dignified life.
[00:19:23] I trust I have ability and moral compass to stand up for what's right.
[00:19:41] I trust I can allow myself to disconnect.
[00:19:52] So I can gain back my safety in my body.
[00:20:01] So I can feel safe enough right now.
[00:20:08] Let me rest in this safe enough right now.
[00:20:14] Let that be sufficient.
[00:20:17] If you would like to use more tools uh and practices how to have control over war anxiety please check the links in the show notes.
[00:20:28] I want to remind you regulation is not indifference.
[00:20:37] Rest is not denial.
[00:20:41] Denying your fear is not helpful.
[00:20:47] Stability is not betrayal of those who are suffering.
[00:20:54] Not seeing who are suffering will also not bring stability.
[00:21:03] Your capacities to care depends on your capacities to stay present in your body and then act on it if you choose to.
[00:21:19] The key is to build capacities in your nervous system to pause from constant alarm.
[00:21:31] Please check the program I'm running how to do this I'm Annamayl. This is Exonin Rising.
[00:21:41] Please share Follow Donate this space runs without any ads and background music so we can have a clean holding space.
[00:21:56] Nowadays, be gentle with yourself. More than ever, be gentle with yourself.
[00:22:05] And remember, you're not alone.
[00:22:09] You're not alone.
[00:22:12] Much care.
[00:22:14] Much care.
