I've been away (health reasons, which include anxiety as my body's response to runaway inflammation) so what a cool post to come back in on! I am familiar with many of the beautiful herbs here but some, like passionflower, have not had the pleasure of meeting yet. I so love your attitude of openness towards anxiety - befriending it and welcoming it as a guest into your human guesthouse, as our friend Rumi would say :) And then you back it up with some non-egoic refusal to let the positivity brigade ride roughshod over your terrain and guilt you out. Hurrah for the circus! You, wise woman!

I'm sorry to hear anxiety's jumped on your back and ridden you down the street recently. A hug to you. Of course positivity has its place. However, when it's used as a weapon of denial and a refusal to accommodate another's suffering, that makes me feel pretty fucking negative, to be frank. We are all more anxious now. The earth is heaving up under changes, many of which have been imposed on her, and she is on fire herself. If she is on fire, then so must we be, being not at all separate from her.

I was just last night looking at a few adaptogens. I took ashwaghanda for years. Maybe it's time for a return.

What I've been thankful for lately? Chamomile. I can't abide drinking it, but putting it into a capsule has been a godsend recently. That stuff is powerful!