For instant calm, try one or more of the following simple calming exercises, herbal allies, or movements, and can give you more details on how and why they work:

• Unfreeze yourself: Curl up in a fetal position (on your side with keens drawn up), breathe deeply, and hum. You may want to rock back and forth. Concentrate on what feelings want to emerge. Do not be surprised if grief is what you are really feeling.

• Focus your eyes: Look at anything, steadily, with concentration, and breathe deeply. Feel a warmth in your upper abdomen; breathe; focus.

• Conjure an image of safety: Imagine a huge image of safety, such as a cowrie shell, the palm of Buddha or Christ, a giant mothers lap, or a cloud of pink light. Surround the object of your anxiety with this image. Fear locks up movement and speech; a clear visualization can unfreeze you.

• Take an herbal calmative: Tincture of red clover is a profound relaxer and soothing calmative. Its salicylic acid content (similar to aspirin) makes it an excellent pain reliever, too. Motherwort is also effective. Motherwort is not sedating, but calming, leaving you ready for action, not flying off the handle or bouncing off the walls. Try 10 to 20 drops as soon as you feel your nerves starting to fray or just before a stressful event. Repeat every five minutes if needed.

• Try yoga postures: Yoga postures, yoga breathing, and quiet, focused medication soothe the sympathetic nervous system instantly. Regular practice alleviates anxiety, often permanently.

Susun Weed

The author, Susun Weed, has been living the simple life for more than 30 years as an herbalist, goat keeper, homesteader, and feminist. In addition to being the author of four highly-acclaimed books on herbs and women's health, Susun lectures world-wide as the voice of the Wise Woman tradition, personally supervises 400+ correspondence students, is editor-in-chief of Ash Tree Publishing, and directs the activities of the Wise Woman Center, where she trains apprentices in the shamanic arts, and plays with the fairies. Her four books - Healing Wise; Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way; Breast Cancer? Breast Health! the Wise Woman Way and Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year - are used by more than a million women, and have been translated into German and French.