Ever feel suddenly anxious, but can’t put your finger on why?
Yesterday I was so anxious.
It’s a very familiar feeling.
I grew up spending a lot of time in an alarmed state.
The college anthem my friends bestowed upon me was the Bobby McFerrin song, Don't Worry Be Happy.
When I'm anxious, I hold that energy in.
It feels like an oversized t-shirt is stuffed in my chest.
I can’t inhale a deep-enough breath to let it go.
Yesterday, instead of practicing any of the many mindfulness skills I now have, I try to work.
Working makes me feel worse, because I can't create anything in a state of anxiety, and what I do creating, I can't trust.
This experience of anxiety we might describe as "free-floating."
But it is coming from somewhere.
I tried to name it.
At first I could only attribute it to feeling guilty.
My mom is in a rehab - which she needs after her hospitalization - but she also hates being there.
On some level, I am attached to an old belief, that has the thought:What kind of daughter am I if I'm not keeping my mom happy?
Then something happened that created a shift.
I was sitting at my kitchen table and my partner said something that broke the tension I was feeling and released the sadness underneath.
What he said actually triggered more guilt, but with him I felt safe-enough to feel something about it.
Energy moved.
And I felt it.
The feeling was sadness.
And not just about the changing dynamic between me and my mom, but also about related anxieties that were hiding under the guise of guilt.It included anticipating the loss of my son going to college, about my ability to sustain my business, about the loss of so many things.
In the neuroscience realm, fear of loss triggers circuitry in the brain that is called "panic/grief circuit."*
When we are afraid for our safety, we fight, we flee, we freeze.
But when we fear disconnection, we feel guilt or shame. I am doing something wrong or something must be wrong with me.
Thoughts like:"I should go to my mom, she can't tolerate this discomfort."
"My 17-year-old son will feel abandoned if I don't make dinner for him tonight.""
My partner needs me to show up for him no matter what."
"I need to be working or all will be lost."
"Should's" lead to suffering, confusion and resentment.
We have to move that stuck energy!
When it comes to unsticking ourselves from reactivity, it helps to:
1) Know how our operating systems works, and
2) Feel into the truth of the experience at the heart of our suffering.
I felt better when I allowed myself to feel the sadness that was there.
That's the simple fact.I
could breath more deeply.
I felt more ease and self-compassion.
I had more choice.
What anxiety is alive in you today? (
Election notwithstanding!)
Will you find a way to allow yourself to feel it?
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