WORRY AND ANXIETY:
Last week, I had a few days where I felt overwhelmed and
near paralyzed by life. I had gloom over
my head, terror and hopelessness in my heart, and despair in my being. I felt
my life was a big failure and the future was filled with the results of all the
mistakes and un-optimal life choices and situations I felt I was facing.
After I “emerged” from the ruins, I started thinking about
the source and reasons and while the surface level is apparent (life—and its
many facets, which, really are all good- right? I mean, I get that I live in
privilege, I am safe, housed, fed, and live in a free country… for now… but
that is another topic)(of worry), the underlying source of these days of dread
were from being imprisoned in worry.
WORRY. It’s never ending available of course, because, for
all of us, the future is unknown and uncertain.
So, we have the option of taking that unknown and identifying the
potential pitfalls of everything around us.
We could worry about so many options- being late for appointments and
meeting, our kids not realizing their potential, not doing the best that we can
access of ourselves in our jobs, managing finances and saving for the future,
relationships, having enough time, and on and on.
The Erma Bombeck quote: “Worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy, but never gets you
anywhere” hit home. I looked back at my few
days of feeling crushed and realized how much I was in the rocking chair. Just freaking rocking back and forth IN THE
WORRY, amplifying the worry. HOLDING ON to the worry. Because that is what I
can control right- I will FIERCELY HOLD ONTO THIS WORRY AND IF I HOLD IT…. we
will be ok?????
But no. Nothing was
accomplished, except that I lost a few days of joy. I literally let the worry
win, and the worry is just an abstract anyway.
It is a “what if”. “What if the
worst”.
The time I spent commiserating about the potential doom of
life only served to reinforce negative self talk that I’ve been trying to work
on NOT doing! Messages that I didn’t do
enough, I am not enough, I am always doing wrong things, I am a waste. Maybe
worrying was more about me justifying those self talk messages that I am trying
to get rid of?
I’ve spent some time reflecting and In spending time working
on this tendency to not be able to stay in the present moment, but be so tied
to the uncertain future. It reminds me
of how much peace I am able to find within my yoga practice, where I literally
have learned over the years to – while on my mat, be in the moment. I wish so much I was already able to take
this to a greater percentage of my time in real life, but I am at least AWARE,
and working on it and acknowledge the need to work on this. I want to take a
step in the right direction towards improving my response the next time this overwhelming
worry may arrive, and I have realized that the worry of course is a cousin of
my anxiety. It’s a little different, but
in the same direction. The un-knowing. The un-trusting. The open ended future that
none of us know. How can we deal with
that not knowing?
And so the next step.
It brings me to self trust and truth.
SELF TRUST: Of course when we worry, we are not solving
anything for our future! There is no way to solve this problem of not being
able to see into our future! The only
thing we can do is remind ourselves that whatever comes, we can handle it. And when I think of it this way, I do feel
more okay and more confident based on the evidence- that so far, I’ve been able
to handle life as it comes. Mistakes and
errors and misfortune happen, but, I have evidence to know that I can take care
of myself, that nothing is too big or wrong that I cannot handle. And I say this, knowing that part of self
trust is having faith, knowing that God is with me. I know that in my life, I’ve
got myself.
TRUTH: I feel like this is harder to articulate, but in the
midst of worry, since worry is in the future, it seems imperative to come back
to NOW and the truth. When I’m in the midst of this distress and unease of
worry, I have the choice to practice training my mind to come back to now and
the truth of now. That here I am, in a place of being okay. And if I just take
one breath and moment at a time, I will be okay now. Then I’ll see what the next breath brings and
I can handle what is there. Like I said,
this isn’t maybe my most natural way, since I apparently find it very easy to
go into OVERDRIVE of DOOM and DREAD. But
I am always committed to taking care of my full self, my whole self, my mind,
body, heart, and soul in all of the ways.
Part of that is paying attention to my mind. Paying attention to recognizing the
tendencies that are my truth, that I need to be in hard work on.
In all of this thought, a comparison was brought to my
attention about worry. It was said that
worry is like leaving a car light on overnight. It’s draining. It dissipates
energy that goes nowhere. It helps no one. It serves no purpose- no one is in
the car, it is unproductive. And I RECOGNIZE
this. I recognize this as a LIFE
tendency. Oh my goodness I use so much
energy unnecessarily. My car light
(worry/anxiety) is running so much higher than it needs to. It drains me, and it has led to sickness, but
also just to un-wellness over many years.
Last week’s little life crisis that wasn’t- was in a way a
really nice awakening to myself.
*Can I trust myself to handle what comes, even if it may not
be what I would choose. Yes.
*Do I know myself in my truth. Yes.
*Am I unnecessarily draining my batteries, YES. And I would like to work on this.
