How to Keep Going Through A Crisis

How to Keep Going Through A Crisis

by | Jul 8, 2022 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD

At times of crisis, it doesn’t matter how well regulated your emotions are, what your spiritual practice is, how often you meditate, dissociate from your emotions or think positively.

It’s going to feel like life has knocked you onto your arse and is giving you a good kicking. Rest assured these 8 ways how to keep going through a crisis will help you find a strength that you didn’t know you had.

The definition of crisis is a) the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever, b) a paroxysmal attack of pain, distress or disordered function or c) an emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crisis).

For the purposes of this article, we’re talking about c) emotionally significant events or changes of status in a person’s life.

These can be anything from dealing with sudden illness or bereavement, traumatic events, sudden job loss or relationship breakups, or anything out of the ordinary that requires a significant amount of time, mental and emotional energy to figure out, get through and either resolve or stabilise.

Crises can be stand-alone events or the beginning of something longer-term and life-changing. So, you might return to this point a few times as events unfold.

 

How to Keep Going Through a Crisis 

Here are a few of my favourite tried and tested ways to get through trying times .

1) Cry. If you have a lot going on and you have to hold it together, emotions will want to come out regardless, so cry. Cry into the washing up, cry in the shower, sob in stolen safe moments.

Crying helps to relieve emotional pressure. Let those tears fall, feel the grief and sadness and when they stop, wash your face, close your eyes, breathe and get back to the shitshow that life currently has running for you.

2) Tetris. I read somewhere that Tetris might actually be good for mental health, so I downloaded it. They were right. In trying moments a few minutes of playing Tetris is a great way of switching off or  distract you enough to focus deeply on something else.

3) Friends to vent to. Not to problem solve, but to hear you as you’re working through whatever is going on. You might not need advice or anyone saying ‘Hey! You’ve got this’ in fact you’re more likely to lose your shit in the face of false positivity when you’re dealing with something serious. There’s a time and a place for stuff like that and now isn’t it. You feel angry, you feel upset, you feel lost. you need a rock to hold onto and catch your breath while the waves of chaos hurl you around.

4) Water. Drink plenty of it – you’ll need it with all of the crying you’ll be doing. Go for frequent showers, go swimming, dip your toes into the water, splash water on your face and let the water run over your wrists. Never underestimate the restorative power of water.

5) Turn stuff off. If you’re feeling overwhelmed then eElectronics, music, everything you can needs to be switched off. Sometimes the slightest noise or interruption can feel like you’re being punched. If you need sound try a fan, white or brown noise. Honour your rawness and overwhelm and give yourself grace.

6) Breathe. When you’re in the middle of a crisis your breathing may be shallow. When you notice this take some deep breaths, feel your lungs fill with air, relax your shoulders,, unclench your jaw and hands, do a few stretches, do a few more stretches because it feels really good, start to consider yoga, look up where there’s a class, wonder if you have any suitable clothes that fit and look halfway decent, stretch again, especially your feet and toes, wonder if you’ll ever be flexible again, get a cramp in your calf, yawn and get back to whatever you were doing, but in a calmer way.

7) Nature. Go out into nature. Whether that’s in your garden, walking in the countryside, sitting by or in the sea, laying on the grass opposite the bus station in the shade of the trees, looking at the plants growing by the side of the road, or visiting a garden centre. It doesn’t have to be ‘big’ nature to remind you that you’re part of something much larger and more connected. Nature helps us slow down to a more realistic pace. 

8) Trust the process. Where you are now won’t be where you are in a few days. Often the first few days of a crisis involve figuring out a lot of stuff. It’s emotionally trying. You may feel that you’re walking on thin ice that’s cracking with every step and if it breaks then you’re crashing down onto the rocks below, but, what’s happening is something very different.

You’re trusting yourself and drawing on all of your reserves to solve a problem, find a different way or deal with something that you never wanted in your life.

You might not want to, but you’re doing it, you might be scared, but you’re doing it, you might piss off a lot of people, but you’re doing it. You might not know the outcome, but you’re doing it because you have to. Life may become more complicated in the short term, but you’re doing it. You have no choice.

It’s that energy that will keep you going and will drive you and keep you together as you also fall apart.

Putting on a brave face and holding in those emotions won’t help you. Although there may be times when your emotions naturally subside or switch off. 

If this happens, go with it.

 

Decompressing After a Crisis

Afterwards, when the crisis is over, or paused ,you’ll need to give yourself a bit of time to come down from the heady mix of the chemicals and hormones that have been keeping your body and mind going.

The greatest gift that you can give yourself is the time and space that you need to decompress. What you’ve been feeling are normal reactions to an often prolonged stressful situation. Although the crisis is over or is stable for the moment, your body and mind will need time to regain their balance again.

Bear in mind that you may well have been dealing with something that you had no idea you could do. Your mind may need a little time to come to terms with this and to accommodate it – time to integrate.

During this time, don’t be surprised if you feel ok for while, then feel overwhelmed and upset again. It can take time to settle, and we can often feel aftershocks for some time afterwards. They will lessen and stop in time. 

 

Some Strategies That May Help You to Decompress 

1) Turn notifications off your phone. This is your time. Let people know if they’re likely to worry if you go awol.

2) What do you need? Quiet? Gentle movement? Music or not? Resting? Watch a film? Switch off? Go for a walk, run or swim? Deep breathing? Drift off and stare into space for a while? Talk to someone? A big cuddle? What kind of self-care soothes you and what do you need now?

3) Change your self-care as you need to. Music may be fine to start with, then it can jar so turn it off. If something stops being soothing, don’t continue to do it.

4) Acknowledge how hard it’s been for you. Don’t lie to yourself and downplay what you’ve been through.

5) Don’t expect to be happy or relieved when it’s over. Feel what you feel. Our emotions can be unpredictable. These feelings will change and your perspective will change as you settle back to normal.

6) Get back into your routine as and when you’re ready. No pressure.

7) Respect your need for space. Ask for time off, and let people know ifyou need some space and not to disturb you. If you don’t have the time and space to decompress then you can put time aside to do it in your day – take 10 minutes here and there, do deep breathing, and drift off.

8) Make changes where you can. Some crises can be due to changes you need to make in your life. If this is a regular occurence for you then maybe it’s time to start doing things differently.

Crises happen to everyone at some point in your life and it’s important to remember that what you’re experiencing is normal. Finding your own coping mechanisms that will help to see you through is something that will happen naturally. I hope that my suggestions help too.

 

If you’re going through a crisis and find yourself struggling, drop me a message for a chat about how to move through difficult times a little easier.

How to Make Problems Disappear or The Mystery of The Disappearing Problems

How to Make Problems Disappear or The Mystery of The Disappearing Problems

by | Aug 2, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic, People Pleasing

“I love talking with you Gail, it’s like you make my problems disappear.”

I can’t lie, that’s a great thing to hear. It makes me feel all lovely and warm. I know that I don’t really make people’s problems disappear though.

When you feel better most problems disappear of their own accord. Occasionally there’s something that you need to do, but most of the time problems are things that have been hanging around in our heads for a while. They come up when we’re not feeling so great. Mood-related problems.

You might have noticed it for yourself.

Have you seen that when you’re feeling stressed or upset, your mind fills with problems that need solving urgently, yet when your mood shifts to something more upbeat, those things don’t really bother you?

Where do those problems go?

Well, they pass on by. Like the thoughts we have that wonder where we’ll be living in 5 years time, or the worrying thoughts that cross our mind at times. They go. They’re likely to be part of a habitual train of thought that you have that comes up when you’re feeling stressed or upset.

Do you know what I mean? You’re feeling stressed out because of the school run and no one was ready and the washing up needs doing and it’s raining and you’re running late and the last thing you need is the car not to start….

One thing after another and your stress levels are through the roof.

Then you notice that the kid’s hair hasn’t been brushed, the packed lunches aren’t done and that school note that needed signing is nowhere to be seen. There’s no one helping you, you don’t have time to do it all, why can’t the kids just think for themselves for once, where the hell is your partner in all of this, you’re sick of doing it all and you’d be better off on your own.

You see, the same list of events could happen when you were in a good mood and you’d handle them like a pro. You might even laugh about it. You might make it all into a game for the kids. Being late probably wouldn’t be an issue as you’d know what had gone on, what was working against you. You’d deal with it.

It’s not our external circumstances that cause our moods, it’s our moods that change our experience of our external circumstances.

Trains of Thought

Trains of thought can be really interesting, unless you’re stuck on one. You can start to recognise them because they sound pretty much the same every time one is set off. They get to be familiar.

I have trains of thought related to relationships, money, work, all sorts of things. It’s lovely when I recognise them because then I don’t have to jump on that train because the stories that accompany them are generally unpleasant and they’re not true. So I can save myself a lot of stress and heartache by letting them go past.

Take this morning for instance. I’d decided not to take a job. I knew that it would be tiring for me and that would impact on everything else that I had going on.

My train of thought took me down a long route, through the lands of ‘this was your once chance’, down to the depths of ‘what’s wrong with you, you could have handled it, anyone else would have!’ and into the murky waters of ‘you could have helped and you didn’t’. These are remnants of my people-pleasing days. They make me feel like I have done something really bad and I don’t like it. But I knew that I’d made the right decision. Within a few minutes in rushed a whole load of different ideas, writing ideas, that were much better suited to me.

Knowing Better, Doing Differently

If I didn’t know better I could have really thought that there was something wrong with me, or I might have emailed them back and said that I’d changed my mind, or I likely would have felt really stressed out because I thought that my one chance had gone and I wouldn’t be able to find something else. But I know better. I know that these are old thoughts that are still kicking around. I can ignore them.

So, yes, problems seem to disappear when I talk to people and most of the time it’s because they weren’t problems in the first place. They’re part of a person’s habitual thinking and they naturally go once you start to feel differently.

I can see that, now the magic happens when you start to.

Photo by Rick Mason on Unsplash

When You Don’t Know What To Do.

When You Don’t Know What To Do.

by | Jul 26, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic

So what do you do when you don’t know what to do? I currently can’t get access to my website. It’s still there, but I can’t log into it. It’s frustrating and I want it back. As a way around this issue, I’ve been considering putting together another site, on a different subject, or a more focused topic. I’m not sure which.

And this is where the problem starts. I’m not sure what to do. So I write down a few ideas, do a bit of brainstorming, consider meditating on the question, try to rehash old ideas, sit and look at the screen and try to will inspiration into being. I then try to convince myself that I really do know what I want to do and it’s just a case of letting the idea rise to the surface…

None of it works, there is nothing there.

Then I consider, that maybe it’s ok that there isn’t an idea there at the moment.

Maybe I could get on with something else, like writing.

And maybe from the ideas that are already spilling from my mind something will form.

But it might not be taking form just yet, or even tomorrow, or next week.

It might take longer than I want it to.

Then I wonder about all of the other things that I try to will into being that simply aren’t ready to step from the ether into the world of form yet.

Because it doesn’t seem to matter how much I want something, if it’s not there it’s not there and no amount of pushing and wanting makes that happen. Not the way I want it to.

And I think that’s the crux of it. I’ll have an idea in mind of what I want, but as I’ve seen from experience, what I get rarely arrives dressed up in what I’ve imagined. And sometimes, I don’t even want it when it does arrive.

So what do I do when I want to know something and I’m wracking my brain for answers?

I stop doing it and move on to something that I do know that I want to do. Whether that’s to write something, as is the usual case, or watch Netflix, or talk to someone, or have a shower or do some housework or figure out a photoshoot or go to bed. I move into a more certain area of my life and give the invisible chance to become visible.

In a world that insists that we know what we want, that we can work anything out, and that tells us that we can have it all now, it can feel like a gamble to stop and step back from something, knowing that you don’t have the answer just yet.

It hurts our brains to be constantly going over the same things. Desperately searching for the answers that just aren’t there yet. It looks tempting to keep running around our minds, looking for it, but you know what? You can stop doing that. You can stop looking and let the answer come to you. 

Wanting to bridge the gap between the unknown and the known won’t make it happen any faster, and expending time and energy grasping for something that isn’t there yet seems a bit pointless. But getting on with life, doing the things that you enjoy doing, building on what already exists, that makes sense. They’re the steps that will bring the ideas closer.

At some point, it will click into place, eventually.

……………………………………………………………………….

It clicked into place, I got access to the hosting and I fixed my website.

Moral of the story, when you don’t know what to do, go do something else!

…………………………………………………………………….

Photo by Ilona Panych on Unsplash

Who Are You When You Don’t Feel Anxious?

Who Are You When You Don’t Feel Anxious?

by | Jul 22, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD

Photo by Alessandro Erbetta on Unsplash

Do you know who you are when you don’t feel anxious?

It’s something that I’m still discovering for myself.

I’ve found it to be a layered type of experience, hidden layers. It’s not until I start feeling calm that I really see how anxious I’ve been feeling, and how feeling anxious has affected my behaviour, my sense of self, and what I achieve, or rather, don’t.

I hadn’t felt anxious for a while. I’d been enjoying writing, doing my website, making plans, starting to implement them, meeting people. It was quite lovely; peaceful, there was time for everything.

Then it started, that slow descent. I’m not good enough, I don’t know enough, I can’t do what I want to do, no one is interested because I’m useless… then sudden hits of panic, fear, dread, and anxiety screaming in my head. That I must get a job, any job, and if you’re not going to do that, well…… this is what you’re heading towards…

But…. I’ve been hearing this for a long time now, years. Every time it shouts too loud I stop and listen to it. I do what it says, I get a job, my own work slows down and eventually stops, I get tired, burn out and I’m back at the beginning again. It’s the same loop time and time again, a pattern repeat. I’ve made slow progress.

Recently I thought that I’d wait it out, keep on doing my stuff, see what happens.

What happened was that I crashed. I reached rock bottom and I hit that point where I didn’t give a shit what was going to happen I was just so sick of being in this loop. No more of this.

I knew I would be fine. All of this drama was going on in my mind. It’s done it before, with PTSD. If I could survive that, then I can do anything. Knowing this didn’t stop it from feeling awful and real and desperate and I had no answers, only a desire to push ahead this time. Anxiety demands answers and doesn’t like it if none are forthcoming.

I talked to friends and I started to see what had been going on behind the scenes. I began to notice where the gaps in my knowledge were, what I didn’t understand. And I started to fill those gaps with what I needed to know. I needed to know a lot. Costs of doing business, general living expenses, savings, what I wanted out of life for me and my children. It blew what I thought I knew out of the water. The brain fog started to lift and indignant anger took its place. How come I haven’t looked into this before? I’d been working off a faulty plan and anxiety had kept me from seeing it.

I napped on and off for 2 days straight at the weekend. When I was awake it was the type of awake that has you staring at the horizon and nothing in your brain clicks into place. It used to worry me, still does a little. I do know that eventually, it goes, I’ll wake up, something will be different.

It was different today, I felt clearer, I wanted to write, I wanted to move forward with some plans. These plans were taking me in a completely different direction to the one that I’d, well, planned. Things were making sense in a way that they had never done before.

Then I opened an email and anxiety hit me. It was like lifting the lid on a pot of pure hell. I felt distant enough from it for it not to engulf me. It was like a whirling torrent of pure hatred directed towards me. ‘Shit’, I thought, ‘that’s been in my head for years’. I put the lid back on it and slowly stepped away. The words and the energy reverberated around my mind for a few minutes longer.

There’s something about being so close to something so toxic that makes you want to shake it off or have a wash. I went back to writing.

So, who I am without anxiety? Usually pretty calm, content, brimming full of ideas. But this, with work, is unchartered territory for me. I’m a bit tired, cautiously optimistic, standing on a precipice above the clouds, in the quiet, leaving behind the security of the screaming banshee in my head directing my life in circles.

Different, that’s who I am.

Stop Running From Your Life.

Stop Running From Your Life.

by | Jul 22, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic

Photo by João Ferreira on Unsplash

Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you think you’re awake and you try to move, but you can’t — sleep paralysis?

I’ve had a few of them.

I used to have them as a child, but the first one that I clearly remember was when I was living with a guy in my 20’s. I was asleep in bed and woke up when I heard footsteps on the stairs. I knew no one else was in the house. I tried to move, but couldn’t I was paralysed.

I could barely breathe with fear as the footsteps grew closer and closer. The handle on the door turned and the door was pushed open. Around the doorframe, a fucking clown slowly moved into view, holding me with its gaze. It was the clown from It, Pennywise, or similar. It was a clown. In my room. And I was awake and couldn’t run because I was paralysed. And it was walking towards me. I tried to move, to force myself awake and out of this nightmare and I couldn’t do it.

After having a few of these I came to realise that despite feeling the terror of having some clown, or hag or some other stuff of nightmares, walking up to me when I couldn’t move, I could wake myself up.

To wake up I had to relax. I had to let go of the fear. I needed to breathe, relax my body, let myself fall asleep again, and then I could wake up.

Have you ever tried relaxing and going back to sleep when your worst nightmare is walking up to you? Every voice in the chorus of your fear screams against it. It goes against all logic, but that’s what worked, every time. To wake up out of the nightmare I had to remember that it was a nightmare, and stop fighting it.

It doesn’t just work with nightmares either. Any sort of internal struggle stops when we stop fighting it and running away from it.

To stop feeling anxious we learn to stop listening to it.

To stop feeling insecure we see our insecurities for what they are.

To stop feeling afraid we eventually, become brave enough to walk through that fear. 

To live a life of freedom, we face what’s keeping us constrained within ourselves.

We fight ourselves, by thinking that we’re not good enough, constantly changing, trying to be a better person, trying to fit in, make ourselves into what we think we should be. Doing what we think should make us happy, not what does actually make us happy. Denying ourselves what we want, who we want, how we want to live. We lie to ourselves, over and over again.

We build walls to defend ourselves and use words and actions and flawed logic to keep people at bay.

We run by not talking to whoever we want to talk to, by not expressing ourselves, by not being honest. And we run by telling ourselves stories of why it could never work, rather than stopping, breathing and finding out.

We run from our dreams and desires and bury our heads in an everyday life that slowly turns grey over time.

But, eventually, we need to stop. It takes effort to avoid so much and we can only do it for so long. Our brain grows tired of finding ways around the things that we want so dearly, because they don’t go away. They may grow quieter, but they never disappear.

And so eventually we slow down, weary of fighting and running; and we stop; and breathe, and face what’s coming our way. Then we can wake up.

Let’s Talk About Anxiety

Let’s Talk About Anxiety

by | Jul 9, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD

Photo by denis ng on Unsplash

Let’s talk about anxiety, I’ll go first. It’s bloody awful, isn’t it? I don’t know about you but when I feel anxious I’d get an awful tight feeling in my chest, my breathing feels strained; I become very aware of it, sometimes I shake. My thoughts race and go on repeat ‘what am I going to do, what am I going to do!’ Desperately searching for answers that seemed just out of reach. If I tried harder, searched my brain more, I know that the answer would be there. It never is of course. What’s there is a never ending search, more and more questions, no solutions. It’s a trap that’s easy to fall into.

A few mornings ago I felt anxious. I didn’t like it, it felt like I was going to die. I felt like I’d never feel ok again. I felt like I’d been feeling that way forever. It had been about 30 minutes, if that.

What I Do When I Feel Anxious

Do you want to know what I do when I feel anxious? I regulate my breathing, bringing it back to slow, deep breaths, filling my lungs, lovely deep breaths that cause yawns. I stop drinking my coffee because it really doesn’t help in these situations. I do what I need to do to help my mind in its quest to settle – that’s what it will try to do. So if I start thinking of washing up – yep, I’m on it. If I start thinking of a swim – I’m on my way. If I start thinking of a nap – I’m ahead of you there!

Our minds will throw up these little ideas, easy ideas that we can take. It’s far better to take its advice and follow the mundane, the ordinary requests than it is to remain in mental confusion. No matter how tempting it is to stay, no matter how strong the urge is to solve these problems racing around your mind, and it’s strong, I know that.

It’s grounding, doing the ordinary stuff, it’s what we can do easily. It’s in the here and now. It takes us away from the complexities of the mind and seats us in real life. Real-life is where it’s at, it’s where we live and work from best and that’s where your mind will try to get you back to. 

At some point, the anxiety will fade and disappear. Honestly, though, it’s going to go anyway, eventually, but why stay longer in a state that’s painful and unhelpful than you need to? We’re causing ourselves unnecessary suffering. It’s well known that chronic stress comes with its own set of mental and physical health issues, and they’re best avoided if possible. 

 

Things I’ve Noticed About Anxiety   

There are a few things that I’ve noticed about anxiety. 

1) It’s not helpful. No matter how urgent, frantic and desperate my thoughts are, they are not helpful, ever. 

2) Anxiety takes my attention and focus from what I’m doing in order to think, only think, about something I could be doing better, or to beat myself up about something, or to worry frantically. 

3) It uses up a lot of energy.

4) The things that I feel so anxious about often magically disappear when the anxiety attack has passed. 

5) Sometimes I can see what’s going on and I can ignore it, sometimes I can see what’s going on and I can’t ignore it, and sometimes I can’t see it and I’m going to have a pretty shitty experience for a while. I’ll probably want to leave everything, run away, die, change job, unfriend everyone on Facebook because I hate myself and everything, and everyone feels too close and I can’t breathe and I’ll be thoroughly miserable for a while. 

6) Anxiety wastes a lot of time.

7) It’s like a hurricane that seems to rise up from nowhere, it’s massively destructive, turns my entire world upside down, terrifies the living daylights out of me, and buggers off without me even noticing. As long as I haven’t acted on my anxiety impulses, life should be the same as when I left it. 

8) Its energy feels spiky, grating, like wasps. It’s not smooth, it rushes in, takes over, floors me until I recognise it. 

9) Whatever my anxious thoughts are telling me at the time, my life continues on at its own pace. It’s like I’ve stepped out of it for a little while, gone to an alternate reality, freaked out, and have come back, feeling a bit dazed and confused. 

10) It’s best if I don’t make any big decisions when I’m feeling anxious. 

 

Imagination Working Overtime 

My ‘interest’ in anxiety began when I had PTSD. It was all-consuming and hideous – the PTSD that is. As the PTSD symptoms dropped, the number of times I felt anxious dropped too, but they didn’t go altogether. Every now and again it would hit me again. To be honest, even writing about it I can feel a burning in my body and a tightness in my chest. It’s uncomfortable, my breathing doesn’t feel right. If I stay on this train of thought then I’m going to feel more anxious. 

So I’ll close my eyes for a minute, possibly drop off for another couple of minutes and I’ll be right back…

My imagination is amazing, when I write about something, and describe it, I start to feel it, so I write from there. But that means that I’m feeling whatever it is that I’m writing about and sometimes I lose myself in it for a little while because I forget that I’m using my imagination. I think we all forget that at times… We could also call anxiety an inappropriate and unhelpful use of our imagination. 

 

Dealing With Anxiety 

Dealing with anxiety, as I do now, didn’t happen overnight. I didn’t have a massive insight into how my mind was creating this experience and everything was hunk dory. Nope, it’s taken a while to get to a stage where I don’t see the point in feeling anxious. Step by step, layer by layer.

To clarify, yes, I do still feel anxious at times, and no, I don’t see the point in it, it doesn’t serve a purpose that I can find. I’m still going to do what I’m going to do, I really don’t need to take the shrill, piercing voice in my head seriously. 

Because I don’t see the point in it I’m less likely to engage with it or take notice of it. Less likely, it still catches me out at times. 

The thoughts that I get are ones that have been running through my brain for an awfully long time, they’re old and stale. I mean, how long am I going to believe that nothing I do is good enough, that I’m useless, that my world will end if I don’t do…..(choose any random thing to do), that I don’t know what I’m doing (in many contexts this is true, but it’s also not a bad thing).

I’m sure that you’re the same. If you listen to what’s going on in your mind when you’re feeling anxious, write it down even, read it afterwards, you’ll soon see that this stuff is insane!

I’ve noticed a lot about anxiety, and I mean a lot. Over time I’ve seen how thoughts can spiral down, mixing with awful feelings and leading us down to places where we have no need to ever go. I’ve seen how one thought can lead onto another, building up to a cascade of thoughts that will overwhelm my mind. I’ve noticed how anxiety lies, and whispers and shouts and screams. 

 

You’re Not An Anxious Person, You Feel Anxious At Times 

When I’m feeling anxious, I forget too that I’m not an anxious person, I’m a person feeling anxious.

If I were an anxious person then I’d avoid things that made me feel anxious, I’d want control over it. I’d limit my exposure to anxiety-raising situations, I’d make a point of letting people know that I was anxious, it would become part of me, me and anxiety would walk hand in hand together. But it isn’t. It’s something that I feel at times. As it’s something that I feel at times it doesn’t have the same hold on me. But when I was an anxious person I’d let anxiety call the shots, it ruled my life. I’d only have to have the thought ‘I don’t like this’ or ‘I feel anxious’ and I’d stop, put whatever I was doing on the blacklist and not do it again.

This is how I became afraid of saying no, setting boundaries, saying anything that disagreed with another person, all insects apart from ladybirds and money spiders, heights, depths, socialising, relationships, paperwork, writing my thoughts out for other people to read…. it ruled my life and made it smaller. Shrank it down to a size where I could barely function. It didn’t go away, it thickened around me, it spread, it infused everything.

And now I think it’s pointless…. 

 

If you want to start changing your relationship with anxiety – it is a bit of a control freak, after all, have a look here, Work With Me.