Practice

Day 13 of “Shelter In Place” for Californians in the North Bay. No better time to start practicing the feelings. As I mentioned in last weeks post, I have been formally introduced to anxiety, or panic attacks lately. This is not something I regularly struggled with previously, and I don’t believe I have a chemical issue with anxiety, as some very seriously do. My son, for example has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) mildly, and that is a more serious form of anxiety that affects his brain, and he was born that way. Versus me, whom I believe is more working through grief and post trauma fall out. 

What I notice when I begin to feel anxiety specifically  is a rise in heart rate, sweating, sometimes my stomach begins to turn, and I feel generally confused and afraid. Panic sets in because I don’t know WHY I suddenly feel afraid or angst. It’s as though my mind can see a three foot cement retaining wall surround me. Instead of taking a deep breath in and out, and noting my surrounds, I freeze. All logical thought and rational stop. I no longer believe I can think through the next steps, I can no longer remember that I just have to step over the retaining wall to be free. Of course all of this can come on slowly, or rapidly depending on the day and situation, thus perpetuating the fear and length of the anxiety itself.

A good friend of mine who has suffered with anxiety and panic attacks since she was very little gave me a tool when I explained to her what had happened in my first experience. She said “This will probably happen again. Be prepared, not alarmed.” She also told me that I needed a way to trigger my brain out of it. “Head between the knees and start counting back from 50” she suggested. I feel prepared should I ever fall down the rabbit hole again, but this whole experience also got me thinking about what the hell we even get so worked up about in the first place. Like what if most of us could actually avoid the attack to begin with? Maybe not the actual anxiety itself, but the panic attack that ensues when our wild emotions get out of control. 

Enter the feels. I have a feeling (pun intended!) that most of us don’t know how to actually feel our feelings well, if at all. Feelings that are not given proper space to make themselves known, end up acting like two year olds that don’t get there way. When we don’t create spaces for our own emotions to come up and out, our bodies have to absorb that. Anxiety in this regard is like our bodys, our souls way of dealing with the denial of such a process. The rejection happening over and over again results in the anxiety attack (that fit the two year old throws when they have lost control). For me, I notice when I begin to feel anxious my insides are asking for permission to come outside and make sense of something. When I refuse this process, the anxiety (like a warning sign) continues to mount. If completely ignored (as was the case in last weeks post) a full blown melt down (anxiety attack) ensues. 

Our minds, what we think, and what we believe about what we think are SO powerful. In fact, after my year spent with a life coach I am convinced that I stayed in certain 20 year struggles because I didn’t know how to think right. I didn’t see where I was living fully inside lies in my own head and heart. I spent decades suffering because the story I had playing in my mind was a false narrative. All it took was a little guidance to show me how to recognize my own thoughts and hear the internal voices that were speaking. I am getting so good at recognizing the truth, hearing the saboteur voice and sensing it even in my body now.  To this same degree, our thoughts will dictate how we feel. But. You don’t need to be a trained mind jeti to handle your own feelings. You just need a little room. 

Is this making sense? Here’s what I mean, if when a feeling arises inside of me immediately makes me feel something (seemingly) negative, like pain, guilt, angst, fear I can  very quickly ‘hush’ that feeling down. Just like we talk to a crying tot, “Its OK baby, don’t cry.” In the same way  that we don’t want to deal with our babies and children’s big emotions, I don’t think we want to deal with our own either. So, we don’t. And, worse, we try and talk ourselves and our kids right on out of them so the uncomfortable part moves along quicker. Some of us do that with drinking, eating, shopping, exercising; cleaning; well intended parents will call halt on a whole activity to get the crying kid to stop instead of letting that kid have his feelings first, then get to a solution . The problem is, I’ll say it again here, feelings that don’t get to make themselves known end up causing anxiety attacks, sickness, depression, and well, more feelings. 

What if we just didn’t. do. anything. What if we just let it be? What if we let our six year old who was misunderstood on the basketball court in the driveway today, have his whole feelings about it. What if we waited for him to stop crying, and THEN repeated back to him his own feelings? What if we offered no solution at all to fix the problem, but just held space for the emotion? What if the thing that got him so very upset is not actually a problem, but a well meaning parent trying to ‘fix’ it is? 

What if when I looked around my clean cozy home at the end of a long day, grateful for this space I created and made for my family, I didn’t immediately turn for a distraction because what followed my gratitude was guilt. Guilt that I was no longer taking care of my ex husband (whom I decided somewhere along the way I was still responsible for emotionally, and that he could not take care of himself). What if instead of running from the sadness that instantly turned to guilt, then panic to flea, I just stayed there. Just like with the six year old, I allow myself to have the whole feeling….it starts, it rises, I rise with it, I breath, I exhale, it begins to descend. I tell myself “Yeah, its OK to feel that way. That is really sad. That’s a loss. A big fucking loss.” And I stay with it. I will tell you the truth, sometimes (a lot of times) my feelings will begin to speak to me. They are not charged as much once I have decided to stay for myself here, and those feelings I wanted to avoid reveal lies and truths. Both of which set me free. 

What if instead of doing that puzzle, or watching the thirty second episode of whatever, or making another TikTok with your roomates, you just asked those scary feelings ‘what if?’ What if you catch COVID-19 and you didn’t even leave your house, you obeyed all the rules despite so and so on social media? What if your husband can’t be in the delivery room for the birth of your first baby? What if you can’t pay the bills by next month and you don’t have a job now…..what then? Sit down. Take a few long slow deep breaths. Now introduce yourself to the feeling and make some space. “Hello fear.” “Hello anger.” “Hello heartache.”  Don’t start problem solving – remember we are just practicing feeling the feelings, we are not fixing, we need no fixing. We need relief, we need healing, but NO fixing.

My guru says “It is counter intuitive to turn our logic off most of the time, but turn it off and listen to your intuition. That’s where your answers are.”  So stay right there with your feelings and turn off your mind (logic) that is trying to make a list of the places you could apply to work at tomorrow, stay right there and tell the anxiety that it is right to feel that way. And then, do nothing. just wade in and stay. Your intuition will eventually whisper to you. Be very, very kind in this space. Teach yourself how you will respond to yourself (you are in fact creating new neural pathways as you do this!)  by speaking gently, relentlessly. 

We have started doing this around the house in the last weeks, allowing everyone to have space for the feelings. Sometimes is annoying. Sometimes downright painful, but it’s also changing us, healing us. My young son with OCD went on a bike ride two weeks ago with his brothers and I during day one of quarantine. He started panicking that he was going to get the coronavirus when he would pass lots of folks out walking. This turned to crying and screaming, and well swearing. We could do nothing to settle him, and I mean nothing. Then it hit me, let him have this and let him find his way out. So I pulled us over and said to him, “Its OK to be very scared and upset. I agree with you. When you are ready I can get you a solution.”You don’t have to stop crying.” I asked if he wanted a solution yet and he screamed no, a few profanities, and we kept riding. Then, in tears that had softened from screams,  he said  “I want a solution now mama.” 

Maybe his anxiety attack could have been cut in half had I pulled over and let him fully emerge into what he was feeling. I could have acted as his intuition’s guide by reminding him after his feelings, are the answers. His OCD does not mean he will always have irrational feelings, his OCD means he struggles to deal with the irrational feelings. Not so different than my non OCD brain after all. 

These are uncharted waters for our time. Take advantage of what is happening and turn in. Make a space for yourself and hold vigil through the emotions. Who we become on the inside is created in times like these. Be gentle brave one. Be so, so gentle, but be brave and keep practicing.

I am with you xoxo

Pinz