This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.
I recently came across this definition for anxiety, which rang so true for me.
“Anxiety — a condition in which the brain’s alarm bells keep on ringing, ringing, and ringing … Long after they have served any useful function.”
(from Transcendence: Healing and Transformation through Transcendental Meditation)
P.S. Just between us, I really don’t like some definitions, truthful though they may be.
(Or is the plural of “Happy” spelled “Happies”? The jury seems to be out on that question.)
This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.
I LOVE yellow. It’s such a standout HAPPY color.
Bouquet in the lobby of Resorts World Catskills back in JulyField near the hotelAtlanta Botanical Garden
I also love Happy. Happiness. Happier.
I even have a Happy Cup! Don’t you?
I like him because he’s always happy. No matter which way you turn or spin him. No matter what you put in him. Even hot coffee! Even with his fine line wrinkles (look at pic closely).
The cute little jokester!
A contributing factor to my ongoing issue/challenge/frustration with anxiety is that I aspire to be that Happy Cup. After all, I write a blog named “NealEnJoy”! So when Unhappy (i.e., breathing difficulty, fear of nausea, etc.) comes a knockin, my first response is often to ignore it (as if) and with gritted teeth BE HAPPY. Or more honestly put, pretend to be happy.
This opposites-competing cognitive dissonance is not fun or … happy. Try though I do to keep happiness wound up.
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Here’s my Happy Holder. What, you don’t have one?
He doesn’t turn around or spin in quite the same way as my Happy Cup.
And he irritatingly tells me that my blog should more truthfully be named “NealDoesn’tALWAYSEnJoy.” Because Neal (or anyone else) doesn’t always.
“Backside” thinks he’s so smart he even quotes Jung.
A DIFFICULT BUT TRUTHFUL LESSON.
But I have to confess that I still prefer Holder’s “front” side …
This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.
This time a turkey, cheddar, lettuce, tomato and onion pita.
2. Truth …
3. Discovering Senior Citizens Inc. here in Savannah and attending a fascinating lecture, “The Rosenwald Schools: Challenge and Triumph.”
I bought the book!
4. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.
5. My chair in our study! It has a personality of its own. It’s alive. It (he? she? they?) is a place of refuge for me. It’s where I read. And mediate. It’s where I sit in peace.
And where I often sit in not-so-peace when my anxiety, Truffles, comes a’knockin. (My anxiety protocol sheet is at the ready nearby in the magazine rack.)
And the checkered pillow?
I bought it for my father when he was in assisted living and early dementia.
This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.
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NOW — One of the most significant words in my life … right now.
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“Everything we do happens in the present moment. Thinking happens here. Remembering happens here. Feelings unfold in the now, and so do urges. NOW is where our lives are lived.”
— Forsyth and Eifert The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety
Why, oh why, do I keep forgetting (often purposefully) this dynamic truth?!
If you are a regular blog follower (and why on earth would you not be?), you may remember that I struggle with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), especially as it concerns my irrational fears of breathing issues and throwing up. TMI?
[Side-note: Other than the disgusting TMI above, I’m perfect. Don’t believe me? Okay, just ask HR.]
[Side-note #2: DO NOT try to contact HR for any reason in the foreseeable future. He has disappeared, and I will let you know when I find him.]
Mindfulness practice is trying its best to teach me that attending to right now, just as it is, even with thoughts and feelings of anxiety, is productive. Attending to now steers me away from negatively reacting to my anxiety with doomsday thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Mindfulness encourages me to simply pay attention to those thoughts emotions and behaviors, and to go on with my life.
Well, at least in theory.
My often but always-nonproductive strategy when dealing with the DA (Dragon Anxiety) is to fight it. Fight fire with fire. Denying it, ignoring it, feeling sorry for myself, comparing myself to all those “they-don’t-have-to-joke-about-being-perfect” people out there who NEVER think they are about to stop breathing right now. Or about to vomit. (How I hate that word.)
Whew.
Breathe.
So on this Thursday I set an intention to embrace Now.
I will try to make the best, healthiest choice that Forsyth and Eifert offer in my Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook:
“You can choose to continue your unpleasant experiences with hardness and negative energy. Or you can decide to be kinder and gentler with yourself, to create space between you and what your mind (based on old history) is telling you.”
I’ll try to let Neal’s Now actually be Neal’s Now.
[Side-note #3. I sorta found HR. So I guess you can ask him. I can deal with his answer. Besides his answer is not in Neal’s Now right Now.]
This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.
Homework from a recent therapy session found me composing “realistic” affirmations or mantra statements. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, which is ironic since I never do anything perfectly.
As with most of us, I suppose, I really want life to bend in the direction I desire. But it often (very often) does not.
Here are a few affirmations I will (sometimes begrudgingly) practice:
“My life IS as it IS right now, and I accept that truth.”
“Everything may not be perfect in my life right now, and I am accepting of that truth as well.”
I LOVE fellow (shouldn’t there be a female version of that word?) blogger friend McKenzie ‘s post yesterday. She has named her eating disorder “Lavinia.” Say it out loud … “Lavinia!”
Here’s the link to her Cool with a capital C post on McKenzie Free:
I have decided to follow in the footsteps of my fellow blogger Neal (Hello, Anxiety: “A Christening — Introducing Anxiety’s Brand New Name!” – …
This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.
If you read my most recent “Hello, Anxiety” post, you may remember that for a variety of mostly sensible reasons, I have nicknamed my anxiety “Truffles.” In a nutshell, I’m trying (gritted teeth) to recognize anxiety as a part of my experience. And to back off from automatically wanting to fight it as my mortal enemy.
Well today HR (Husband Robert) and I were in Big Kroger here in Savannah, stocking up on supplies for the upcoming Easter egg hunt with the grandkids.
Seriously?
“Wait,” you interrupt, “Why call it BIG Kroger?” Because it’s GIGANTIC. I have to use GPS to find Spam. What? You don’t eat Spam? Okay. Whatever.
It’s a twenty minute Uber ride to the cracker aisle.
Anyway, I was walking (exhausted) down Aisle 2043 looking for colorful napkins when I stumbled into Truffles.
She/he/they was/were standing there, resplendently purple. Queenly. Kingly. I tried to walk past, pretending I didn’t see.
But I couldn’t. I stared. Transfixed. I picked Truffles up. Held him/her/them in my hands.
And for the first time in a long time (maybe forever), I was able to laugh, LAUGH, at my anxiety. Perhaps, laugh WITH my anxiety. In Big Kroger of all places.
I placed anxiety back on the shelf. Started to walk away. Finished with the little play.
Robert looked at me, stopping me, and said, “Neal, who knows when we will be back here, or if it will still be on the shelf.”
Irritated, I stood there.
Stood.
Between Robert and anxiety. Then sighed, walked to the checkout counter.
This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.
On a recent long weekend trip up to Atlanta, Robert and I explored and ate and barhopped and went to the symphony and the theatre and even the opera.
Outside the High Museum of Art
We really had a terrific time. Well, most of the time. Except for the time when it wasn’t so terrific for me. (Which means that at that particular time it wasn’t terrific for HR either.)
Truffles (my nickname for my anxiety) showed up (uninvited) on the first evening of our … terrific trip. I don’t have a hold on whether or not I sometimes trigger my anxiety (I suspect I’m a culprit), but I do know that when I get pretty (ugly?) anxious, I sort of lose grip on the usually cool, calm and collected Neal. Together Neal. Funny Neal. Public Neal. Those Neals suddenly skedaddle. I can’t make them stay, though desperately I try.
We were staying in a very cool Airbnb steps from lovely Piedmont Park. Robert had prepared a beautiful roasted garlic chicken penne with asparagus supper. But Truffles was already making his presence known before we even sat down to eat. You see, I had gotten sick at the end of our last Atlanta trip, and I suppose I was a bit concerned it might happen again.
And then I looked closer at Robert’s beautiful food, and my anxiety skyrocketed. Which of course makes absolutely no sense. But neither does generalized anxiety disorder, at least not to me. I didn’t want Truffles there ruining our evening. So I did one of my Two Least Effective Ways to Deal With Anxiety Strategies: Nothing. I said zilch to HR and pretended to him and to myself that all was well. (In case you are interested, the other least effective strategy is to fight anxiety as my mortal enemy.)
Then dinner itself quickly became my enemy. The garlic smelled far too garlicky. And the creamy garlic sauce was leaning toward being alfredo. Which is perfectly fine for 99.9% of the human population, but I have a crazy connection in my mind between alfredo sauce and breath-inhibiting nausea. And the thought of being nauseous electrifies my anxiety. (I know, I know, I need to just get over this.)
The evening was unraveling. I felt bloated, even though I had barely touched dinner. All because of Truffles! I wanted to pack up and head back home. Because of course you can just run away from anxiety. Leave it geographically behind.
Of course Robert quickly saw through my attempted impersonation of “Normal Neal.” It wasn’t hard. I’m an easy read. I wasn’t eating, and my breathing had morphed into anxiety staccato. My eyes were wet.
I tried to explain. But you (well, I) cannot explain anxiety. It’s too person-specific, too nuanced. Too IN YOUR FACE at the moment.
Levelheaded HR reminded me that I had a protocol of strategies (which I had forgotten all about) and graciously told me that I didn’t have to eat. “It’s fine.”
I was so Truffled that I even called my therapist back home in Savannah, and Rubi agreed to chat. (Do other folks harass their therapists the way I do, thinking Rubi is constantly glancing at his phone to see if I need anything?) (No? Why not?!)
Fast forward a bit. You really don’t need to see me at my most anxious and illogical self. Sound encouragement from Rubi, chewable Benadryl, deep breathing and (finally!) accepting that Anxiety/Truffles was a part of me and that I have gotten though this many times before all helped to ground me into the reality that life goes on, that the storms don’t last forever.
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The next morning, after I set the table for breakfast, Robert weirdly placed a third plate down. Pulled a third chair to the table in front of the plate.
HR then dramatically pointed at the third plate and chair and said …
… “I think we need to make room at the table for Truffles.”
I made HR reenact the moment of his Truffles invitation. For posterity.
I’m glad I married a creative genius. But I’m also glad the only other clean plate was a smaller one.
Of course Robert—and Therapist Rubi—are right. (Sometimes I get the advice from my two R’s mixed up. It’s often quite similar.) They are both gently pushing me to recognize and accept my anxiety, Truffles, as a part of my life. And to back off from being so dismissive, unaccepting, hopeless (at least in the moment) and combative toward it.
So, okay. I guess. I’ll try. If you absolutely insist.
“Truffles, I invite you to sit at the table.”
“But I expect you to sit properly at that table. And to use your best manners. And to have taken a very hot shower before you come. With antibacterial soap. We all know Truffles can reek. And do not try to dominate the conversation. HR and I have a few things to say ourselves, you know. And if you don’t have something nice to say about people or things, just don’t say anything. And please do not overstay your welcome. This is not a spend the night party!”
“So, yes, Truffles, I invite you to sit at the table.”
Truffles: “I actually feel sorry for HR and Rubi. They’ve got their hands full with this one. When I’m with him, I’m often on the verge of a panic attack myself.”
NealEnJoy 