Take some deep breaths before we get into this one. This is going to be a healing read. We aren’t alone, the following is reminding you that where we can feel like we can’t go anywhere but down. We could always go up. We’re flesh and blood and are in our rights to feel our emotions fully and respect them in their totality without letting them overwhelm us.
Anxiety
The spikes in bouts of anxiety has been both unpresidented and unrelenting. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. We don’t know how to even start the day not knowing what horror, injustice, or death, may lay ahead. Even though there’s no right or wrong answer does little to quiet the beast that’s ravaging our minds. Facing the idea of our own morality, and that of those we love. We’re petrified by choices we have made and those we might make.
How can we do this right? How do we make the most of the day when nothing about it feels normal anymore. Is this normal, one we could deal with. When dealing with anxiety it feels like every question or musing that comes to mind. It needs to be addressed and need be resolved. We beat ourselves up for not quite being ourselves or missing out on the obvious. It cannot be overstated enough that we as a society and a country weren’t the least bit prepared for the hurricane of emotions(a lot of negative emotions). That comes with a pandemic. Being ripped away from people we love only heightens the sense of danger and fear.
We want to help anyone to not have to deal with our own feelings. Something to distract, because, well there are more important things at hand. Silly feelings should take the back burner. The world has been quite literally lighting itself on fire randomly. The racial injustice ravaging our country is easily more important than our slight discomfort? The answer is complicated because both are important. Our anxieties shouldn’t over rule the need to fix injustices. Still, we relegate our feelings to the recesses of our minds. Taking into consideration the current political stage.
Life will always be political and we could always change for the better. While what our anxiety is telling you is unjustified, our anxiety itself is valid. Respecting that it’s there helps us understand new triggers and be gentle on ourselves. Tough love makes us take steps back instead of steps forward sometimes. Best solution is to set ourselves up to win by knowing when to step back, knowing that it doesn’t make us monsters.
Stress
A million and one things are demanding our attention from the moment we get out of bed. Maybe it’s our children, our pets, our boss, our partners. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and it’s nowhere near noon. Not even one cup of tea, without being pulled away in one direction or another?! How hard is it to understand that we need a moment, for goodness sake.
In a pandemic, we forget our masks and only realize it when we’re turned away at the door of the supermarket. People are wearing their masks on their chins. Think that pointing their face away from yours is good enough. Waiting long lines to meet COVID safety requirements before you could even get into the store. The stress builds between our brows, and along our jaws. We don’t have enough time in the day, and no matter how many cups of tea we have we can’t get through the afternoon slump. From the minute we raise our heads from our pillows, until the minute we plop it back. Something needs our attention.
We need to deal with the guilt that’s manifesting our stress. We don’t need to do it all. We don’t need to do our co-worker the “favor”, we don’t need to have a conversation we don’t want to have. All the pressure to be polite, attentive and present in others’ lives. Builds towards a mounting stress on ourselves. We want to be there for everyone. We want to do it all. We don’t want to cause any problems. The worry about stepping on the toes of people we only deal with temporarily, builds onto the pile of stress we carry.
It’s not our job to save the world. We could contribute yes, but from a place of strength and love. Feigning either one of those, no matter how well intended. leaves us in a worse position than where we started. In order to be the best person for the world, we have to be the best person for ourselves first.
Exercise the word “no”. We need to stop trapping ourselves into things we don’t want to do because we don’t want to be the bad guy. What we end up doing, is being the bad guy to ourselves.
Sadness
We hear time and time again not to wallow in our sadness. Kick the slump or Fake it till you make it! This only stands partially on it’s own two feet. Pushing down our sadness and putting on a smile. Only reinforces to our sub-consciences that our feelings aren’t valid. That feelings that aren’t pleasant, shouldn’t exist. The problem with this toxic mindset is that the unpleasant emotion (ie: sadness) only builds up. Poisoning our moments of happiness. Feeding on other negative emotions that get pushed down. We need to let ourselves be sad, we need to be vulnerable.
The argument that there’s nobody safe to be vulnerable around is a myth. We have ourselves. We can close a door and lean on it. When the sadness is overwhelming, the only thing on the forefront of our mind is how we want it to stop. Why are we like this? Why can’t we be normal. If there would be any time, a pandemic, is the best time to normalize sadness. No one is happy all the time. No one has no problems. No one is so strong that sadness doesn’t exist for them. We convince ourselves that the “other” person would handle things so much differently, so much better. They’re always so happy.
We need to do the exact thing we don’t want to in that moment. Every time, we need to feel through our sadness. Feel the pain that is shattering numb bones and hollowing our hearts. The real strength and power comes with not letting it swallow us whole. This is such uncharted territory for us there’s no sure fire way to make this easy. No map to follow. Only suggestions and individual solutions.
If one way doesn’t work for us, that doesn’t mean it’s a hopeless endeavor. We get better at the things we practice. We need to mother ourselves, comfort our sadness. Not block it, not punish ourselves for experiencing it. Feel it when we need to and make the effort to move on when we’re at the tip of the downward spiral.
A good place to start; giving ourselves a day to feel sad, cry, and truly feel it. After that, go into comfort mode and build ourselves back up. Don’t have a day? We have an hour. We have a potty break. We have so many moments we can claim as our own and feel the feelings that rise in us.
That way they can’t control us.
Yesterday: https://medium.com/@sincerelyyoli/now-again-from-the-top-6946ff318300
Start here: https://medium.com/@sincerelyyoli/7-day-self-help-guide-quarantine-edition-start-here-9cba073c426c
