This morning I woke up feeling anxious. I hadn’t even had a chance to think why I was wearing a prickly suit of doubt, I just was. Most of the time I’m pretty good at acknowledging and processing my emotions but sometimes I can’t keep up. 

The best way to describe how I’ve felt this week is to imagine me standing in a cricket net, bat in hand but the bowler has been replaced by one of those automatic tennis ball throwing machines and instead of tennis balls it shoots basketballs! That could be a slight exaggeration but you get the picture.

Here are a few examples…. The whole family has been sick (not covid thank goodness). A quote I sent through was rejected. Rent for home was due. Rent for the factory was due. We got a letter from the landlord saying that rent is going up. Kinda fees were due. I nearly missed my Dad’s birthday, which just makes me feel really shitty. The NZ borders are finally opening up but it will cost us $3.5K for just me and the kids to go back to see our family. December 2019 was the last time we were together. I even went to give blood, which is my one philanthropic gesture, and couldn’t because my haemoglobin was too low! Turns out I’ve been running on near zero iron reserves which doesn’t help! The ute rego is due and Frank just outgrown his last pair of decent sneakers! I really could go on but I’ll stop.

I’m still reading ‘Atlas of the Heart’ by Brené Brown and have found it to be incredibly useful to help describe what’s going on. I loved her analogue of anxiety being a ‘Willy Wonka shit tunnel’. Remember the scene in the original movie (see video of the week) where Willy Wonker floats from the wonderful candy land into the dark tunnel. The boats start going faster and faster and the imagery that gets projected onto the walls of the tunnel gets crazier and crazier. All while he’s reciting this manic poem: 

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going.
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing.
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a blowing?
Not a speck of light is showing
so the danger must be growing.
Are the fires of hell a glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes! The danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing.
And they're certainly not showing
any signs that they are slowing!

This is what anxiety feels like - Escalating loss of control, imagining the worst and complete uncertainty. Anxiety can be both a trait (considered part of someone's personality - “I’m an anxious person”) or a state (a temporary condition - “I’m feeling anxious right now”). I would consider myself a person who goes through states of anxiety with some states lasting longer than others. 

There are two coping mechanisms associated with anxiety. Worry or avoidance and I float between the two. Worry is described as a chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future. The shitty thing about worry, and avoidance for that matter, is that it doesn't actually help the situation at all. Not even a little bit. Worry and avoidance are basically fuel for the anxiety fire. 

What does help me with my anxiety is to stop and acknowledge it. For years I avoided it and didn't know how to deal with it but now (with some professional help) I have strategies that actually help. I have to run every second day at a minimum, I have to get a my 8 hours of sleep (this is achieved by going to bed at 9pm every night!) and I have to monitor and lower my expectations - for myself in particular.

This morning when I went for my run I gave myself permission to release everything that has been building up over the week. The colour of the sky was just starting to lighten, ever so slightly and the stars were still out. I literally flicked the thoughts away with my hands as I ran. I was having one of those moments of clarity that I so needed.

About 500m from home I ran past a property that has a giant Bull Mastiff. Normally it is behind a massive gate but it was 6.30am in the morning and the owner was getting into his ute for work. The gate was open and this ginormous dog ran out of the gate and straight at me. He stopped about a metre away and started barking. The owner wasn’t far behind and ran up apologising and put the dog in the ute.  

I had stopped in my tracks, not sure if the dog was going to jump or not and started to cry. Not just normal crying. Huge sobbing crying. I cried so hard that the guy didn’t know what to do and just hopped into his ute and drove off. I cried the rest of the way home, which is actually really hard to do because I was short of breath already. I must’ve looked ridiculous as I was jogging and wailing down the road. 

Something happened though. It was like the fever had broken. All of the dread and worry I’ve been holding into this week started to fade. It was almost like I’d cried so hard I couldn’t do it anymore. That dog was the last straw! He was like the fireworks at the end of a festival. That dog barking symbolised the end of my run of bad days; the tears were the fireworks/waterworks. I know there will be more bad days ahead but I decided this stretch is over.

When I was mindlessly scrolling through social media the other day (which is normally a warning sign that I’m avoiding something) I stumbled across this graph. I barely even paused  as the image flew past my line of sight but it was enough for me to grasp the concept and store it in some part of my brain that was reserved for tidbits and celebrities' faces but not their names.

I don’t know who the original artist of this graph is so can’t credit them but I’d like to thank them regardless for reminding me about the bigger picture. Bad days happen, they will always happen but how we deal with them and how much we let them affect us is something we can control. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day that we so often forget to step back and acknowledge how far we’ve come. Just remember you always are where you’re meant to be.