I’d love to have a chat with my anxiety
This may seem daft but there are times I would really love to have an actual conversation with my anxiety. I, like so many of us, have been anxious about so many things during the lockdown and again, like many, have been looking forward to us being safe enough to start easing the lockdown restrictions.
Now this is starting to happen and it is a real light, but instead of my anxiety starting to disappear as I hoped it would, it hasn’t. It seems to have simply changed its course. I couldn’t understand why I was feeling the way I was for a few days – on edge, couldn’t relax, couldn’t put my finger on why, but then it dawned on me. I am anxious about coming out of lockdown.
Even though we haven’t even returned to “normal” circumstances, I have already started to mentally put pressure on myself, by subconsciously feeling I must “catch up” on these last few months. And this is where I would love to chat to my anxiety. You see these feelings are really real and at the moment my gut feeling and anxious belief is I really need to get back to where I was and what I was doing before lockdown, and where I should be now.
But if I take a step back and actually have a conversation with these emotions I would very much like to say –
Are you daft? I have nothing to “catch up” on. I have been doing everything I possibly can to make life as safe and as happy for my family during this time – like so many have and still are – and that is more than enough.
I need to remind myself and the anxiety that these emotions are just that – anxiety and it is not me.
I have been doing the best I can and that is enough. There is nothing more I “should be doing” or “could be doing better”. My enough is good enough. Instead of being a self critic I need to acknowledge what I have done and celebrate the small successes, not just the occasional big successes that come around.
So anxiety if you are listening I am going to try my best to see you for what you are and to not have you being the dominant thought anymore, because anxiety – you are wrong.
