ON ADDRESSING MY ANXIETY

THIS MORNING, I WAS GREETED BY ANXIETY. I normally would’ve brushed it off with a change of environment and getting a literal move on, like swimming or driving around, but as luck would have it, the bug I’ve been fighting off the past week has fully manifested. I considered drowning the nagging feeling by scrolling through Instagram, when a line from Love (I’ve recently been binging) popped into mind: “Best thing you can do right now: don’t try to feel better. Just feel. Feel it all. Today and tomorrow. Just pass through it. Coz maybe something positive has happened. Maybe you need to clean out some emotional space for something good.. something new.” Nevermind that Mickey’s boss used this line to hit on her, it’s actually packed with a whole lot of wisdom. So, instead of my phone, I grabbed a pen and my journal.

Listing down my anxieties was really calming. Before writing it down, it was just this huge, faceless, grey cloud over me. On paper, I saw it in detail. As words flowed, I began to see patterns and causalities, and the huge grey mess started to unravel. It wasn’t one incomprehensible whole with no beginning and end, it actually is a sum of parts. And when you pay close attention to it, you can see it broken down to manageable pieces which are surprisingly pretty easy to address. And that’s the something good – CLARITY. It’s fitting because it’s also the tail end of Mercury Retrograde which, aside from having anything that can go wrong, go wrong, is also a time for introspection and re-evaluation.

In my case, I keep coming back to the same question – what am I doing with my life? That’s basically where all my anxieties stem from. The feeling that I’m not creating as much, that I’m not making any positive impact on this messed up world, that I’m just wasting my time doing something that isn’t what I am meant to be doing, that my life isn’t being optimized. These are all rooted in my expectations of how life ought to be by now based on my goals and dreams when I was younger. And that’s the thing that gets me, have I been doing anything towards those? Am I going in the right direction? And importantly, are those goals and dreams still applicable to me, now? Transforming these thoughts into written word makes its grip on me less powerful. Knowing what I’m up against gives me a sense of control, like I have a literal handle on it, and at the same time, it silences doubts by addressing these instead of ignoring them.

We may have different kinds of anxieties but I think it’s safe to say that it generally stems from that overwhelming feeling that we don’t have control. Control over the outcome, over other people’s reception of us and our ideas, over the general presence of others, over our subconscious needs and wants. We may not have control over the future, but we have control of the here and now. Perhaps not of everything, but we do have command of how we react to the situation at hand. And I guess sometimes, we just have to focus on what we have control over rather than the things we don’t. It’s HARD, but it helps. 

So next time anxiety strikes, feel it through. Don’t shrug it off coz it will only make it worse. Acknowledge then address it and you will be able to go through its layers and find out why – why this and why now? Don’t judge yourself and allow yourself to dive deep. Freehand writing is a good exercise in self-awareness. When you figure out what exactly your trigger is, break it down into manageable parts. Focus on where you have control in that situation and use that as a jumping point for your plan of action. It doesn’t have to be a 10-step grand plan, just work on the next step. Do it again and keep going. Coz we can only control ourselves in the here and now – it’s not ideal but that’s the way it is. And if these steps sound way too hard, there’s no shame in talking to a trusted friend and/or a professional. Sometimes all we need is someone to reassure us that it’s okay.. and it will be okay.

Cheers x