Facing the anxiety

Facing the anxiety

July 17, 2018 From that blog I started but closed down again

I suffer from anxiety.
 

I actually didn’t know I did, until recently. It had become such a normal situation for me, that feeling, so normal that I just accepted is as part of being me.  

It started after I left Puglia, Italy, in 2009. I’d gone there to do a yoga teacher training and I ended up falling in love with a beautiful guy who worked at the place where the training was hosted. I stayed there with him and his spiritual family for three months, and they systematically broke me down.  

Writing about it- the book I’ve written- had really made me understand what happened. I now see it so much more clearly, I understand what they wanted and I understand why I was the perfect victim. (One of their victims.)  

The first panic attack came soon after I had left. It was in the middle of the night, and I woke up with my whole body on fire. My heart was beating like five hundred galloping horses and the ripples of the galloping was setting my whole body on fire. I went out of bed, opened the window, and hung my body out of it. It was around -10 degrees Celsius and the cold air helped chill my body and mind down, along with a higher voice telling me, “Stay calm, this is a panic attack. Try to just breathe, it will pass.” 

And it did - it passed. But that same anxiety feeling of my heart burning and galloping is still with me, almost 10 years later. It happens in periods. I had a big long one when I lived in Barcelona. I’d go to sleep and then wake up two hours later, body and mind burning with fear for up to four hours every night. 

It happened again last night. I’ve had it quite a lot in the past two years. I didn’t even fall asleep last night; as soon as I closed my eyes, the heart started galloping. The heat was spreading out to my arms. That shaking, vibrating feeling of fear was pulsing through me.  

I’m so used to it now.  
 

A therapist I used to see, suggested I create “an inner garden” to escape to when things felt difficult. I picture it looking like on the photo. I have a Pinterest album with my inner garden. 

However, I stopped going to my inner garden lately because I decided to face the anxiety. To really feel it. To go deep into it. To question it. To name it. To not escape it. To be with it. To allow it. 

Needless to say, today I’m exhausted. I barely slept. And it’s a stifling 35 degrees and humid. I feel empty, like a wrung out old dishcloth. I feel so much fear around my future and what will happen after this season. Money worries me tremendously. Where will I live? How will it all turn out?  

I’m trying for once in my life to not escape myself and my situation. Not escape into a new relationship, a new city, a new language, a new job. This time, I’m here to meet... MYSELF.
 

Because if I want things to be different, I have to first be different. If I do things the same way I’ve always done them, they will turn out the same. Logical equation!