I have been struggling a bit with anxiety lately. It is something that I have struggled with for many years, and something that I have faced head on many times. I have been lucky to have been able to seek and access help at times that I felt that I wasn’t quite managing it on my own. Over the years, I have learned different ways of getting myself through some very difficult times. I have also learned that everybody deals with their struggles in their own particular way. I think that’s such an important thing to know.
My children and I have been through one of the most traumatic events for any family to survive. They deal with it in their own, very different, ways and I deal with it in mine. I think if you ask my children what is the one thing I have taught them that has helped them to get through I think they would repeat something I have told them many, many times:
“Everybody has their shit. It may not be your shit or my shit, but it’s theirs and they have to deal with it.”
MK
Not particularly eloquent, but it has taught them that nobody is immune from struggles. If something is upsetting them or causing them stress, it really doesn’t matter what it is. One person can’t say that their own struggles are more or less significant than someone else’s. I am certain that this way of thinking about others, despite their own personal situations, has helped them to become two of the most compassionate young adults anyone could have the pleasure of knowing.
Reminding myself of the amazing people my children have become is one of the tools I use to pick myself up when I feel myself shutting down. But there are times that thinking of my children and what they have overcome has the opposite effect. At those times I feel as though I’m waiting for the other shoe to fall. Rather than accepting that my children are alive and well as a gift and something to celebrate (which obviously, it is), my anxiety levels skyrocket and I feel as though the clouds are gathering; I have been too lucky, something bad has to happen.
It’s those times when I know that I need a little extra help. I know, of course, that it is a simple matter of a change of perspective. Sometimes, though, my usual bag of tricks doesn’t work, and I have to do one of two things, try something new, or ask for help.
So, today I decided to try something new. Meditation. Well, it’s not really new to me, I’ve done yoga on and off for years and meditation is a big part of that. But today I decided to give meditation a go in its own right. I downloaded the Headspace App yesterday, after binge watching The Mind, Explained on Netflix. I was home by myself, the house was quiet, it was time to get started.
I made myself comfortable, the dogs curled up on the couch on either side of me and began my first ten-minute meditation session.
The first thing I have to say is that ten minutes went a lot faster than I expected. I didn’t think I’d be able to just be still and focus on my breathing for that long without being distracted. But it turned out that it didn’t matter if my mind wandered, which it did. The calming voice of my guide reassured me throughout the ten-minute session that it was okay to let my mind wander, even encouraged it from time to time, but then helped me to bring my breathing back into focus.
When my guide gave permission for me to slowly open my eyes I kind of felt a little cheated. I felt as though I was just starting to get somewhere, that it was getting easier to bring my attention back to my breath, I felt a quietening of my thoughts, I was beginning to feel settled. I wasn’t ready.
But, it was a start. I can’t say that I feel any better, or that I feel less anxious. And I knew that a ten-minute meditation session was not going to do much. But what I’m hoping is that giving myself the gift of ten-minutes a day of introspection, ten-minutes a day of quiet, ten-minutes a day of focussing on nothing but my breathing will, eventually, help me to bring my anxiety back to a level that I can manage.
Interestingly, the two dogs were also completely calm during the ten-minute meditation. I could feel their chests rising and falling in time with my own breath where they were curled up next to me. I don’t know if it was because they felt me relax, or if they were calmed by the voice of the guide. Or, and this is more likely, they were just asleep, which is how they spend most of their day. But, within a minute of me opening my eyes they were both running around the living room, jumping up and smashing their snouts against the window trying to catch the blowfly that had snuck in through the doggy door that had been flapping back and forth with the steady breeze outside.
One thing that the ten-minute meditation did do for me today, it got me off the couch, make a cup of tea, walk over to the corner of the living room, open the doors of the little black cupboard, turn on the lights, open my laptop and start typing, with Yo Yo Ma’s Cello Suites playing in the background.
And, it reminded me that it doesn’t matter what I write about. It doesn’t matter if I can’t get my thoughts together in the way that I think they should be in order to write something of substance. I don’t even have to write anything of substance. I don’t have to write for anyone else. I just have to write for me.
MK
Little Black Cupboard 