When you're overwhelmed, do you ever feel as though taking things one day at a time is just too big to provide you any comfort? If yes, you may want to do what I've now learned to do instead.
The past week or two have not been that great for me health-wise. After my husband returned from a six week stint in Toronto, my body relaxed and I was so grateful to have him home that I thought that my days would now be filled with pure bliss and tranquility. However, bliss and tranquility are feelings that I continuously have to practice in my life. They do not come naturally to me. For some reason, my anxiety has spiked again and my tolerance for noise, chaos and judgment has reached an all time low. Having said that, when I would normally plummet into a spiral of self-doubt and negativity, I now have better coping mechanisms and I pause to focus on self-care (including reflection/journaling, yoga, meditation, and alone time) before I get to that point.
Before I tell you more about my secrets to stopping myself from spiralling, I want to talk more about anxiety. I used to feel as though anxiety and depression were terms that were so cliché and overused in our society that they could not possible be affecting us all in the way that we claimed. I thought that they were just feelings that you could overcome by changing something in your life. In this past year however, I've experienced it first hand. The feeling of heart palpitations and shortness of breath and like every noise is piercing through your ear drums to the point that you could almost cry. It is a very real and very challenging thing. If you've read any of my posts to date, you know that I don't say this to solicit any form of sympathy. I'm not a fan of sympathy. Instead, I'm a huge fan of compassion. I prefer to use what I experience to grow more compassionate towards others and share what works for me in order to help in any way I can. To encourage others not to give in to these "illnesses". Acknowledge the limitation, learn to cope with it and then keep moving forward, no matter how slowly. Patience has never been my thing but this kind of deep penetrating healing doesn't happen overnight, no matter how much I want it to.
Which brings me to my next point. When you're overwhelmed (with anything in your life), then how do you move past those feelings? How do you ground yourself so that you don't overreact, add more negativity into the universe and spiral into a chip eating, chocolate consuming and wine obsessed version of yourself?
Growing up, the answer that I heard to all of my troubles and anyone else's was “just take things one day at a time”. But you know as well as I do my dear Serenity Seeker, that this concept is just a way to piss you off when you're feeling like you are suffocating in your emotions.
Recently, I listened to the audiobook Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle. In her beautifully written vulnerable story about her road to recovery from addiction, she talks about how instead of one day at a time, she had to focus on the next right thing. When I heard this, something started to unlock inside me. My understanding of what it means to work through your challenges and grow into who you’re trying to become expanded exponentially. The answer is not in one entire seemingly insurmountable day at a time. It is in one thing at a time. One moment at a time. One right action or decision or choice at a time. This is where I know I need some work. But this also gave me a great sense of hope!
Growing up in an alcoholic home meant that I always had to anticipate what could go wrong and try to plan so that we would be safer, less hungry, more stable and not loose our apartment. I shouldn’t have had to, but I felt that I did. No one else was going to do it.
Let me give you an example. When I was about 9 or 10 years old, my mom received her “welfare check” in the mail and put the cash safely in her purse. It had become a routine occurrence in the months prior for her to do this as well. Each month, she would put it in there and then when we still didn’t have any food, or a phone or cable or clean clothes, or our rent paid, she would tell me that something happened. Someone had stolen the money or she had lost it. Something! I can't even tell you how many apartments that we lived in, some for only two days. On this particular month, she was planning to go out drinking with her friends. Terrified that we wouldn’t have food or would lose our apartment again, I quickly snuck the money out of her purse and hid it under my teddy bears in the closet. I guess you could say that I had stolen it but with the intent to put it back the next day so that she wouldn’t “lose” it in her vulnerable state.
The next morning, she picked me up from my grandmother’s house with a terrible look of fright in her eyes! She asked if I knew where her money was that had been in her purse and I confessed that I had hidden it. I was hoping it would spark lasting change based on the level of guilt that she had expressed, but this sadly, was not the case.
What did I learn from a childhood like this? That you can’t count on anyone else to ensure that your needs are met. The world is not safe! And you must anticipate and plan for danger! I didn't realize that this was the way that I viewed the world until I reached my thirties. But as I had kids and my responsibilities increased, it became harder and harder to keep up routines (what my husband calls my charming OCD tendencies) which I had created for myself to make the world just a little more structured, seemingly safe and secure. Over time, it grew into manifested as anxiety and obsessive compulsive tendencies.
But I do not want to be controlled by my need for controlling my environment. I don't want to be held back by feelings of panic and chaos. I want to live ~ to thrive!!
Taking things one thing at a time means sitting calmly with no distractions and allowing the emotion to flow through you. The emotions and painful past will then have less power over you. Too often, we try to numb out our pain. We "get hooked" as Pema Chodron calls it. We reach for anything that will make us feel better. Control over our lives and others, food, alcohol, shopping, Netflix.... anything! These things are not inherently bad. But they keep us from living life to the fullest if we constantly seek comfort from them. It's not about overcoming everything at once. And it's not about changing for anyone else but YOU! It’s about processing more and more each day so that one day, you wake up and you feel slightly calmer than you did the day before. Slightly less compelled to plan and control that which can’t be planned nor controlled. Compassionate instead of drowning in guilt and self-doubt. Reaching, not for one day of life at a time, but for one beautiful delicious moment at a time. Just breathe, and soon, you will be on the other side of this.
Until next time my friends! If you like (or love) this post, please share with your friends. If you feel compelled to share any strategies for getting through tough times in your life, I would love to hear from you and I'm sure everyone else would as well. We're in this journey together!
~ Katrina, xo
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