it's been a rough day. i woke with knots in my stomach, and they stayed until i decided i should take a nap so that i could have a second start to today.
knots in my stomach have been a common occurrence for as long as i can remember. several times in the past it indicated a hidden anxiety that i hadn't yet identified. knowing that got me even more upset. as i made small-talk over lunch, i noticed a few key topics that caused the knots to tighten and wash over me like flash-floods.
bren asked me the other night if i'm an anxious person. i'd never thought of it before. i asked her what she thought, but she cleverly directed it back to me. it was hard for me to answer, because in a few recent crisis's i've handled things with calm composure. but perhaps those are isolated instances, and in fact i'm on a whole rather anxious.
for me anxiety and control go very much hand-in-hand. i like to be in control of my own life. i want to be the author of my own story, and when my plans get thwarted it does not go over very well at all. in terms of other people, i don't really care. same with outside circumstances – they're not my problem, they write they're own stories. so let me just say (perhaps for the record) i like to be in control of me. and when i don't get my own way, i get upset and anxious. i'm quite up for detours, but only of the good kind variety. when i think of my future and the possibility of bad events/undesirable outcomes littering my path way, i become filled with anxiety. then the anxiety drives me. i try to do everything within my ability to stop those hypothetical tragedies from making me hypothetically miserable. as a whole, right now, i'm not miserable. but i let the potential for rain tomorrow ruin my sunny day right today (and in some cases... yesterday).
the question is, how do i undo a life-time of paranoia? how do i kick the habit of preemptive sorrow? part of me thinks "easy! give me what i want!". ok, so thinking of right now... this season of my life, i want: peace of mind, a restful heart, joy in spirit, room to breathe, and an open attitude.
today one of my silly daydreams came true. only half, but in some ways it was better than i'd imagined.
it's all those little things that i fear.
6 comments:
the phrase "kick the habit of preemptive sorrow" should be patented. you could make millions. sorry for your rough day. rest well and take care of your heart. tomorrow life begins anew.
Worrying about the future does nothing to prevent it. You can plan/prepare for it (which is good), but after that you just have to wait and see... then if something bad happens at least you'll be ready for it!
i do the same thing... it's a hard habit to kick. maybe focusing on how you actually want to live instead of focusing on what you don't want to do will help you, uh, stay focused. just redirect yourself when you hear your thoughts heading towards anxiety. or run everything past yourself as if it were a friend telling you... it's always easier to hear illogical thought patterns when someone else says them. at least i find that to be the case.
i slept well last night, but that might have been from the gravol. but aside from that, instead of letting my mind flood with sad things or disappointments, i just focused on my breathing and konked out in a matter of minutes.
i'm going to work on taking things a day at a time. and not allow myself to worry about later. tomorrow can worry about itself, right?
todays challenges: 1) write/submit story for hatch. 2) do dishes from yesterday. 3) return dvd to blockbuster and complain because it was so scratched it wouldn't play the second half of the movie.
Welcome to my world, Lesley! I have actually been diagnosed with generalized anxiety and looking back, I’ve been a very worried and anxious girl for as long as I can remember. So much so that it sometimes seems to get lost in the every day feelings of my life.
It’s only been recently (in the past couple of years) that I’ve really attempted to tackle this head on and let me just say that it is VERY hard to undo a life of worry because frankly, you can’t undo it. You can’t change past worry or past feelings, you can only move forward in a different way. That being said…that too can be hard (atleast it was for me) but, something tells me that you’d be up for the challenge!
This too shall pass, my dear.
hm, wow gen. i would never have guessed you to be anxious. you seem generally happy-go-lucky. although, you feel things deeply, so in a sense it's very understandable.
it's kind of nice to know it's a problem a lot of people experience. i hope i can get a handle of it, instead of the other way around.
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