We are going to deep dive into some anxiety work next week.  I recently came across someone on Instagram who focuses on spirituality and centering and they had a series of posts about anxiety.  It’s timely to discuss this as we are entering a season of change and release and we are working on healing those old habits and beliefs to step into something new.  Additionally, after last week’s realization about my son and energy, I think coupling that to anxiety is appropriate.  The recent full moon is about healing and manifesting the life we want.  It is about understanding triggers, insecurities, traumas, and finding what all of that is meant to transmute to.  Again, I feel this is another appropriate coupling. 

Anxiety is all about worst case scenario, doomsday, tearing us down when we are weak—or when we thought we were strong, negative and spiraling thoughts, fear mongering, rehashing every mistake, creating problems where there are none, overthinking, procrastination, taking on other’s issues, seeking validation, needing reassurance, people pleasing, losing trust in yourself, and creating problems that aren’t there.  This is just the beginning of the list and there are physical manifestations as well.  As someone who has lived with anxiety my entire life, this is something I want to personally heal. 

The following series is a new perspective on anxiety for me and I thought it would be helpful.  I don’t claim to help resolve these issues, but reading these simple statements shifted my mindset a bit.  I was fortunate enough during the loss of our rabbit to take a positive out of that.  I witnessed my son physically need to move the emotion through is body.  I have heard that for years in the various practices I follow, but I never fully understood it.  Over time, my body has become quite stiff and I see how so much of that corresponds to me holding in or stifling emotions, the majority of them around a fear of some sort.

So the goal of this is to offer some additional insight into something millions of us suffer with.  I know how challenging  anxiety is and I know the extreme lies the mind will go to when anxiety is on a roll.  I know the lowest of lows experienced with anxiety and I think this is a conversation more people need to have.  See, we have normalized turning anxiety into a game, thinking it makes people more productive.  We have fucked with the idea of mental security through physical security and tied our worth to everything external, and if we can’t “make it,” then we are deemed failures instead of seeing the broken system.  The human psyche isn’t meant to function like that.  I want people to see they are not alone.  We are meant to change how this world functions, and we are meant to harmonize with it as it is.  The old ways no longer serve.  We’ve felt that for a long time.  Hopefully this series makes you feel less alone. 

There are always multiple sides to any story.  So what happens when you’ve only had one side and then suddenly find yourself face to face with the other?  Well, as we’ve talked about often here, the universe works in funny ways, often bringing us right where we don’t want to be, or answering that prayer just as we think it will never happen, or closing a door we thought would be open forever.  I’m sure it’s a cosmic joke of some kind.  Regardless, things happen as they are meant to in their own time, so if someone crosses your path at a certain time, then take that as a sign to deal with whatever is coming up—or at least to be open to listening.

When we were shopping on Friday night we ran into such a person.  Now, without going into too much detail, this individual was recently going through a divorce and I’m sure felt on the outside because the person who perpetrated the situation is technically on the “inside” of the family.  As time has transpired, we understood clearly that the person on the “inside” really messed up—I mean, I knew from the beginning there were problems with the story we were told (and nothing fully justified the behavior in my mind) but we got to hear all of that first.  So seeing the other person last night for the first time in years opened this other perspective. 

None of what we heard was shocking, in fact, it was kind of expected.  You know to trust your instinct and if something is off or telling you there is more to the story, chances are there is.  When we spoke with the first individual, the one who is part of the family, things weren’t adding up.  The other side of the story filled in the gaps and confirmed what we had all suspected: simply, there was more.  Whatever fears this person had about being on the outside were completely irrelevant.  We knew the truth in our guts whether we saw them or not.  Sometimes things happen and we don’t understand them in the moment, but then we DO.  It is the same in life.  Sometimes we know something in our gut but we don’t see the result right away.  This is a reason to continue until we know. 

I’m still not clear on why we randomly ran into this person—we’ve lived relatively close to them for 4 years and we’ve NEVER seen them at this store before last night.  So, in the universe’s way, it was meant to be 😊 and I know time will tell.  It always does.  It was a reminder to stay open and to offer support and love when you can.  It is a reminder that the truth comes out in time no matter what you do.  And sometimes there are no sides—it’s a matter of embracing what is in order to get to what needs to be—or what is coming.  But you never know when those moments happen.  Consider them a gift when they do.  Allow and enjoy them.  And always be ready to listen. 

One lesson I want to carry forward after the experience of losing the rabbit is how my son reacted.  He didn’t just teach me about the grief aspect and how he deals with it, he showed me what has been happening to him neurologically since he was born.  The emotions he feels are so overwhelming to him, he physically expresses them.  Whether it is the frustration of not understanding something on the first time, the annoyance of not getting his way, or the real pain of loss, he usually always has a physical reaction.  I used to think he was self-harming and we took him to be evaluated for it.  There were some insights to that and we knew early on he definitely has OCD.  But I believe some of the instances I thought were self harm were actually about releasing the energy and that didn’t make sense until I saw it in context with the rabbit. 

I am so grateful to understand him a little better now.  The things I wanted to protect him from have shown me that his challenge isn’t entirely in understanding, it’s in regulating and working with his emotions.  And that is a challenge I have in my own life.  It all makes so much sense now because there are times when my anger overwhelms me to the point of me feeling it physically throughout my body as well and even knowing it wants to physically discharge in some way.  Words completely fail and I feel stuck like a caged rat.  I see it is all the energy I can’t move through.  The difference is my son just does it.  If he feels something that he can’t articulate, he physically discharges it.

The other lesson is that kids are resilient and they are ALWAYS teaching us.  They want our presence and attention.  They want us to be there for them and they want us to have fun.  I see myself continually beating that out of him because I’m distracted or busy with one thing or another.  There are times we have to learn to just slow down and be—that’s a huge one for me.  We have to allow and learn and sometimes it isn’t pretty, but there are ways we can heal ourselves and learn about ourselves through their experiences.  They show us new ways to look at things.  I try really hard to work with him and help him through but I easily get distracted and I allow too much outside interference to bring me right back to old habits.  We never know how much time we have and we never know what lessons we are going to get on a daily basis.  So I’m suggesting we take a page out of our children’s books and stay with the moment we are in and allow things to be how they are meant to.  We can’t control it all, right? 

The afternoon we lost our bunny, I decided to call my sister because she has a different view and experience with death.  She studied to be a death doula and has helped the elderly transition during their time.  I also know she has dealt with explaining death to her daughter, my niece, several times with the loss of small animals.  I wanted to get her perspective on death and children as well as get some tips on explaining any questions to my son.  I’m so grateful I did call her.  Not that I’m trying to “normalize” death during childhood, but I do want my son to understand it happens and it IS a normal part of life.  You can see I’m working through some of my own trauma here.  I saw my first dead body when I was around my son’s age.  My grandmother being the diligent church-going woman she was took me with her to the funeral of a parishioner she knew.  I remember the confusion and fear and not understanding what happened or any relationship with the after.  I feared the woman sitting up, not understanding why we looked at her body, noticing her eyes closed but not quite all the way.

My initial experience made me fear death and loss of those around me.  Regardless of my spiritual beliefs, I could never get over the fear of losing people because I couldn’t wrap my head around what happens/happened next.  I simply didn’t want to lose them.  I lost my first guinea pig when I was about     eight.  I had spent the night at my friend’s house and on the drive home, I told my mom I wanted to hold him when I got home.  She said nothing to me.  When we walked inside, I remember it was my sister who told me that he had died that night.  I remember thinking it was a really sick joke.  But that connection creeped me out at first: I mean, what were the odds of me talking about holding him right before I found out he died?  I had spent the night at my friend’s house countless times and never mentioned the animal. It was only a handful of years after that initial experience when I lost one of the most important people to me at the time, my grandfather.  I remember touching his hand while he lay in the casket and feeling the cold.  It didn’t feel real, and I never felt a pain like that before.

So.  Yes, I know I can’t hide ANY of that from my son, and here I go trying to control what he is exposed to all over again.  And with that, the conversation with my sister made me realize that he will be ok.  As long as I don’t make a thing out of it, he will be alright.  She recommended I talk to him about my beliefs about what happens with death but to let him come to me.  Naturally I started questioning what my beliefs are and why I still have issues with death.  I mean, I have feelings about what happens but I don’t subscribe to a particular religion/belief system.  No doubt I believe in a higher power and energy and source, I’m just not quite sure what it all means yet.  She also offered to have him speak to his cousin about it because she is a bit older and has dealt with the exact situation before.  That made sense.  Again, she said to let him come to me about it.  I mean, I’ve checked on him often asking if he wants to talk, but I’m not forcing him.

I know it’s natural to bring facets of ourselves into our children whether we mean to or not.  I see that some of the fears my grandmother and mother had surrounding death made their way onto me.  I have a feeling early exposure in my life was meant as a way to teach and potentially inspire faith and to eliminate fear.  It had the opposite effect.  So I need to not react with fear in this circumstance in order to not pass that on to my son.  He made a comment this morning about wanting to rush time, and I see how I do that as well.  Always hopping to the next thing, never really being present, and I have to cure that and learn to be with him, right now, in spite of the laundry list of things I need to accomplish—and the ones I want to accomplish.  So maybe all the fears I’m projecting on him are why they’re coming true.  Missing the time we have now, losing things early.  I’ve always been concerned because he is super destructive, but maybe he’s teaching me to let go.  So maybe this is something I can let go of too.  He is fine.  He doesn’t need to carry my weirdness, he has his own 😊. All I can do is be present with love. 

The other morning my son and I went upstairs to feed our bunny together as we do every morning.  Some days it’s a carrot and some parsley, some days it’s just the carrot.  The rabbit had been sick lately, dealing with what we believe was cancer, so I always thought out what I needed to bring for him to eat.  He had just recently started eating the carrots again so I figured we would bring up his treat.  I had warned my son and husband I didn’t know how long he had, and I wanted him to be happy and comfortable.  When we opened the door that morning, I immediately saw he was no longer with us, his sweet little body laid out in the cage.  I tried to shield my son from it, quickly shooing him out of the room, but I didn’t move fast enough.

He immediately shrieked, “Is he dead?!”  I don’t want to lie to my child about these things so I told him, “Yes, honey.”  Naturally my son lost it and cried and started running around trying to expend some of the grief he felt in his own body until he threw himself on the couch.  I told him that I’m here and it’s ok and I knew he was hurting so much.  I didn’t try to comfort him as far as, “We knew he was going to go,” or anything like that because, even though I was “prepared” for the death, it still shocked me.  I felt helpless watching my son react like that.  We will get into this more later, but I have my own issues with death, so that’s why I tried to shield him from it, and also because there are still facets I don’t know how to explain to him. 

I called my husband and let him know that the rabbit was gone and I explained the situation, telling him initially that I had tried to keep our son from it.  As I was telling this to him, I heard my son cry in the background, “I saw his eyes!”  My heart dropped as I was reminded of my own first experience with death (more to come on that) and I remember the confusion.  I felt sick.  I don’t want to make death a weird thing for my son because it is a natural part of life, but I didn’t want him to experience it this soon.  Clearly, I have no control over that, and even though I was prepared for losing the rabbit, I wasn’t totally prepared to find him like that.  I try to be with my animals when they transition and I was going to try and work that out with my child.

With death being a natural part of life living alongside youth, it makes it hard to explain the dichotomy to children.  They have no clue that all life ends.  Youth is the perpetual energy machine with no end in sight, always invincible.  My son saw the rabbit alive the day before, not fully understanding that he truly was sick, and then he woke up to him dead.  They don’t understand what that cycle is.  I guess at the end of the day, I don’t really know what that cycle is either.  But seeing my son’s heart break this early broke my own with it.  I know it isn’t something we can hide from our children forever, I’ve experienced that as well on my own journey.  But I understand it differently now: I can’t prevent the hurt but I can be there with my son through it.  And that is love in a nutshell: the ability to be there through something uncomfortable or painful or even joyous.  If I can help my son understand that much, then I am happy.

I’ve had a Pothos plant for a year now.  I trimmed it back in the early days because it was getting too leggy and the beautiful leaves were turning yellow so I needed to create space for it to grow.  All of the stems I cut but one had rooted and I was able to transplant them back in to a planter where they have flourished since.  One piece, however, refused to grow.  Granted when I began it, the stem itself was about 18 inches long so that is still quite a bit to re-root and it needed a bit more trimming.  I did the initial cut and put it in water and it never grew.  So over the course of year I continued the process of cutting it back and hoping it would grow.  I cut it back to about seven inches or so and knew that if it didn’t root, that was it, I had to let that piece go.  I had been so patient over the course of this time and I didn’t want to toss it away—Something wouldn’t let me get rid of it even after I pulled it from the water before deciding to cut it one last time…but I knew soon there wouldn’t be enough left to plant anyway. 

I sat on a call with my sister the other morning and, without much thought, I noticed the water level was getting low and my first thought was that it was time to let it go.  But as I picked up the glassware with the shallow water and the lonely green stick still hanging out of it, I saw the tiniest of roots forming at the bottom!  I was reminded of the image of the person mining for diamonds and they gave up inches from striking it rich.  I had been about to give up on this plant, thinking it was over—and at the 11^th hour, its roots broke through.  In the usual show of synchronicity from the universe, I had been speaking with my sister about growth and integrating lessons and healing.  This little plant had been through a lot—it lost a lot of itself in the process of re-rooting.  But it came through.  There is something cathartic about knowing with time, anything can root.

There is also a message in the need to cut out the extraneous.  There are things we think we need whether it’s a goal we are headed toward or material goods or a certain house or car or even just a certain projection of who we are.  As we’ve talked about before, in order to find who you are, you have to first recognize who you are not.  This stem of Pothos refused to grow or sprout before this final cut.  So in a very real way, it was letting go of the last bits it didn’t need that allowed it to grow.  I don’t know if it will keep growing strong or if it will bud leaves, but it took its first steps toward growth exactly when it was ready.  That’s the thing about being part of the universe: you can’t force things to happen before their time or with things that aren’t meant to be.  That’s how the universe works.  If growth isn’t supported or if the environment isn’t healthy, there will be no growth. 

Beyond the cliché of learning to stop pushing things, the main message is trust.  Trust that everything we are brought to is for a reason.  Trust that the obstacles in our lives are meant to show us what we need to learn including what we can do without and where we need to focus.  Be patient and understand that there is a lifelong lesson in life and that is simply that we need to do the best we can and love.  Allow the love to start with who we are.  Sometimes that means letting go of the image we project and simply fostering the growth of who we ARE.  And there is no forcing something to happen before it is ready.  You can lead a horse to water, right?  So be kind to yourself and be patient.  Especially when it’s hard, be kind.  Focus on where you are at and allowing yourself to grow.  Before you know it, once you are ready to let go of what you don’t need, you will find the growth you’re looking for. 

Today I am grateful to realize my patterns.  As is it here on the precipice of the full moon, I know this is about catharsis and releasing old habits and patterns and willingly giving up things that no longer serve.  The points of ourselves that keep us in patterns are rising to the top and we need to face them.  I had such a moment yesterday morning.  I literally was talking about stopping the fear patterns and the overwhelm and focusing on what I want to do when I found myself in a spiral of “There is too fucking much going on, how did I get myself here again?’  Like, I’m not even HERE, I’m spiraling in my head and freaking out nothing will get done. And I realized THAT is the pattern I need to break—allowing the overwhelm by taking on too much, and then feeling angry or helpless about it.  I need to focus on what I’m trying to do and finish one thing at a time.  It doesn’t matter who gets disappointed, I need to prioritize what is right for me and that’s it.

Today I am grateful to honor my needs.  We celebrated my father’s birthday yesterday and our friend’s daughter as well.  I indulged a bit—not to excess (small wins!!)—and we went home.  My body has been faithfully fighting something off and it has been crying for rest for a while, so when we got home, it felt like it was time to sleep almost immediately.  I had a laundry list of things to do (including laundry) and I couldn’t bring myself to do even one of them.  Instead, I listened to my body, got myself and my son ready for bed, and we cuddled on the couch as a family.  We fell asleep for a bit, then went upstairs and actually went to bed.  I am so grateful I listened because I woke up feeling a thousand times better, more energized, and ready.

Today I am grateful to honor my boundaries.  I love my family but they are a huge distraction for me.  I work a lot and I know I need to be better about how I spend my time in certain circumstances, but I try my best to schedule.  For example, when I work on my writing, I wake up between 4am and 5am so I can do it before they wake up.  Today, my husband was up early with me and he was in my office.  We chatted for a bit but then I told him I needed to work.  I normally never kick him out but when I’m actively on a roll and he comes in during a time I designate to NOT be distracted, I have to put down a boundary.  My son will walk in and out a million times and I have to stop and restart my thoughts and I’ve had to tell him to stay out as well.  Like I said I love them, but I can’t give all of my energy to them.

Today I am grateful for self-respect.  I had a friend contact me out of the blue today because they were in our general area—actually, the farm next to us to be exact.  Regardless, I had no clue they were coming prior to that moment.  In fact, I found out they were already there when she reached out.  I know the old feeling of, “Holy crap, we need to get it together and get over there.  We won’t see them again, we are going to miss out!”  It came up for a second.  And then I very quickly did the math on the timing of the call and where we were—running errands—and realized she could have asked about it a week ago at least.  I am not going to turn my life upside down to accommodate their plans when I wasn’t part of it originally. I’m not saying they HAD to invite us, but if they truly wanted it, they could have reached out earlier.  I am done stopping the things I’m doing or the things I need to do to feel like I’m included at the last second. 

Today I am grateful for the signs and possibilities that came through today.  I’ve been thinking a LOT about my life and the next steps.  If I’m serious about the goals I have in my mind, then I need to do something about them.  I need to take actual action on it.  That means no more waiting, no more contingencies, it means making a decision and doing something about it.  Like the paragraph above, I can’t hope for a spot on someone else’s ride—I am NOT an afterthought.  Neither are the things I want to accomplish in my time here.  So.  That is the true definition of no longer asking permission.  It is in the deciding.  I have a crazy idea of what to do next—and it is definitely out there—but I also received a lot of positive signs about it today.  I’m healing fear, trauma, forgiving the past, and actually letting go of the reactivity and moving into productive creativity.  I have a shot and it’s time to take it. 

Today I am grateful for clarity.  Yesterday was my father’s birthday and we spent most of the morning with him and my mother.  During our visit a dear family friend came over as well and we started reminiscing and reflecting.  Sometimes that’s a dangerous place to go, but in this case, it felt cathartic.  It cleared up a lot of the pain and confusion we have in the present and the reality is, we all need each other now.  We need to stop acting like we have it all together and accept each other as we are.  We need to continue to offer the support we can and not assume anything.  We never know.  Beyond that, life is short so take the opportunities we are given as a gift and run with them.  We don’t need things to look a certain way to be deemed successful.  It’s how we operate in what success means to us.  So…take the crazy chances, remember you are not a second choice, and your purpose makes you inherently worthy.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead filled with health, progress, and joy.      

Our son started kindergarten this year (as I’ve talked about) and this is a first for him as far as being able to really make friends.  He was around 2.5 or 3 when the pandemic started so he missed his first year of pre-k entirely and then he was only part time last year.  But this year—he has gone all out.  He NEEDED this outlet and this relationship with a peer.  The interesting thing about making friends in this day and age is that the parents learn to make friends as well.  I don’t know how social some of you are, but making friends as an adult is weird.  Like, we have all of our individual nuances in our lives where we are comfortable in who we are and we don’t care what people think, but we know we need other people.  So…do we show ourselves in all of our weirdness?  Absolutely.  The beautiful thing about making friends as adults is being able to fully express who you are and knowing/recognizing authenticity off the bat.  Granted we don’t HAVE to be friends with our kid’s friends’ parents, but it is nice.

So we had my son’s friend and his family over yesterday night and it was beautiful.  This was one instance I didn’t feel nerves when it came to having people over and I didn’t feel like I needed to put on a show or anything.  That was a good sign.  Like our kids, we start on wobbly legs trying to find our comfort zone with each other but as soon as I opened the door, we hugged.   There was no hesitation at all.  For me, that’s an immediate ice breaker.  I noticed that the closeness of our sons made it easier from the beginning.  The fact that these boys had so much fun together from day one of Kindergarten Readiness Camp made me recognize there were similarities in us as well.  Not just in our parenting, but in our history.  I believe in being open with everyone and allowing people to be who they are, but we have a different type of bond with people when we have a shared experience.  And the only way we know about shared experience is if we talk about it.

Again adulting is weird and we get set in these patterns and it’s amazing how some of us think we have to show ourselves a certain way with certain people.  It’s the energy we give off, truly.  I totally understand some people are more closed off and reserved—I’m usually one of them until I get to know you.  But whether we believe in it or not, we all pick up on energy and we can tell by the environment we walk into what someone believes in and who they are.  It doesn’t matter what they say, it’s the energy they give off.  I have created an environment of what I try to think of as organized chaos thinly veiled with some fun decorations and a lot of my son’s toys around.  Some people in our age group are in a different boat than that.  We found some parents who are exactly where we are. 

I want to be clear on the latter point about finding people where we are: this isn’t about comfort zone.  These are people we just met so this is more about relational experience versus finding someone in the same emotional state.  Now, after spending an amazing evening with them, I do see we have a lot in common as far as where we are emotionally, but it didn’t start that way.  It started with common ground from where we were—literally.  We went OUT of our comfort zone to create a new relationship with people we only met a few months ago.  Ok, I know for some of you this isn’t anything major, I’m just talking about life here.  But for those of us working multiple jobs, working more than full time, raising young kids, helping aging parents, and all of the other things life brings our way, taking a moment to step out of that chaos and to be SEEN and HEARD and MET where you are is a beautiful thing.  It’s about feeling safe in who you are and allowing others to be seen as well. So we took the example from our son and allowed some vulnerability through—and it opened a gateway to something valuable for all of us.