Anxiety & Hope

First, the good news. I was in a therapy session last week and I told my therapist Marcos that I was feeling dull at times, that my mind was blank. I wasn't complaining--it was more of an observation. My mind isn't racing all of the time like it used to.

"That is peace, Lauren," he said. "You just aren't feeling spun up or agitated." Another friend said I've changed. "You used to have a 'frenetic' energy." (To be fair, I am not like this all of the time. I am much more frenetic in my personal life than at work or when I am part of a group.)

This week, I was re-reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle. A French intellectual once said that you can't truly understand a book unless you've read it twice. (Someone* on Medium said the same thing. Here ya go.)

The first time I read Untamed, I was scanning the landscape. It was like I was going on a drive and didn't know where Glennon was taking me. I am thinking of the few times I drove between Seattle and Montana. The first time I drove between St. Regis and Kalispell was in the dark and snow. The second time, I was driving home in the morning and I was blown away by the beauty. The next times, I relished my favorite part of the trip.

Likewise, this book. The first time I read it, I was reading in the dark. The second time I am like "Oh yeah, I get it." The short version is Glennon didn't know who she was. As a daughter and a wife and a mother, she lived for everyone else except herself. When you live for everyone else, your life can become really distorted and messed up.

I can relate. For the past eighteen months since the Boy has been away, I am trying to come out of the rabbit hole and figure out how to live my life for myself and not other people. When I stop living my life for other people, I am hoping that I will become a more decent human and be better able to connect with others.

"Anxiety is feeling terrified about my lack of control over anything, and obsessing is my antidote," wrote Glennon. 

I underlined this line twice so when I flip through the book I can find it right away.

This was me in the spring, summer and fall of 2019. I spent a lot of time obsessing about things people I could not control. I was a mess and a wreck. When my friends would ask, "Why don't you do something about it?" I couldn't because I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to do. I was stuck. Really, really, really stuck.

I've been stuck before in my life, but this was different. I was so far in a rut that I knew I needed to get out of the living hell that was my own mind. Being stuck was good because it drove me to change instead of staying in the same old, same old. 

I realize this now, but I didn't realize it then.

My main problem was that my inner compass was broken. I didn't know what I wanted or where to go. I was lost inside my soul. Instead of asking myself for directions, I'd ask my friends. I was looking for other people for insight and explanation: What does this mean? What does that mean?

Even though some of my friends are exceptionally wise, they didn't know where I wanted to go because I didn't know. I wanted someone on the outside to tell me what to do on the inside, which does not work. Slowly, slowly, slowly, I am beginning to figure out what I need and want. More importantly, I am beginning to understand that everyone else also has this choice, too. They have their higher power, their own inner compass and I have mine. I cannot confuse the two. I wanted so many people in my life to want what I wanted, and world doesn't work that way.

I was talking with some friends yesterday when one of them defined hope. "Hope does not equal certainty. Hope is confidence in the possibility," she said. 

I used to want certainty, even if I didn't know it at the time. Now when I get anxious, agitated, amped up or whatever, I need to start reaching for hope instead of obsessing. Once I let go of wanting a certain outcome, I can let go of my worry and replace it with faith.

 

* I googled the person who wrote this post, mainly because I wanted to see if the writer was male or female. It turns out this guy was one of the suitors on Indian Matchmaker on Netflix.