The Gift of Peaceful Living

 

Source: https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/
real-life/anxiety-memes/

It’s been 5 months since I wrote my blog on my battle with anxiety disorder. I had such an overwhelming response to it and cannot thank you all enough for your words of encouragement. It was one of the darkest times I have ever been through. My anxiety was closing in quickly from daily to hourly to minute by minute, to the point I thought I was suffocating. What exacerbated it all was feeling as if I was alone. Going public with my feelings was the best decision I could have ever made for myself (as terrifying as it was to put it all out there). What happened next was two-fold. Not only did it help me by putting my thoughts in writing, I found it helped so many other people who I had no idea were suffering or had a loved one that suffered from anxiety. They had no way of understanding how they felt or how they could help them and reading my experiences was a starting point for a conversation.

5 months later, I am still on anti-anxiety meds. Those, combined with an amazing support system and changing some of my daily habits, I have been able to keep my panic attacks at bay. I wish I could say “I’m cured!!”, but there is no such thing. However, I am no longer living in daily fear and, to me, that’s an amazing gift. 

The gift of peaceful living.

Through all of this, I discovered a few things that have really helped me and maybe it can help others:

• The need for quiet time. It can be as little as 15 minutes per day (but I strive for more). That is when I recharge. Whether I’m meditating or just sitting in my thoughts, it is imperative to my mental and emotional wellbeing that I get that time for me, as often as possible.

• As part of that quiet time, I've learned to savor the moment. With a lot of practice, I've retrained my brain to be more present, to live more in the now and purposeful, and most importantly cherish it, because the “now” is the only time we have guaranteed. Part of my anxiety stemmed from always worrying about “tomorrow” I need to prep for this big call. I’m so behind in this work, I’ll get to it later. What if this happens? What if this doesn’t happen? I didn’t realize how much “tomorrow” dominated my thoughts. Don’t get me wrong, those thoughts still pop up on occasion, but now I know how to catch them, sit in that feeling for a moment and let them go so that I can focus in the now.

• Sit in negative feelings. (But do not linger in them). I am an avoider by nature. Rather than avoid the negatives, I now lean into the uncomfortable feelings of dread, sadness, anger, guilt, resentment, embarrassment, frustration, and then I am able to release them. It’s quite eye-opening how once you start doing this, it changes your attitude about everything. Automatically, things that were a big deal or scary before, are no longer such a big deal. Things that frustrated and angered you before, magically become much less frustrating and irritating.

And because of that, I am able to:

• Focus on the positive in situations. I have always been a true believer that everything happens for a reason. Inevitably I get stuck behind a slow car when I’m in a hurry. Rather than cringe in a frustration, I wonder if I was slowed down for a reason unbeknownst to me. Maybe later I’ll realize it or maybe I will never know. Either way, I continue to work hard not to get worked up over situations beyond my control. Talk about a stress relief!

• Lastly, and probably most important: Give yourself grace. I accept that I'm not perfect. I accept not everyone is going to like me or agree with me. I accept the flaws that make me, me. I honestly didn't realize how much pressure I put on myself until one day I paid attention to the voice in my own head. I was like "Whoa. WHO is that a-hole? How dare she talk to you like that? Are you gonna take that?" Guess what? It was me. I'm the a-hole. But no longer. We had a little chat and we called a truce. She is much nicer now. Here's a huge lesson learned: it's a lot harder to deal with an a-hole within, because YOU NEVER GET A BREAK. After a while, those little subliminal thoughts have piled on to your anxiety and you have no idea where they came from. All you know is that you've heard them routinely and you have conditioned yourself to agree with them. Nip that in the bud immediately and you've conquered the first step toward giving yourself the gift of peaceful living.

All of this is a constant work in progress, but I've reached a point now where it's less "work" and mostly "progress" and that is where the sense of peace quietly enters the picture.

One last thing. Each day I start my day in gratitude. I say or write down 10 things that I'm grateful for, because it sets the tone for the entire day. I wanted to share one of them from this morning:

I am grateful for the sudden urge to write again.  

So here I am, with the hope that this little blog helps you get started in finding your own peace.