When Your Anxiety is Truly Monstrous (Part III)

We all experience the world and people around us through our six senses.  Two things that we can do no matter where we are to calm ourselves down when feeling significantly restless, anxious, and/or panicked...is to shut our eyes (if possible) and start breathing more slowly and more deeply.  As I have mentioned countless times before in my blog, when you can inhale through your nose with your mouth shut for a count of at least 4-5 seconds...and then exhale out your mouth for a count of at least 5-6 seconds, you are practicing to create your own single "breath cycle" that lasts at least 10 seconds.  Six or fewer breath cycles per minute for 3-5 minutes is your guarantee that you WILL feel "better" and less anxious or panicky as you breathe in this way.

Of course, there's always a catch to pursuing a practice that we have not yet made into a habit, let alone a "good" habit.  Have you noticed this?  I sure have.   We generally won't do something without putting our own unique "spin" on what is being suggested to us.  Breathing techniques vary greatly.  If you are seriously wanting to change your breathing habits for the better so as to avoid problems with panic attacks and/or anxiety that keeps getting worse and worse...you need to research deep breathing techniques online to practice and then discover what most appeals to y-o-u.  Not me, not that guy over there, not your neighbor across the street.  You figure out what you are most comfortable doing so as to breathe more deeply and more slowly...and then do it.  It is that simple.  If you can slow down your own breathing in-and-out "cycle" to last 10 seconds at a minimum (which means "6" cycles of breathing in-and-out within every minute of time)...I GUARANTEE you will slay your anxiety and panic when you can breathe like that for 3-5 minutes whenever you are struggling.  When your brain and body are calmed down by your breathing in this way....your anxiety-based thoughts and feelings cannot help but abate as well!

Other than our breathing, we can calm, relax, and comfort ourselves through our six senses.  What are our six senses?  What we SEE, what we HEAR, what we SMELL, what we TOUCH, what we TASTE, and what we SPIRITUALLY discern to encourage, inspire, and motivate ourselves in a "right" versus a "wrong" way...

The proverbial "sixth sense" to do with our spirituality and spiritual condition cannot be overstated.  What you believe to be absolutely true (or not true!) about yourself DOES have a significant and long-lasting impact on how you treat yourself generally speaking---as well as others.  

Your spiritual condition also guides your choices, your life's path, and your relational dynamics with others.  In this way, our spiritual condition can authentically work to help us heal from the inside out---or continue to rot us from the inside out.  It's your choice, as it's always been.  Pick one.  

Do you want to truly get better and be set free from the shackles of chronic and intense anxiety---or not?  Spirituality is not "religion" by the way.  Anyone can "religiously" do anything and still be rotting from the inside out every single day.  Spirituality is allowing yourself to be connected and experience, on a personal level, The One who created you, from the inside out, so you can be salt and light to the world around you.  That's so much more than just saying the words "Namaste" or going to yoga seven days a week.  If you genuinely want to experience inner peace, which cannot be faked, you better get connected to the spiritual side of your human being status.  There are eternal lessons for all of us, but if we keep ignoring them or remain too shutdown or too angry to even notice them...our prognosis will remain grim.  Note to self:  wake up this part of you that has been dead or asleep for far too long. 

As tools to help us better manage our intense and chronic anxiety, our remaining five senses do need to be stimulated in order to help us bring ourselves back to the "here and now" in a more helpful than harmful way.  Bringing ourselves back merely means getting back to the "now" of your life instead of remaining all caught up in your fearful/anxious/panicked thoughts and feelings when you are stuck there.  I have had clients in my office talk and talk about upcoming events as if they were about to be led to a firing squad if and when they go!  "I can't go!  I can't do it!  I'd rather get in a car wreck so I don't have to go!"  Huh!?  Yeah, like that!  Instead of fixating on the fear and anticipatory anxiety that leads this type of thinking...stimulating our five senses can really help to get us back to the here and now without perpetuating this insane line of thinking.  

When we are successful enough at it, we find that we can more sooner than later move on mentally to something else more productive.  Eventually, our anxious thoughts which drive our anxious feelings become less and less intense because we "know" what to do to calm ourselves down on demand without the help of weed, booze, food, gambling, sex, or whatever other personal vices we use to numb ourselves out to our dysfunctional thoughts and feelings.  Oh, and we can't forget codependency either as a dysfunctional "tool" we use to take us away from our anxious thoughts and feelings.  "I don't have time to think about my crap;  I have to go babysit my 23 grandkids today!"  :-P

Of course there are thousands of "ideas" as to how we can incorporate what we see, hear, smell, touch, taste and spiritually pursue to help us calm ourselves.  The question becomes, "What works for you?"  With "taste", for example, many of my clients have responded very well to a super sour warhead candy or sour bubblegum popped into their mouth when highly anxious.  Others, a drop of Frank's hot sauce on the tip of one's tongue works best.  Others still prefer biting into a piece of fresh lemon or lime.  It's all up to you what you prefer in this regard, so long as it takes you out of your head and back into the "now" of your current real life reality.  (Wow!  My rear end really is NOT on fire, I'm just driving along I-94 to Eastern Market and it's a beautiful sunny day!)

Regarding "touch", walking barefoot on a cold sidewalk for as long as necessary can be enough to "redirect" oneself through physical touch back to the here and now when they find themselves especially anxious or otherwise distressed.  Same is true when we hose ourselves down with the cold water outside in summer...take a cold shower....stick our hands in a bowl of ice water for as long as we can stand....walk barefoot in snow....and/or cover ourselves in a weighted and heated blanket.  Again, what works best for you may be different for me or that guy over there.  The key is discovering whether the controlled use of "hot" versus "cold" or a combination of the two works best for you!  For some, just petting an animal or having favorite fabrics against one's skin is enough in this regard.

What we "hear" that helps varies greatly.  Some people love the silence and will wear noise cancelling headphones all day long when "out" in public.  Others do not.  I use Alexa at home like my musical butler;  "Alexa, play Grace Potter.."  "Alexa, play William Orbit.."  and on I go.  Some prefer to use their earbuds to listen to the spoken word or favorite audiobook.  Whatever works for you when you discover it, will work for you;  what you choose to hear matters to take your mind away from your anxious thoughts and feelings!

If you haven't already guessed, our "inputs" to our senses can definitely work against us just as they can work for us.  If you wake up to the sounds of your neighbors fighting upstairs, as you smell something nasty that you can't identify, as you open your eyes to see your cat staring at you with a dead bird in its mouth, AND feel the bile in your gut coming up into your mouth at these same moments...how's that going to work to help you feel GOOD today?  Not at all actually!  Think about that.  Many of us choose a crappy lifestyle we don't even know we are smack dab in the middle of until someone ELSE points it out to us---and we finally understand them!  In this example, noise cancelling "everything" set up in bedroom...scented candles available/room spray/diffuser "on" or quickly accessible...no cat access in or outside of home while you are sleeping!  Either in room or out of room as you wake up!  And finally, if reflux is a "thing", don't eat so late at night before bed---or have your Tums/Prilosec on nightstand with water nearby.  Done!

We actually do have control over our chosen inputs each day which stimulates one or more of our six senses.  The tragedy is when that combination of stimulants we have become comfortable with...work to exacerbate our chronic and intense feelings of anxiety---and we don't even notice!

I can remember as a college student how one of my professors had classical music playing in his office pretty much "always" whenever one of us walked into his office.  I finally asked him one time why he never had anything else on but "classical".  His answer was simple and to the point:  "It makes me feel calm in an otherwise chaotic environment."  Touche.  That's what we all seek...or at least I hope it is!

Untl next post....

Anxious Encounters....

Before offering up the next post in my series on monstrous anxiety, I had to write this one.  Sometimes that happens due to too many real life incidents to remind me of those teaching tools that matter.  Today, I am presenting the some of the lessons associated with "anxious encounters" we all have pulled...or have been pulled into...in our own lives.  Here goes...

Just today at work, when I walked into my office...there was a stranger (woman) standing outside the waiting room and talking on the phone.  She did not stop talking on her phone, but she did say while looking at me, "Nobody is here, but someone just came in now..."  So, me being me, I asked her "Can I help you?" as I looked her in the eye.  She continued talking on the phone and broke eye contact with me.  I didn't have time to wait around for her to untangle herself from her cell.  She then looked at me while talking on her phone and said "I'm here to pay a bill." between breaths.  I said, "You might be in the wrong building;  people often make that mistake"...while she again broke eye contact while listening to whomever was on the other end of her cell.  As she did not acknowledge what I just said....and as she then directed her next comments to whomever was on the phone with her...I  then asked, "What's your therapist's name?"  Ignored me.  Talked on phone some more.  

After a few more minutes of this back and forth stuff with her 3rd party not present in the room...I said, "If you have a bill to pay here at this office, just stick your check under the door over there." as I walked over to point out the office door to her.  She stayed on the phone the entire time as I had a client to prepare for coming in within the next ten minutes.

I left the woman there and went into my office, shut my door, and prepared for my next client.  After five minutes, I walked out to see if this woman had left.  She had not.  She was writing a check at the same spot I left her.  When she saw me, she said to me, "I just want to tell you that you were very rude to me."   

What. In. The. Living. Hell?

In case you haven't figured it out by now, "anxious" people can roll this way very comfortably in their own lives.  They have a real or imagined "emergency" of some kind...and it is typically someone ELSE'S responsibility to intervene on their behalf because...don't you know...that's what "we" are supposed to do when we get highjacked and/or otherwise pulled into this type of anxious, codependent, and ADHD-brained sh** show of someone else's issue or problem now being our responsibility to "manage" for them!  

Have you noticed this before?  I mean I understand if you witness a catastrophic accident of some kind and are in the immediate vicinity to offer assistance.  Even if only to call 911 on his/her/their behalf.  But I'll be a monkey's uncle if I am going to be dragged into someone else's crazy because I am the nearest human body around---and then be judged for not responding in the way I was "supposed" to behave in King or Queen Baby's presence!  (Which IS a common way in which Borderlines roll;  more on that later!)  I mean it has to be as difficult as hell to be more anxious AND not-thinking-straight than not;  even worse when the anxious individual you encounter is a pride-drenched narcissist besides!  A little humility when we are struggling goes a LONG way rather than expecting others to cow-tow to your b.s. because that's how you are used to asking for and then  "receiving" assistance.  No thanks.  Turned out after my client left, this woman never did leave a check under the door of our Office Manager's office.  Guess she was in the wrong building after all.  Doh!  These encounters remind me of when birds fly over our heads and drop their load (of crap!) right onto our head...or our shirt...or some other part of our bodies.  By the time many of us finally "notice" what just happened to us---they are long gone!

Memo to all of us:  Get your facts straight about whatever it is you need to "do" and/or "accomplish" each day in advance.  In this "strange woman in my office" case of yesterday, she was absolutely clueless as to what she needed to do---except tell me I didn't kiss her behind well enough in spite of being so rude to me the moment I clapped eyes on her.  Talk about being arrogant, ignorant, and belligerent all wrapped up together in one package!  Now do you have to wonder why I call these three character traits my own interpretation of  the proverbial "Deadly Triad" type personality...

My aunt in her last years was notorious for generating this type of anxiety-based encounter.  Grant it, she had vascular dementia and was in her early 90s, so I have to give her grace for that.  However, she lived 19 miles away from me;  when she would call, this is how she would talk "at" me:  "Tomorrow, I need to go to A, B, C, and then D...you can come pick me up at 9:30AM."  Reality check.  I have a job. I have clients. I have scheduled clients coming in tomorrow.  When I would articulate this to her, she told me to cancel my appointments.  This from the same aunt who told me if she ever moved in with us, we should get rid of our dogs because she wasn't sure she liked dogs all that much.  Okay then!  In spite of having a hired caregiver to assist her with various and assorted tasks who she did genuinely enjoy being with...it didn't count for much.  I needed to "work" for her too on demand...or at least in her own mind that is.

Many years ago now, I had seen a couple for marital therapy where it was clear that the wife had chronic and intense anxiety, while at the same time viewed herself as the supreme codependent "giver" of her family system.  What that means is that she thought of herself as a martyr for the cause (her family's well being).  Unfortunately, she was deluding herself.  She actually functioned as a codependent controller who genuinely expected each member of her family to "do" what she needed from them, on demand, to help her be "less" anxious on a moment-by-moment basis.  Her anxiety was so in control of her life, that she was blind to how she was consistently attempting to recruit her husband and kids to "manage" her anxiety for her!  How rude was that?  Very, to put it simply.

When we talked about the specifics of this reality check one evening, I thought she was going to hit the ceiling of my office.  Instead, she acknowledged it and calmly informed her husband that if he wanted a divorce, she understood.  Huh?!  Well, as it turned out they agreed to work on what they needed to work on...and that was the good news at that time.  Until we can acknowledge our own problem with ongoing anxiety that runs and rules our lives, we won't.  Beyond our own suffering due to chronic and intense anxiety, believe me others suffer also!

Part of the problem with our world today is that we have forgotten how to be civil and appopriate with each other after experiencing an uptick in "anxious" encounters since COVID came to roost.  We all have anxiety to some extent;  does that mean we can "cut to the chase" as we interact with one another to determine "Are you with me?" versus "Are you against me?"  That's pretty borderline-ish in case you weren't thinking along those lines (as in Borderline Personality Disorder!).  Borderlines are notorious for reducing everything down to "With me?  You're the greatest!  Against me?  You're satan incarnate!"  Another incidence of how the Deadly Triad can go postal quite quickly even in our public interactions with literial and virtual strangers!

Please don't emulate the Borderline;  they absolutely do struggle with chronic and intense anxiety;  that's a given.  However, they also believe that nobody knows better about anything than they themselves do.  Why?  Because they don't trust any human, except for the one who inhabits their own body.  It's a tough way to live, but it's part of the reason why we have seen "more" dysfunction at every turn in our culture.  People are revealing what lies beneath as they lose it more and more in the public (and private!)  realm.  Chronic and intense anxiety is just a tip of that iceberg.  Instead of continuing to do the wrong thing to obtain a right outcome, maybe this is the time to call a professional and get some help!  

Local universities with psychological services clinics offer psychotherapy to the public on a reduced fee basis.  The same can be said of CMH (Community Mental Health) clinics, which exist in most cities within our state.  Do the right thing for yourself and start working on yourself to heal, make positive changes, and stop suffering as much as you do now.

Until next post....