On anxiety…
This weekend was the first time I was around more than three people in over a year. Whoa! We gathered to celebrate my best friend’s engagement, which was definitely worthy of celebration and not something I was going to pass up. Shockingly (or not!), as soon as my masked-up self walked in, anxiety showed up right behind me and planted itself heavily on my shoulders. During the first conversation I could feel anxiety begin to take over and take control. I found it hard to find words, my heart raced, my throat tightened, I overheated, and I wanted to run away and silently scream “get me out of here!”
Once I got some food in me and calmed my body down by settling myself underneath the ceiling fan - which took about an hour - I wanted to step back and evaluate what had happened. I’m a forever-curious type and I wanted to figure out what was going on with me. I thought it might be helpful as I know a lot of my clients are experiencing a similar relationship with anxiety as things slowly begin to reopen. I wanted to know if I that was happening to me. The following questions surfaced during my experience…
How do I do this? What do I say? How do I connect? How do I interact? How can I engage with others? What am I doing? How do I do this again? Where is the person I used to be? Yep, I’m just like my clients. Which is awesome.
After a year of forced isolation and ongoing stress of COVID with loved ones getting sick and people once removed dying, it began to make sense to me. I had conditioned myself to be okay with not being around people (which is not hard for me having a strong relationship with introversion). I noticed that being dropped into a social situation after a year exacerbated all my teenage and young adult fears of what others might think of me and do I have enough interesting things to talk about? Why can’t I be as good at conversation as X, Y, or Z? I felt like I did in high school! Anxiety has always been with me throughout this life.. I take things seriously, and while that serves me in particular moments it can sometimes be too much. When I don’t take EVERYTHING seriously, I can let go and invite in joy. Though that can be difficult especially after I jump in to the rabbit hole when the stories that roll around in my head never seem to come out like I want them to - argh (classic INFJ Myers-Briggs personality type trait)! And so self-doubt joins the party and I opt to be the silent observant one, which is often not socially acceptable in our culture. The rabbit hole deepens.
Sounds dramatic right? Ha. But, in my view, it’s overcomable. At the small celebration with friends it finally occurred to me that I know these people. And it’s okay if I don’t have the perfect thing to say at the perfect time. That’s part of what makes me…me. And I can laugh at myself as I stumble with my words and love that I still always strive to get them out. And my friends still appear to want to be my friend. And I gotta access trust to believe that. Phew! If they didn’t, I guess that might mean that they never really were my friend to begin with, or the relationship is just not sustainable. And that’s okay.
How might you want to sit with discomfort as you begin to reemerge from COVID life? How might you lean in and appreciate that it’s okay just to be you? How might you look at the last year and discover what you learned about yourself and what truly matters in your life? How can you show up in the world as your perfectly imperfect self? How might you give yourself some grace for not being what you think is the ideal way to show up? Is just showing up enough? I bet it can be, if you let it…
XO