#278:Anxiety

There’s a lot going on in my life.

My bucket is full.

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed in the last month. It’s May. Everything is blooming in the garden. Everything is blooming inside of me. My life is stretching and bursting at the seams. New growth. Flowers. Weeds. The lawn needs mowing, again.

I’ve been riding the rollercoaster of happiness and anxiety. When I feel anxious I feel like I’m drowning, from the inside. It’s like I can’t breathe. Like the water is rising up inside me, upwards from my chest to my throat, to my mouth. I need to take my last breaths before I go under.

That’s how anxiety has always felt to me. It’s as if there’s a bucket of water in my body that’s overflowing. I’ve left the tap running to do the dishes and the water pours and pours over the sides.

When I’m anxious I get caught up in the content of what I’m anxious about in that moment. Usually the first and most present thing in my mind.

For example last week I was anxious about the birthday party I’m organising. Worrying about food, the weather and if people will have somewhere to sit. The level of my anxiety wasn’t relevant for how important the matter was. It was only when I went underneath and I saw that this water was being poured into a bucket that was already full - I realised.

My bucket was overflowing, with work, money, new business, uncertainty, family and grief.

I thought I’d ticked my grief off and got an A*. It doesn’t work like that. There’s a layer of grief down there in my bucket. It’s dirty water that’s slopping around and needs emptying. It’s been natural for me to want to move on from loss - get on with new things and fill the void with what’s next. Mostly, that’s been positive and the right thing to do. These moments of anxiety though about whether I have enough seating for guests at my birthday party - showed me that there’s underlying emotion deeper within that needs to be cared for. My bucket is heavier with the water of grief than I thought.

That sadness is still in me. At my foundation in many ways. A distrust in life that is slowly being repaired.

The moment I began paying attention to the emotions that were below the surface, my anxiety began disappearing. I then had enough space to worry about the food and party balloons.

I’ve found comfort in talking about Teddy with Sarah again this week. We’d not been doing that as much. Just talking about Teddy. Saying Teddy’s name. Reminding ourselves of what we experienced and are still living through.

This is something I believe we can all do when we feel emotions like stress or anxiety. Take a step back and ask “what’s really going on here?” - is it that work project? Is it really the wedding? Is it really what that person said?

Or is this content just the most recent bit of water flowing into a bucket that’s already full to the brim?

What was already in there? What was making your bucket full anyway? How could you empty that out? Is it grief, despair, confidence, your relationship, marriage?

We get very stuck in the content of our lives, the minute detail. Paying more attention to the details of a work project than we might to the foundational emotions or stories that can be lying dormant within us for decades. If we could let this water out, we’d all breathe better. We’d create more space.

I can breathe because I’ve been paying attention to the dark dirty water that’s been festering inside me. In the weeds and the reeds - the emotions, feelings and stories that are a bit scary, a bit nasty - the ones taking up a lot of space. I’m letting them out. I don’t feel anxious for long, I let the water out and it can pass.

In my garden I have an old ice bath with some stale and murky water in. Every day I’ve been dipping my watering can in there and using that to water the plants.

Emptying the old, to bring life to the new.

Cheers,
James x