Here's a story from yesterday...
This morning I woke up, nothing on my schedule. Within minutes of waking up I started feeling anxious. The uncertainty of how I was going to spend the day, about how I'm going to spend the next few months of my life until uni starts, about when I was going to see some certain friends again, immediately made the worries kick in, and made my brain and my body go nuts.
I had to force myself to have something for breakfast, because anxiety for me always results in a loss of appetite. Somehow I managed to make it through a tiny piece of bread and a smoothie. I went up to my room, not wanting to waste another day on worrying and staying in bed only watching a ton of Gilmore Girls episodes, although not knowing how to fight the creeping anxiety either. Doing that would just make me feel crappy, useless and like I'm wasting my time and I hate nothing more than that.
I decided to try and get my mind off things, by finally putting proper time into editing my book, which I just keep and keep putting off every single day. I turned the tv on on the side, which I usually never do at this time of the day, because the stuff that they show at this time of the day just gives me headaches. But it worked. I didn't get much done, but it helped keeping my mind off things.
And just when I felt like I needed a break and my anxiety immediately started creeping back, my mum came in, and I realized I'd barely done a thing today whilst other people had already finished work. Somehow the scrapbook material in the box on my floor fell into my eye, and within seconds I had gotten up and started working on it. And I put so much work into it today.
It is now late at night, and I have spent approximately around 7 hours today working on my scrapbook. It got to the point where I had to remind myself to get some food, and ended up eating whilst working, because I was completely in the zone and in my zen mode. It wasn't until almost dinner time, that I realized, that I had literally been in a little bubble all day, pretty much since I started working on my scrapbook and living out my creativity, and I had barely given anyone or anything outside it a thought.
But, most importantly, I had conquered the morning anxiety that had been creeping up on me. And in the end, that is what was and is most important. Not that I didn't go to a place to work and earn money today, not that I didn't have a bunch of things on my to do list today that I could tick off, but the fact that I found a way to make myself feel good when I had nothing to do and felt like everything was going wrong.
I realize, that this is probably not going to help everyone that suffers from anxiety, that my anxiety differs from other people's anxiety, and even I can't always get myself to a point where I can manage to try and fight the anxiety either, but I think it's a starting point that we remind ourselves, that we are able to find it, even if it's just every once in a while, and that if we ever feel like we are strong enough to fight our anxiety, we shouldn't just give in and let anxiety take over. Sometimes you just need to fight. We
all have to find our own ways on how to best channel our energy to
fight through anxiety. Try getting creative like I did, try meditation
or yoga, try listening to music or audio books. Find a way that can take
your mind to a different world for a while and it may hopefully help.
I'm looking back at today, and I am proud of myself that I managed to do it and fight the anxiety, and I feel grateful for getting the strength today to do so. I'm praying, that if you are also suffering from anxiety, that you may find that strength too, next time you feel anxious and liking giving up, before the day has even started.
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