Befriending my anxiety
“It seems we have a collective societal fantasy that we’re not supposed to feel anxious. Often we will relate to our feelings of anxiety as evidence that there must be something wrong with our lives.”
When I was 7 years old, I became a different person. Or so the story goes in my family.
I was the firstborn and my mum, having longed for a baby, tells me she was quite possessive. She didn’t like anyone else to hold me for too long!
I remember being happy and content as a child, as long as I was with my mum. But when she had to leave me at school, aged 4, I would get so upset.
The stage was set for the future me to be shy, anxious and home-loving.
But, at aged 7, that all changed.
My appendix burst. It’s a serious medical emergency but in my case, the doctor didn’t diagnose it. By the time I finally got to the hospital, it was a matter of life and death.
I remember a little. Odd things. Like two men, one fat, one thin, coming in and out of the wardrobe, a repeating hallucination which only came back to me when I started meditating years later.
Also sitting on my dad’s lap, in my dressing gown, in the front of the car, no seatbelt, while my mum drove to the hospital.
I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. In those days your parents couldn’t stay with you, they would just come to visit in the afternoons.
When I came out, I was a different person.
And this was a good thing. I was no longer the shy, anxious child that had gone in. No, I was much more confident, more extroverted, more the Vajradarshini that you would meet today.
But was it really a good thing?
We’re exploring anxiety in this month’s Dharma Bundle and I’ve been reading Bruce Tift’s stuff on the theme. His speciality is bringing together Buddhism and psychology.
He talks about how we can become ‘divided against ourselves’ at different points in our lives. I think this happened to me.
There’s the vulnerable side, that is ‘not good’, or in my case too dangerous to be experienced, suddenly I’m all alone in the hospital. So that side has to be disowned.
Then there’s the confident side. From then onwards, it’s only the confident me that is allowed to exist.
I don’t suppose I’m at all special in this. Don’t you have some part of you that’s not fully allowed to exist? It might not be the shy you, it could be the angry you, or the sad you.
A clue to what we don’t allow in ourselves is what we find difficult in others. I’ve found anxious people hard to be around. I guess I don’t want the anxiety to exist anywhere!
Another clue might be in what we find attractive in others. I’m drawn to people who are shy, quiet, contained. All those lovely qualities in me that, back then, were too dangerous to embody.
For most of my life, my way of ‘working’ with anxiety has been to ignore it! To be brave. Make bold decisions. Move to different countries. Say yes to scary challenges.
But under the bravery, I’ve been afraid of anxiety.
Now I’m befriending my anxiety. Fear is a natural part of life, we wouldn’t survive without it. I figure there will always be, from time to time, experiences of anxiety.
Aged 54 I’m becoming a different person, again. One who no longer feels anxious about my anxiety.
“I am ready to feel anxious at any second, and to work with the energy of anxiety for the rest of my life. I give up my fantasy of a life free of anxiety.”
