In came surges of quite intense raw anxiety as I lay expecting to be comfortably drifting in and out of sleep in the very early hours.
Where the heck did that come from I wonder. Could not find an originating fearful thought. Maybe it slipped in and I didn’t notice it. The fear seemed to arrive out of nowhere, just the sheer fact of being alive felt suddenly scary. A sense of not feeling safe. Existential angst perhaps, is that what they call it?
Perhaps a realisation that the firm ground I thought I stood on is shifting. Maybe there is no, and never was such a thing as solid ground. I smile at the irony considering the name of my little company (Terra Firma).
Only one thing to do. Turn towards it. I felt trepidation as I so often do when I turn towards inner suffering. And yet what else is there to do? Courage girl….
There has been a lifetime of using other strategies that haven’t worked to rid myself of it. I might as well accept it. And this strategy of acceptance is proving to be a very interesting behaviour experiment.
I drop into the body and notice where the emotion is being experienced. It’s from my throat to my solar plexus. I stay with that unpleasant clenched sensation.
It doesn’t kill me. It doesn’t even make the anxiety more intense, there’s just the bodily felt sensation of fear, and I just stay there.
After a while I notice it has dissolved quite a lot.
I don’t want to analyse these feelings as they come and go so much, but I send some compassion towards the discomfort. This whole thing is a process that is disconcerting to this identity, and for which there is barely any language. Thankfully many others have travelled this route and are available for guidance and consolidation.
Yesterday was pretty enjoyable. Quite a deep chat with my new therapist friend in the park, a walk round the newly blooming flowers, then coffee and cake.
Over to the west end after that, saw one client who liked the design I had done, then with her to see the men on site at the job finishing up over there. They aren’t at the stage I expected and still have quite a lot to do. It is okay.
Then it’s late afternoon and so back here feeling a little tired and so to the sofa, and that’s the day.
Today is pay the wages day, and I have a therapy client in half an hour. Then to some designing on the drawing board, then to meet the other clients to choose the second round at the nursery.
There’s some lingering low level anxiety I’m checking in with right now. It’s fine. Now that I know what to do it isn’t so scary to face the feelings.
Photo through the stone entrance down over the parterre garden with the stone bridge across the river in the distance on the left and the gazebo to the right. What a park to live next to.
Learning to Rest with it All 