Anxiety

We all have a healthy level of anxiety. Did you even know there was a healthy part to anxiety? Well as I learned today the thing we should take anxiety for is a challenge that we either rise to or succumb to. 

Have you ever had butterflies before you were about to do something? Or been up late at night causing your thoughts to spiral into nowhere land, keeping those lights nice and bright instead of turned dark and allowing the slumber to creep in? Well guess what, the presence of anxiety is a way for you to rewrite your development. It’s an opportunity that arises that creates a great deal of doubt, fear, worry, and because of these preliminary negative reactions we tend to avoid the very thing that gives us anxiety. 

Avoidance is the very thing that creates even more anxiety which in turn creates depression, low self confidence, and doubt. You avoid the feelings of anxiety because that fluttering feels like you are about to free fall to your doom, but what if instead you embraced the free fall and realized there is no g force behind it. Hear me out, rollercoasters; you are waiting in line for an hour. The sun is beaming on you and sweat is pouring down your brow. You see pit marks forming and all the while you play it cool like you aren’t freaking the fuck out about this loop de loop monster. Every step brings you closer to your fate and finally it’s your turn. Everyone is getting belted in, nice and tight and snug, and it starts off. Slowly you climb the railways, your heart slowly starting to pound amass the heights that creep higher and higher. You are at the top, you look all around you, you wished to yourself OH GAWD WHAT WAS I THINKING! It’s so high up and you are about to free fall 450 feet at an ungodly speed. Then, it falls. The speed known as G-force pushes you up against the back of the seat. You feel your stomach turn over and then the exhilaration. You speed down towards the earth in a speed that is faster and faster yet then you loop here and loop there. The butterflies are going hard and you either scream out of fear or scream out of pure joy. Then in a matter of a minute it’s over. You get off the ride so exhilarated, so pumped, so alive you want to go again. 

Now what happens if you watched all your friends go on the ride and you sat back waiting. You missed your chance. Instead of embracing the fear that anxiety builds you back out, staying in your safe little bubble. Say you are like me and don’t like rollercoasters because they give you vertigo instead of the thrill if there is to much g-force. So instead you jump out of a plane but you think it’s going to be like a rollercoaster because that anxiety and fear starts pumping. Then this time around you jump out of the plane only to find it’s nothing like a rollercoaster, it’s the most cathartic experience you ever had. Why because it makes you so aware and so present. But that isn’t the point. This time you faced the anxiety. This time you grew from the past and embraced the challenge ahead. 

This can be applied to anything in life. Imagine anytime you have anxiety that it’s there as a test for your own growth instead of this negative piece of you. It’s there to alert you that you should take the chance, take the risk, live your life! So what do you have anxiety over? Confronting someone? Taking the next step in your career? Going back to school? The more you listen to the bullies like fear and worry the more you set yourself to fail immediately. Instead be okay knowing you are adventuring into something new, that you may not be perfect at it, but it’s so you can become better. I went back to school for esthetician over 9 years ago and if I hadn’t taken the leap on faith I wouldn’t of ever gone back to school for massage. Now here I am going back to school again, scared I will fail, scared I am an idiot, scared that I will disappoint myself again, yet this time I am embracing these things. They may happen, but I will never know if I don’t actually do it. Just like you won’t know until you do what it is that gives you anxiety. Do or do not, there is no try. Try means a lack of commitment, so what do you want to do? Live in the after effects of anxiety like depression, low self worth, disappointment, or are you ready to embrace anxiety as a positive partner that comes in to show you its time to take charge?

Today was a 5. Only because I had body work and it fucked me up hard. And I released a lot of shit.