😨 Anxious Mess 😨

“Depressive episodes mean living in the past, anxious episodes mean living in the future, how can you come back to the here and now?” My dear friend Marta said this ❤️

Have you ever experienced days or even weeks in which you just haven’t been yourself? Everything feels off. Your rhythm and routine, your thoughts and emotions, as if your complete inner compass is pointing in the opposite direction. South instead of north. Or maybe east instead of west? I haven’t thought about the direction of my compass needle in too much detail yet, maybe that’s something to think about.

I was an anxious mess these past few days. “I’m not sure why”, I kept telling everyone. I know exactly why, I just didn’t feel like talking too much about it, except with two dear friends who had excellent advice for me and were able to hold enough space for me to express myself freely without judgement. It’s a rare talent to have, to be able to give someone the time and space to feel heard and seen without judgement. One question that stuck with me was: “Depressive episodes mean living in the past, anxious episodes mean living in the future, how can you come back to the here and now?”

But how can I come back to the here and now, when I feel like my mind is floating around and my heartbeat is shallow, my thoughts get stuck in the “what if…?” scenarios and my jaw is cramping from clenching my teeth? How can I come back to experiencing every day as the adventure it is and not worrying about what the future might or might not hold, where the decisions I might or might not make will lead me to and how I will or won’t react in multiple completely made up situations? I have expressed my love to people countless times. In my head. I have resigned from jobs so often, I should be a consultant for quitting. In my head. I have accepted jobs that I never got offered. In my head. I had really tough conversations with friends. In my head.

I laughed and cried and loved and fought so much in my tiny little made up world. Just imagine I would have really experienced all of this. But isn’t everything that happens in my mind real? Reality starts in the head. Always.

So how can I come back from this little world in my head to the present moment? Sometimes it’s a beautiful escape, when the thoughts are nice and gentle and full of love. But even then, it’s an escape. I love my little world in my head. But life is to be experienced and it would be unfair to myself if I don’t try to experience it fully. That means, trying to stay present, open and receptive to everything that is happening around me.

For example, in the last few days I was so preoccupied by my thoughts that everything else didn’t get my best performance. Monday evening yoga? Total fail. Hated the class. Got triggered by the teacher. Not his fault. Tuesday evening a conversation with a friend? Honestly, not my best. Wasn’t myself. Gave some weird advice. Wednesday and Thursday I cancelled my plans. Sometimes you need to give up to be able to give something again. And let life do its thing. I freed up space in my schedule, but also in my mind by acknowledging that something is off and needs my attention. And then it all fell into place: the people I needed to talk to without knowing it reached out to me, the answers to my questions that I didn’t know I had were provided in conversations, signs, articles, podcasts…you name it. I just couldn’t see it before because I was stuck. But acknowledging that I was stuck paved the way for getting unstuck.

The mind is a wonderful and terrifying place. I don’t have the answer on how to snap out of anxious episodes. To be honest, I prefer anxious episodes over the bottomless nothingness of depressive episodes. At least they motivate me to take some action. Sometimes stupid decisions lead to the right path as well. Not all decisions made in anxious episodes are stupid. But the majority is, as I’m making them from a place of fear, confusion, attachment and sometimes desperation. And not from a place of love, trust and openness. The place I want to make decisions from.