Do you get fixated on worry about the past, the present, the future and did not realize that your lizard brain (limbic system) is sorting out if you are in danger and whether you need to fight or flee? See, worrying causes anxiety that causes your piece of 150-million-year-old brain to try to do its old old job. See, it does not know our present-day discomforts and annoyances and decides your thoughts are about real danger and your worry is something as big as a dinosaur about to attack. We can seriously jump off a cliff to get away from such thoughts. And, I am not sure any of us has wings to save ourselves. When we worry and are anxious, we need to ‘cool it’ by reasoning ourselves out of the fear that comes. We need to relearn how to live in the present moment with some logic…there are no dinosaurs about to squash and gut us.
Getting to know why how, when, where, why of our anxiety is key. We need to look at the times we get anxious and see the patterns. We need to know our triggers. Ok, so I am.. get this.. afraid of rabbits with yellow big eyes and claws on their back feet. Ok, and I am afraid of dark so I put up twinkling lights outside everywhere. I have to talk myself down if the lights go out. I blogged before about being fear-based and making fear-based decisions. I am still learning how to flick on the lights of inner calmness when I sense a trigger.
I can go from my son being off riding his new electric bike, to seeing someone who looks like him walking towards his home, and I had him crashed and wrecked and in big rouble and I had better prepare myself for the worst. Wasn’t him. He puttered easily home from the other direction but I had just had him nearly crashed and burned before he did. Yes, My imagination catastrophizes.
I have had to learn, and practice, still, how to stay mindfully present. When a thought comes, I have t chase it away and seems, while I am chasing, my anxiety lessens because I moved myself away from what was making me anxious. The worst thing I figure I can do, is go search on google for answers to something I have been worrying about. Yeah. It is all there and a quick stumble down ‘rare complications” can have me diagnosed to call 911. I have to remind myself something I used to say to my whining, crying child, when I knew they did not even know why they were crying: “Are your guts hanging out, are you bleeding to death? No? Then I am pretty sure you are going too live. A quick hug for comfort and they quit.” I need to ask myself that a lot of times during the day.
What is the real fear? Ok, my brother had those massively big albino buck rabbits. They were mean and can move fast when they are attacking you. And, they did attack me. And I still recoil when I see a big rabbit, god forbid they have pink eyes. And since I know why the fear, I can now control it. “No, thee are not big albino monster fast-moving, attacking rabbits. These are the kid favorite little brown bunny and he is toooo friendly.” There, now I can start controlling my fear of “Jelly”, or whatever his/her dear name was. I am not ten any more, either. Still, I did not go downstairs where his hutch was, not once, because he escaped all the time and ran free… nope, I did not put myself in a position to worry. LOL.
I have learned to not deny what I am feeling, but to get to the trigger of it. I have learned to accept what I cannot control. Sometimes I must think I am god and can control things not possibly so. Thinking I can control things I cannot, should not, will not, could not control only makes me feel more anxious.
In the end of it, anxiety is just old baggage, most times. Getting to the key trigger is the key. Then being mindful and watch for the sensation of beginning anxiety is key. The only thing I can control is me and my misbegotten worrying. How about you? Do you need to stop and listen to the music and stay in the Present moment?
The word “Collage” comes from the French word “coller” (to glue) to combine mages in art. Collage is when you combine found objects to create a new image to convey a message or theme. The found images you can add come from newspaper clippings, photographs, print advertisements, text, culled paper products, fabric, wood and any and all ephemera that is glued on to a substrate of any kind to create a new image. There are no hard fast rules for collage. The art is very intuitive.
This art journal page is a collage that is very simplistic but it tells a thought I was having about anxiety. She is made up of several different body parts clipped from vogue magazine.
©Carol Desjarlais 7.2.22
No comments:
Post a Comment