The prompt for this week's work in the yamas and niyamas is to do one thing daily that you don't normally do. To face fears. To live from a place of love rather than fear. I didn't do anything super novel today. So there's that. But this is something that I have thought a lot about in the last 6 months. I read Brené Brown's new book "Atlas of the Heart" when it came out in the late fall. It elicited a lot of nods in agreement and "yes... that's it" as I read it, that is until I got to anxiety.
I had told myself so many times that my anxiety was because of the brain injury, from when the bleed happened and it messed up the pathways in my brain so things didn't always respond in the way I was used to. It was just my brain. So I could breath through it, I had the tools to respond to it, and eventually I would develop a new baseline so that it didn't happen, or at least not as often. This was the story I had told myself for 2 years. And it slowly was getting better.
Then I read her definition which basically said that anxiety is the belief or feeling that you are unable to cope or handle a situation. She says that "our emotional reaction is more tied to our cognitive assessment of whether we can cope with the situation than to how our body is reacting." Rug. Pulled. Out. I had my usual first reaction when something challenges my story, to categorically reject it and write it off as "stupid" and "wrong". Something I have learned to recognize in the last 5 years as the actual nudge towards truth. That something has shown me a place where my ego is hanging on tightly to protect itself and it might just not be true.
So I talked to people about it, my safe people. And my husband looked at me and was like "Duh! I'm no psychologist but I could have told you that." Like it was so obvious, see if I tell him where he left his keys next time he can't find them. But I digress. It changed the way I looked at my anxiety, although there may still be some truth in my old story, the whole story acknowledges that I am still don't trust this new version of me in many situations. So I went back to the things I learned in rehabilitation and built on them. When my husband seems me anxious, instead of asking if I am anxious he sometimes says "what do you think the worse thing that could happen would be?" and then we face that. So for example, finding my way around is still a worry for me, I think I will get lost and not remember where I am or what way I came from. He made me walk and use the GPS on my phone to guide me thought a part of town I didn't know and met me at the end. So now I trust that I can use the GPS on my phone to guide me places. A skill I have used a few times since then. Something that in hindsight seems so easy and obvious. It has become my new way of coping and processing my anxiety, I ask myself "what is it about this that I think I can't do" or "what am I imagining is the worse thing that could happen?" It provides me a concrete place to begin.
There are decidedly less tangible things that pop up. It is easy to cope with the things like the getting lost mentioned above, or coping in a crowd. I have no problem asking for help or telling people about my brain injury, something that isn't necessarily true for lots of brain injury survivors. I mean with me, it is one of the most interesting things about me! But what about the less tangible things that we humans worry about? For me a really big one is "what if I let them down, or upset them?" or "what if they are mad at me?". Sound familiar ? Facing that fear is a bit different. As I type that sentence though I ask myself "is that different?" I still ask my question of "what is the worse thing I am imagining about this?" I guess the solution is what looks a bit different.
If I am anxious about someone being angry with me the first question I ask myself is "did you do something that you need to apologize for?" and if I did then I apologize. If not, then did I make the choice that was right for me and they don't like it? And if that bothers me, then there is some sitting with why that bothers me to be done. If I have done what is in line with who I want to be and someone else is put out by that can I be okay with someone not approving? Can I be okay with everything not being okay? This is a line I feel like I have used a lot lately. Can I be okay when things are not okay? What is it about my ego that I need to sit with and maybe let go of. Something that is definitely a work in progress. There are some people with whom it is okay for them to not approve or like me. But there are others in my life who I do care what they think of my decisions. How I react to my husband's or children's feelings about my choices and actions needs to be very different than to how I respond to an acquaintance.
But like I said, it is process. I still worry about upsetting people I barely know, people who if they didn't speak to me again it wouldn't really matter. It has become a place to look at habits and behaviours. Is it people pleasing? That a good girl doesn't upset other people? I notice that the story I often tell myself is that I feel things stronger than many people and it makes me empathetic to others' feelings and so I don't want to hurt them because I know how it feels. But if I distance myself enough to see the thoughts and stories I can see that it is that old ego again trying to keep itself safe. That people not liking you is a threat, they can then hurt you or not defend you. Egos don't operate from a place of love, they operate from survival and safety. When you live from the soul place inside you, you release fear and live from unconditional love. So choose love.
What is it that scares you? What is the story that you are telling yourself about it? Does it come from fear or love?
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