Do not worry about what you cannot change. My fight against anxiety
A personal story about dealing with anxiety and frustration
The situation: chaos
Lately I have been struggling with time management. It never seems to be enough. At work I cannot complete all the tasks I want and at the house there are always more things to get done.
I feel like I’m failing as a parent, as a partner and as a professional.
I feel restless. I have lost the capacity to enjoy the quiet moments and always thinking about what is going to happen next. I struggle with peace and connecting with my partner.
I feel like some things are falling apart.
Two days ago I was trying to get a “mindfulness” moment while in the shower. Hot water poured on me and I sat on the floor trying to get a hold of my breath. Counting by breeding as I inhaled and exhaled. I did not make it into ten, even after multiple attempts.
Unfortunately I had decided that my life was in chaos, that everything was wrong and nothing I could do would bring the peace I needed.
I was right.
Building up anxiety
Anxiety creeps in when we want to control things which do not depend on us. If you have tried to change the weather please raise your hand!
Trying to control everything and everyone around drove me into a spiral of despair, and I’ve been struggling most of my mornings for the last couple of months.
A combination of events I cannot control affected my judgement. I confronted myself with dumb social media scrolling, binge watching series and dropping my exercise routine.
My body is used to exercising almost every day. Not a lot but enough to get the blood flowing and pumping. Most of the days I’d start with a simple 8–12 minute routine.
Because of unpredictable events, such as the kids’ sleep patterns, house duties I drifted apart.
At work, unplanned sickness leave from the team, unexpected incidents and daily changes in expectations created a perfect storm. Working too many hours, dropping productivity and being busy without making progress. Perks of working from home.
When your office is always with you, pushing things for later in the day makes you have never ending working days.
Up to this stage, I am not sleeping enough, I am working too many hours and what brings relaxation to my body is not there to support the craziness of my day. Not even my evening walks.
Controlling what you cannot control
My lack of focus and incapabilities to concentrate, started to drive me crazy. At one point in time I wanted to control when people in my household would wake up, so I can have my 30 minutes of quietness in the morning.
Trying to do this with young kids is like expecting a sunny week when you live in Ireland.
Trying to enforce actions at home, at the office and with myself started to make me grind my teeth.
I was taking work from co-workers or people that report to me because I wanted to get back on track, I wanted to have control and ensure that things will happen as I needed them to happen to get a good grasp of the situation I thought I was in.
In my head, I was caring. In reality I was becoming a control freak.
I needed to break the loop.
Coming to terms with reality
Help comes when you don’t expect it. Sometimes we reconnect with ourselves in ways we would not imagine and we create a clear in the grey sky.
For this I have to be thankful to kids. My kids. I have two pretty young kids, one is less than 5 and the other not even one. They live by the moment.
Kids have this particular quality to live in the moment, deal with their anxieties and even when they do not talk. They teach.
One of the many mornings when the three of us are up, while mom can fully rest for a bit. It hit me.
Kids enjoy the moment, live under the experience and even if they can melt down when they can’t control things. They let go.
They let go.
After an hectic but insightful morning with the two of them I clicked. When it was time for me to sit down and get work done. It hit me.
I opened my journal and my last entry was days ago. I stopped talking to myself. I blocked my own priorities and what is even worse. I was not following my own guidance.
That made me stop. That made me come to terms with myself.
Do not control the uncontrollable.
We can’t control time, the weather or other people BUT we can control our response. When we do not respond to events, we react. That subtle difference makes a lot of impact.
I have not been able to reclaim the mornings, but I will not stop trying
I have not been able to align everything at work, but I changed my approach to it
I have not been able to exercise as I used to, but I started a few steps back
Letting go of the impulse to control all of the events brought a little bit of quietness.
I am not where I want like to be, but I am closer.
