Recently, after being hypnotised for the first time, I had one of those lightbulb moments about anxiety and depression and how to let them be. This awakening has helped me reach a new level of acceptance and allowing, and I just had to share that with you.
It happened during my last rough patch, which arrived as it usually does, unexpectedly. I’d been for a visit at my old firehouse here in California, and had driven out of town along familiar roads that held memories of dead children and twisted cars around thick poles. As my body felt the assault of old painful memories, feelings of grief for my beloved dog Bobo also magnified.
Anxiety Creeps In
By the time I arrived home to my friend Annie’s house I was feeling an odd sense of numbness, and by the next morning, a tightening in my body had begun.
Through the morning it worsened, even as I meditated, took myself to two yoga classes, parked at a secluded park to cry it out, and called a friend for a chat. I began to worry (adding fuel to the fire) that I was about to embark upon a familiar multi-week journey of anxiety.
Then, I made an excellent decision. I reached out for an emergency session of therapy.
Hypnotised
During the call, my therapist sneakily hypnotised me. She guided me to access my higher self, to intuitively find the perfect health for me in this moment. I sensed I was under a spell, but it worked anyway. My body relaxed. The tension, that might have taken weeks to undo under old circumstances, was gone in an instant. That afternoon, I wandered meekly back into Annie’s home. I felt subdued, mellow and quiet.
The depression beneath the anxiety
The next morning I was calm but tired. There was a deep underlying sadness within, a depression. As the day wore on I couldn’t find any joy. Even as we surfed my favourite river wave, I felt lifeless and methodical.
Eventually, I drove myself back to Annie’s. I realised as I entered their empty house, that I was in mourning. I was mourning for the loss of every patient I had ever had. For all of those who hadn’t died but who’d lived in violence, suffering or loneliness. For the me who was suffering at all of those calls but could never admit it: who pretended that dragging dead bodies out of cars was totally fine.
I was mourning for the complicated sense of loss of all I loved about that career: the camaraderie of my firehouse brothers, the fun of fighting fire, and for the continuous sense of accomplishment of being there for humans in need.
Finally, I was mourning for the loss of the beautiful, joy-filled and unconditionally loving life I’d lived with sweet Bobo.
Letting it be
I was sad to the point that I couldn’t function. And remembering something my therapist had said once about allowing anxiety and depression whenever it arose, I let myself feel sad. I decided that I would try a different way. I would be as down as I wanted, without having any negative thoughts about it: just complete acceptance.
I would go to bed, and stay there for as long as it took to honour this depression.
Lying in bed that afternoon I had the lightbulb moment: anxiety is what arises when I’m trying to hold myself together. It is the rope that binds me in place when I would otherwise fall apart. The physical tension, the tightness, the faster breath, keeps me functional, when I’m trying not to collapse.
“anxiety is what arises when I’m trying to hold myself together”
That’s kinda cool, don’t you think?
Sometimes, we don’t have the privilege of lying in bed all day, Sometimes, there is work to be done, or people to consider. Anxiety keeps us moving when we don’t have time to stop.
Yet, how can we thank our body for keeping us together, and then let it know that it is safe to release? That it’s ok to let go? For me, I don’t think I really ever understood that I could make that decision.
How about you?
Have you ever just let yourself go? Have you let yourself simply collapse into bed, without giving yourself shit for it?
I’d told myself I’d stay in bed as long as I needed to. But within a few hours, I was kinda bored. Where the anxiety may have lasted 3 weeks, the depression that it was fending against was gone in mere hours.
You see, by embracing the feeling, by allowing what was there, it simply passed. Without any judgement to keep me down, without negative or mean thoughts, it was all okay. Dare I even say it, it was almost fun! Lying in bed, wrapped in soft covers, was luxurious.
Since allowing that sadness to arise and pass, I find myself now in a stable place again. Another layer of acceptance has arisen, and feelings of grief are nowhere in sight. With that comes the ability to be more present to what is in front of me, and more grateful.
The real human experience
I’ve always had these ideas that I should be stable. Have you had similar thoughts? I guess I’ve believed that being an emotional human being is embarrassing or something to be ashamed of. Do you think this too?
I’ve tried so hard to change myself. To deny the anger, envy, sadness, mania, tears, and malcontent that inevitably arises sometimes. And yet, these qualities of humanity exist anyway. We show the emotions we deem to be “good” and do whatever we can to hide the rest.
I am human.
You are human too.
And as long as we live in these bodies, we will be imperfect. We will waver, be afraid, we’ll come up short, over and over. But…. only if we’re measuring.
What if you and I put away the measuring stick?
What would be our experience then?
Letting go of anxiety meant I had to be okay with lying in bed, with being nonfunctional. It meant I had to be okay with my friends seeing me that way. I had to let go of the one-sided version of me that I long to be. I had to be willing to be judged by my friends, and willing to stop judging myself.
In that willingness, it passed as suddenly as it arose.
Embrace the down
I offer to you this revelation: that next time you feel like lying in bed all day, or you feel like you can’t get up, just stay in bed. The next time you want to cry, for no perceivable reason at all: or maybe for a very obvious reason, that you simply let it be.
Maybe you could cheer yourself on: dare I even say it: make it fun. As if crying all day was the highest achievement of the human state.
Maybe, like me, you’ll just get bored after a bit.
You see, all things arise and pass in their own time if you let them. Including joy, good fortune, sorrow and failure. Each moment is a new breath, a new opportunity.
Wherever you are in the world,
I hope you’re well.
(and if you’re not… it will pass… so let it be).
Kate
***A couple years ago, I had a sudden onset of slowly building “physical tension” or anxiety after the horrific death of a man in my ambulance. It lasted a looong time. If you’d like to know more, and about the tools I used to soothe my battered nervous system, you can read the three part anxiety series starting here.
