According to the American Psychiatric Association, Anxiety disorders affect nearly 30% of adults at some point in their lives. Most are triggered by traumatic and other stress. Different types of anxiety include Generalised anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, PTSD, OCD and Panic disorder.
I suffered from anxiety at different (stressful) parts of my life, but it was never severe until about five years ago when I had a major panic attack. Since then, they come and go, depending on what's going on in my life. The thing with panic attacks is, once you've had one, you always fear it will happen again, and often the fear itself triggers it creating a vicious cycle.
Still, that first panic attack unearthed many things for me. It made me see how my life at the time was unsustainable and unhealthy. It also revealed that I had Hashimoto, an autoimmune thyroid condition. Yes, I did Yoga and was careful about my diet, but I was also pushing myself over the limits and staying in toxic relationships. Looking back, I see now that I was unhappy and that I was making sure I focused on work and my dysfunctional relationships so I didn't have to face that truth. It also showed me how well I have hidden past traumas and never dealt with them. Like an earthquake, that panic attack shifted things within and exposed the hidden. I could no longer look away. So I put out the fire by caring for my physical health first. When I was ready, I let go of toxic relationships and habits and started psychotherapy. Therapy inspired me to enrol on the Body-centred and mindfulness-orientated psychotherapy course I completed last year. It was, and still is, a journey of healing and coming home to myself. This journey is full of ups and downs. And a lot of letting go, which is never easy.
Emotional and physical stressors often prompted by change usually trigger my anxiety. Right now, a lot is happening, and that uncomfortable feeling is back. I am closing the Yoga studio I've had for almost 13 years and moving out of my apartment where I feel safe and content. I'm leaving my family, friends and Sangha that I have built. I'm severing deep and important roots and, with them, the sense of safety and connection. But, I have chosen this change myself; it's a change I have worked towards for years. My heart tells me that this chapter of my life is over and that another awaits somewhere on a Portuguese shore. Still, it is a letting go. And before I plant my roots elsewhere, in this in-between, I am permitting myself to feel anything I need to feel and be anything I need to be. Happy, sad, excited, terrified, anxious.
Change is challenging for all of us, and, faced with its many layers and faces, we should embrace them all. The 'good' and 'bad'. That's what unconditional love is. Today, I will show myself that love by crossing a few things I can't deal with today off my to-do list and giving myself time to be.
