Clarity

It makes sense that it's when our world is turned upside down and everything feels out of control that we need clarity the most. It also makes sense that these are the times when we're the most frustrated, stressed, and anxious, which in turn, clouds our thinking. I know that it's during these times in my own life that I've been the least productive, the most fearful, and hugely scatterbrained. I remember the year I had cancer I ended up with 3 traffic tickets, forgotten appointments, mixed up schedules, and found myself at Target without my purse more times than I can count. Under the circumstances, I think we can agree this was the least of my problems, however, I wish I knew back then what I know now about the benefits of finding calm in the storm.

Since then I have found the importance of learning how to calm myself when I'm feeling anxious. I have struggled with anxiety my entire life and eventually got so sick of it that I decided I was going to do whatever it took to learn how to manage it. I still struggle, however, I do much better these days since I've learned some helpful coping skills. 

Martha Beck's new book Beyond Anxiety has been one tool that has been extremely helpful to me. The book explains how anxiety lives in the left side of our brain along with analytical, logical, and verbal thinking, while the right side is made to sense perceptions, emotions, and intuition. The right side is also where curiosity, creativity, and calm live. So the idea is to get our thinking out of the left side of the brain and into the right side by getting curious or doing something creative. This technique begins with the usual deep breathing and then relaxing our eyes, face, shoulders, and body. We may also need to move around a little to let go of some of that nervous energy. The next step Martha calls calming the creature, which means calming our "primitive self", the part of us that immediately goes into flight or fight mode without us even realizing it. We do this by deploying Kind Internal Self Talk (KIST), telling our primitive creature that it's okay, we're not in any real danger. Next she encourages us to look around for what she calls Glimmers (instead of triggers), things that calm us like a family photo, favorite book, cozy socks, etc. Once we're calm, and our mind is out of fight or flight, we're able to begin getting curious about our situation, and instead of panicking, it begins to problem solve by getting creative. 

I've also found doing other activities gets me out of my anxious mind, for instance, taking my dog for a walk and listening to music, doing yoga with a small meditation at the end, and talking to a good friend who helps me put things into perspective. Recently, my girls and I will also take walks and while we're walking we'll talk about our "Glimmers" (things that make us feel calm), and with that we've added "Shimmers" (things that make us feel happy), and "Sparkles" (things that make us feel excited). I know the words are a little silly, and we laughed as we made them up, but feeling we should stick with the theme we added them to our calming techniques, and I must admit, after our walks we honestly do feel a lot better and definitely more hopeful.

So, since adding these coping skills to my daily practice, I've noticed it's getting easier to go from panic to calm in a matter of minutes, and once I'm calm I begin to see a different perspective. Soon I find that clarity begins to set in and hope begins to rise. Then a new outlook on life forms, which leads to purpose and action... and this is where the real adventure begins...