Hi Anxiety

A few mantras I try to remind myself of during rough times. I have a bunch, probably one for every occasion, but these are just a few highlights to help out.

I have so many bills and No way to pay them or I am falling behind. There will always be bills. The more money you have the larger the bills will be. Breathe.  My kids do not listen to me.I did not always seem to listen to my parents but now I know what it means, Maybe my kids hear me. I will just keep talking to them. Breathe. I am worried I cannot provide for my family. There are always family and friends to call for help. So the worry is for having to ask? And society changes things will change. Breathe.

I was watching TV, something most of us do to distract from the daily issues we face. And there was this snippet of dialog that really was very good, “Life is 24 hours of pain. Interrupted by brief moments of basic cable.” I thought that just about summed it up.

Sometimes I find myself lying awake at night plagued by the physical internal vibration, shaking, uncontrollably. I start to worry about what needs to be done, what I cannot do. I feel powerless and as scared as a small child in a dark room alone during a thunderstorm.

Will my boss fire me for that little mistake? Will my spouse leave me because I don’t keep the house clean enough or I can’t cook a decent meal? Will my kids grow up to be serial killers?

Well, sometimes the thoughts are not really anything but that, just imagination and worry running rampant. But sometimes you really are unemployed and can’t pay the bills. Sometimes the house may be in jeopardy of being taken always and you face homelessness. Sometimes the diagnosis is Cancer.

What do I do? Where do I go?

I see a sad trend. I think it is a response to apathy. I see people on TV and in my community that are suffering from illnesses such as hoarding or addictions (shopaholic, alcoholic, drug addiction, etc.). All these are ways to self-medicate. But you only need medication to fix something that is broken in the body. If it is an issue of the mind, medication alone will not fix anything. Can you think your way out of a paper bag? Sometimes I forget that I can.

I hope that my true friends know that they can call me when they have problems, no matter the time of night, even when they don’t want me to do anything but listen. Because in their calling me they make me feel useful and that is enough to get me through a tough time or two. We all need to be needed.

If people become apathetic and think that showing care or concern is being nosey. Or people withdrawal from society because of fears or apprehensions, then where does that leave us. It leaves us to cower in the corner alone with a sense of being lost, with no direction. Like 2 year old children lost in a big city without an understanding of who they are or where they come from.

We want our parents to hold us while we cry and tell us that everything will be ok. At the same time we are the parents of children that we must hold.

I like to remind myself when I get into this state that I am now 40 (well 39, but who will split hairs) and I know people in their 70s+ so that means that I have all this time to do again. Every minute I have already lived I can live doing something else in the future.

So WOW! This or that problem is just a moment that will pass and I am making myself a nervous wreck about it.

I could be starving to death, really. Or I could have no clothes but rags. There are so many things that could be more painful than any of my worries, and people live through these things. Not only do they live, but a few of them emerge having gone through the worst of the worst.

So I am out of work. So I can’t afford that 52nd pair of shoes that are in style. So I may not be able to get the latest video games for my kids. Sometimes love has to be enough because it is all there is. And sometimes it is the only thing we can give to ourselves.

Billions of people have done all this living before me. At the end we die. There is no alternative. So in the middle – just live. And do no harm.

Image by SnoShuu via Flickr

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