What is your anxiety trying to tell you?
Do you ever wake up with a shitty feeling? As if the world turned upside down, as if nothing matters, as if something bad is going to happen? Or with a deep sadness with no particular reason? If you do, you’re not alone!
I had a great weekend, I didn’t even have the Sunday evening blues, I was actually looking forward to Monday morning and getting some work done.
I woke up without an alarm clock, just when my body wanted to wake up, made a good cup of coffee, people watched from my terrace while drinking the said coffee. Then all of a sudden I got hit by some powerful waves of emotions. Anxiety, worry and a profound sadness! I don’t have a particular reason to be sad, in fact I am in a very good place in my life. So I did what any ‘wise’ modern woman would, I tried to suppress my emotions, it did not make sense, I should not have felt sad, I had to numb those feelings, so I lit a cigarette (I don’t even smoke), when the cigarette didn’t help, I ate a piece of chocolate (or the whole bar), when the chocolate didn’t help I decided to have a pep talk with my self, it went something like this: You idiot! You have tons of work to do, you don’t have time to be sad, you don’t have time to just sit and do nothing, get yourself together and start working!!!
The pep talk seemed to help a little bit and I sat at my desk, turned on my computer and replied to a few e-mails. But after about 15 minutes the sadness came back. Then finally I surrendered and had another pep talk with myself, this time it went like this: It is ok to be sad with no reason, it is ok to have an unproductive Monday, maybe this is what you need, maybe you need to just sit with the emotions and observe them, be curious, where are they coming from? What are they trying to tell you? For me, it is telling me to slow down, it is telling me to take care of my body, it is telling me that there is more to life than being a hustler and working 7 days a week, it is telling me I should stop trying to numb my emotions. Today I am being gentle with myself, feeling the sadness and not worrying about being productive. And tomorrow is another day, I’ll take it one day at a time and I suggest you do the same. Listen to your body, listen to your emotions, they might tell you what you need!
PS: If you think that I am still trying to be productive by writing this article, you’re wrong, I am doing this for myself, writing helps me find clarity, it is my tool for self discovery.
