Oh boy, where do I start on this one? Well, I start with my view on anxiety. Anxiety is our body’s natural protective response to fear. For example, if I am being chased by a lion, tiger, or bear (oh my!), I am going to flee. I won’t even think about it because that rational part of my brain is turned off, and I would be in instant flight, fight, or freeze. So, anxiety is really driven by fear. We will say I am worried about this or that, but it is really fear of something bad happening. I have anxiety, and I fall into a category of worst-case thinkers. I suppose it is a way of self-preparing for some dangerous scenario. However, it can be debilitating and limiting to how we interact with the universe around us – as “when we are afraid, we pull back from life“. For me, I take daily medication, have a therapist, and I try to recognize anxious feelings or worst-case thinking. It is helpful to spot it early and have a conversation with myself – Is this really going to happen? Seems like this is worst-case scenario thinking? I don’t usually get upset at myself or beat myself up (although sometimes that happens); mostly I just acknowledge it, and that is what helps. My wife has anxiety. For her, it disrupts her sleep (she wakes up on the middle of the night). So, she is always searching to find ways to help her sleep. Lack of sleep or being hungry, or low on energy can amplify anxiety. My wife also can become overwhelmed when new things occurring or she has to do something new. She can become very irrational and difficult. Patience, patience, patience – it is about resolving and not reacting. This doesn’t happen often with my wife. My wife is a lovely, kind, and empathetic person. What I have come to learn is that people who are highly empathetic, and/or deep thinkers tend to have high anxiety. Sometimes highly empathetic people or empaths (like myself) can feel the anxiety and emotions of others. This can become really challenging as I need to make sure I know whether those are my true feelings or someone else’s. This took me many years to learn as I was never given a handbook on being an empath! Why should the anxiety fun end there? There is more! My son has anxiety. My son is highly empathetic, very creative, and has a beautiful, loving, giving, and innocent soul. This makes it super difficult to see him have an anxiety attack and become someone else. It is the most difficult on him as he has such large amount of remorse afterwards. He started showing symptoms when he would meet new children, or attend pre-school, group sports, or even around bees. In his words, he says “I worry about everything!”. I have been taking my son to a pediatric psychiatrist for years. It has been tremendously helpful. A couple years ago, his anxiety was causing him to go into “fight” mode. This was really difficult to deal with. He would be physically violent with me or throw, break, and damage things. My wife and I also have worked with a parent coach to get ideas to work with him and for reassurance of how we handle different situations. My son eventually needed to take medicine to increase his serotonin levels. This made a huge difference. He is much better now working with his anxiety and has taken ownership over it. I still take him to therapy regularly. He still has outbursts, but not very frequently, and we have a better understanding on how to help him help himself work through it. Phew…. that was a lot! My son and wife have taught me patience, the true meaning of unconditional love, and really seeing the beauty of everyone’s soul. This is a gift.
