Fight the Anxiety

I heard a sad story today. It made me want to hold everyone I love so closely. Not out of pure enjoyment, but out of fear that something may happen.
I know I’ve written about this before but it’s a raw and tricky balance to find. On one hand, you’re aware and scared of losing everything. On the other, you know that to spend each day in fear is to suck the joy from any moment, because it’s conditional. Its conditional on something that nobody can ever promise you (and if they do, it’s a mere platitude)…it’s conditional that you can enjoy the moment knowing that it will last forever – and that’s not real life.

I know firsthand, not only working with clients, but personally, that there can be a pivotal moment, etched in your heart, where suddenly everything is not okay any more. No anxiety, no forward thinking, no planning, no walking through Every. Possible. Scenario. made the ‘worst that could happen’ any easier to deal with. Oh man it hurt. And years later, if I think about it..it still does.

I wanted to cuddle my boys close. Breathe them in. My sister Emily was Oscar’s age when she fell sick with cancer. My parents, even if they’d walked through the scenario in their minds, wouldn’t have felt any less heartbroken. It only would have sucked from them the beauty in the mundaneness of life that comes with living for today and not for the ‘maybe’s’ of tomorrow’s unknown. The gorgeous, unremarkable mundaneness of life that comes with living without being dictated by anxiety. The richness, the belly laughs, the hope, the mountain top moments, the cheek aching grins…they all come from being where you are and giving yourself to the ‘today’. Even in the hard times, even in the valleys, there are diamonds in the rough and rubies in the rubble.

So…live. Breathe. Enjoy. Rant. Rave. Have your ups and downs. Try and make good decisions, but don’t beat yourself when you don’t. Be kind. Be kind to others, and be kind to yourself. Taste the rain, watch the storms pass, dance in your kitchen. Just be. But be the you that you are now, in the moment that you have, with who that you have because that’s what you’re sure of and that’s where the living is to be done x