A Letter to My Anxiety, the Thief
Carrie H
Dear Anxiety (and its sibling, adrenal fatigue),
You rob me. You rob me of time. You rob me of energy. You rob me of health. You rob me of inspiration, which basically means you are robbing me of my livelihood. You steal my prana. You create so much doubt. I have things I want to do. I have goals I want to accomplish. I have a cookbook to write and you overwhelm me with and self-doubt and cripple me and make it impossible to focus on anything for more than 10 minutes at a clip.
You make me wake with dread some mornings, wondering what's going to go wrong that will set back my progress. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. You make me sad for no really good reason. You make me feel crazy. You make me feel like I'm going to die. You have given me heart palpitations. You have filled my shoulders, neck and upper back with so much tension I sometimes have rib pain. You have made my hair fall out, messed up my cycle, and given me night sweats. You have made me feel like a total freak of nature, an outcast, a weirdo, totally and completely abnormal. You make me feel like something bad is going to happen to my children or my husband. You make me worried. You make me think something bad is going to happen to me, that I'm going to end up like my mom, stressed out and full of cancer and dead after giving giving giving of herself for years and years to everyone else and never taking anything for herself. You are why I haven't had my mammogram and I'm 42.
You make me impatient. You make me angry. You give me headaches and brain fog. You make it take longer for my body to heal. You take me away from the present moment. You kill my focus. You've messed up my sleep, especially during election season, and made it impossible to turn on any media. (I know I am at least not alone here!). You've messed up my health and my yoga practice. You have royally messed up my low back. You have made it nearly impossible for me to listen to myself, to know what my intuition is telling me versus what is actually happening in my body and in my life. You've made me not trust myself sometimes.
You have taught me much, this is true. Because of you, I have become well-versed in natural sleep aids and dipped further into Ayurveda. You have reminded me that I need to ground myself every day and shield myself every day from negative energy. You have also shown me that so many of my friends and loved ones deal with you, too. Man, you get around, don't you? But anxiety, you are a killjoy at the end of the day and a thief. I want my life back. I want some peace of mind.