Anxiety.
You don’t have to do it alone.
When your body is screaming, but there seems to be no solution, it feels like a huge implosion of energy. An elephant standing on your chest. What happens when you feel there’s no way out? How the hell do you get back to earth?
Anxiety can feel like it leads us to absolutely nowhere. Yet, there is some importance in it showing up.
Reaching for help or support seems like an impossibility; something unpleasant could be the consequence. Maybe you experienced not being met with the proper response when you came with your feelings? Maybe it was dangerous?
So, then, anxiety is appropriate? I think so. The thing is, you would really like to go ahead and live your life without the constant threat of feeling it, right?
The first thing we will do in our sessions is to focus on the here & now and take our sweet time to land, grow awareness around the build up and we will look at ways to (co-)regulate. Being present in your body, understanding what these signals mean and finding connection with me are the core of the work. Simple work, but not easy at all.
Then, over time you will notice that you will be more able to stay in the here & now. Grief can happen, about what happened in the past that made it so impossible to find support.
Loneliness
Loneliness can be super painful. And unfortunately more common these days. We live in highly individualistic times that make it harder to reach out, we created an environment that is hardly even noticing that connection is missing, or so it seems. Truth probably is, that there is a bassline of loneliness with many of us, in some way. (think smartphones, think earpods, think selfscan registers, think online classes)
When you had to isolate yourself during an extended period of time to stay safe, it becomes ingrained in everything. It can be very hard for instance to have serious and nourishing relationships. If you were told the safest way to be, is to isolate, ofc you won’t risk reaching out. Your body agrees; moving in means danger is coming, let’s zone out or turn inward.
Finding it hard to look someone in the eye, tell them your feelings, standing up for yourself, being hyper-independent, always cutting relationships off to not deepen, being dumped, it can all be part of the same thing.
This doesn’t say that this has to remain your story for ever. We could see, one moment at a time, how you can start re-connecting with me and the people around you and work through the kinks of being out of sorts when it comes to connecting.
Luckily you don’t have to undo it, being good at being alone has it perks. But if you could choose when to isolate or stay in connection; it will give you more freedom.