When I was little, I had anxiety. A lot. I started having panic attacks at 16 or so, but the general unease started earlier. Over time, my survival technique was to be in (the illusion of) control. I would restrict where I went since I didn’t know what was bringing these attacks on. I stopped going off-campus (i went to a boarding HS). I stopped sleeping at my best friends house. I was put on pretty heavy medication for a young person, and that helped, but the general fear the one that lived beneath the surface of the panic, permeated everything.
In college I started my education in psychology, human connection and self-help. I wanted to know where this fear came from, I wanted to vanquish it. I wanted a life with ease.
I did not “figure it out” but on the way I did come to understand more about fight/flight/and freeze. I know what foods cause inflammation and therefore mood and stress responses in my body. I no longer take pharmaceutical medication (though am totally “for it” as needed).And I do take probiotics daily or i end up in a depressive episode.
All I’ve ever wanted was to find a way to feel calm. truly calm. I’m the kind of person who could barely relax during a massage my head buzzing with what’s happening (or not happening, or might happen, or might not happen), and more horribly when I was younger, preoccupied with other people’s thoughts about me. I’ve embraced meditation, sitting in the discomfort, yoga, magnesium, CBD, plant medicine, all in the quest to find the calm within me and let life flow around me like water. Generally, because it’s still a pretty foreign sensation if i relax, i feel sleepy. Oh i’m relaxed? I thought i was just tired. Isn’t consciousness electric? Isn’t being awake a buzz? I struggle with a routine, turning work off as many of us do. My being is doing and i’m still working on doing less. I want to be.
The most calm I can remember feeling was on a beach in St. John, on a friendcation celebrating our love for one another in the place Brahm and I got married. We went snorkeling, had no where to be, no service, and were just “off”. These people are family. I want to be able to create that calm in me so that i can swim in it, bask in it, or at least call upon it whenever I need it.
This song is how I want my life to feel: Lazy, hazy, dreamy, loving and safe.
I hope it takes you somewhere like that.
(and I now know that what other people think of me is none of my damn business.)
