Feeling into anxiety and sadness

Reflecting on moments of raw emotion and moving through those thoughts

Here I am sharing a journal entry from a few weeks ago when I was feeling super down. Writing always helps me move through emotions and accept how fleeting they can be, and to listen to the perspectives offered by my sadness.

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Most of my day to day has been abundantly pleasant and I’ve been so grateful for all of the positive changes that have been in my life recently. My recent updates have been easily filled with joy and gratitude. The truth is that there's always more that lies beneath the surface and in this deep stage of my cycle where things feel heavy, a strong sadness has found its way to the forefront of my consciousness. 

Here I am on a beautiful sunny Saturday without a friend to share it with. It's on me, I should have bought a ticket to the music festival, but yet somehow I don’t feel like I was ever truly wanted there. I’m struggling with self doubt and insecurity in myself as someone who is desirable and wanted by their friends and loved ones. I’m feeling lonely as though I’m falling into a vicious cycle of insecurity and vulnerability. I thrive when I’m surrounded by people whether we’re intentionally hanging out or not. I feel so much more of a sense of purpose when I have a community to be a part of. I’m not the type of person who wants to be independent or ‘girl bossing’ on her own. I want simple daily tasks to carry out that involve physically exerting myself to make a life for myself and those around me. I want to farm, cook, dance, song, build, move, and grow into myself. I want sisterhood and female friendships. My period is late and my emotions are strung out and I’m waking up with anxious energy that I was to expel. I need to move more, exercise, laugh, cry, and hold others. I need to be held. Someone needs to hold me soon. 

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Background Struggles that come up sometimes:

One thing I have always struggled with in relationships is feeling satisfied with the reciprocity between myself and those I care for by wanting to show others just how much I care about them. I love deeply and find so much joy in relationships, especially intimate friendships that are very much one on one. I love deeply getting to know people and learning what makes them happy and how to show them I care about their happiness. I often extend myself to others by reaching out, trying to make plans, organizing time to get together for meals or mutual activities, planning trips, bringing thoughtful offerings, offering to lend a hand in manual labor tasks, and making time to deeply listen as well as feel heard by my friends. Yet sometimes it feels like what I put out into the world is not needed and the rejection builds up over time. Usually when people don’t jive with my asking to hang out or go grab some food or plan a trip together, it’s no big deal since we all lead different lives and don’t always sync up, and that’s okay. It happens on my end, too. Yet I notice patterns when I feel rejected by a series of people in all different ways that add up to feel like I’m just trying too hard in my relationships and that perhaps my expectations are too high for what healthy reciprocal inputs actually look like. I am all for direct and open communication especially if someone needs to share how they’re feeling or a boundary they need to set for themselves, but often I feel like some friends of mine have trouble even getting there and often don’t reply to texts or wait till the last minute to cancel making me feel as though the plan was never going to happen in the first place and I get my hopes up. I have so much to give others in relationship and so much I need to receive as well, and I wonder if others feel similarly when relating to other people in our lives.

All of us just want to be loved yet showing love to others is hard for so many people. The vulnerability is scary for so many of us, myself included. I have been pursuing that vulnerability and don’t shy away from the hard conversations, yet I find those I feel closest to ignoring a reality in which they simply don’t want the same thing as me but feel bad saying it, when it’d be so much easier for me to hear the full truth of where people are coming from rather than leave me to create stories in my head as to why they aren’t aligning with me.

I am happy to be the one to facilitate get togethers and rally people to come together. It brings me so much joy when it happens. Yet when the opposite happens and friends turn their heads at my requests, the sting can feel a little too deep for me and a sadness grows. It’s not even that I’m taking it personally like it’s anything inherently wrong with me, but rather that a friend considered to be so dear and that I would do so much for them and be there in a heartbeat - wouldn’t do the same for me- and the struggle comes when I start to ask “why not?”. I wish I could set my ego aside sometimes and be genuinely and unbiasedly empathetic towards everyone around me but this is not possible, and I’m left to interpret life through my ego’s perspective which I’m sure makes it hard to be rational all the time especially when I am most vulnerable and sensitive. I want to feel all the range of emotions that we can feel as humans, I want to love deeply and unapologetically, I want to show up to spaces where I feel my best self and the world will take me as I am. I have many layers and a wide variety of feelings all at once. I have been learning to deeply enjoy the time I spend alone and have become an expert on taking care of myself so that I can do it without thinking too hard. I have an abundance of love and joy to share with the world and I just hope to be able to be accepted and welcomed by the people I love and cherish.

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The new reality of living with anxiety

Anxiety starts as the friend who choses to point out the negative but I brush it off and ignore it. Later she calls me right before I fall asleep at night just to remind me of how other people don’t need me as much as I need them. “Why are you saying this to me?” I ask, but the words still sit heavy in the air. Later anxiety awakens me in the early morning and lays right on top of me with all her weight just to make it harder to start the day. She pesters me so I shoo her away. Why do I even listen to her? She doesn’t know what’s best for me. I know that I am so loved by many and I love others even harder. It’s hard to understand what role she has in my life but it seems as though she’s a part of me and perhaps I need to accept that the struggle is to hear her but not absorb her weight into me, but rather to thank her for her perspective and ask her to kindly fuck off. 

I am finally starting to learn the power of only chasing the things in life that deeply satisfy me to my core so that the underlying rawness of life feels satisfactory in my day to day experience. I don’t want to have a career just so that I can afford my lifestyle in my free time. I want my lifestyle to embody what I care most deeply about so that true satisfaction and gratitude are regular parts of my lived experience. So many days I let the pressures of our current individualism-oriented society to pressure me into believing that I am meant to financially support myself and contribute to capitalism, yet nothing about that way of life means anything to me. My connection to people and land is truly what gives my life meaning. It is simply the concept of belonging to the earth; not being a separate entity with ownership. For me, this sense of being a part of communities across scale of size and physical locations, this idea that I am a part of something greater than myself, this is the priority I am working towards every day. My ability to enjoy all days of the week, as what I spend my time doing brings me deep satisfaction and I do not wish for more money or more “spare” time. These days, I am lucky enough to spend my precious time enjoying nature, growing food, moving my body in fun and silly ways, cooking delicious and healthy foods, caring for a sweet baby, making new connections with people in different social circles that center my interests, the list goes on. 

So when anxiety pokes me in my side and puts a bug in my ear that my face looks lopsided, or that people might judge my appearance, or tells me I’m not good enough, I simply ask, “Who the fuck let you into this party?” but I still ask her to dance.

I respect her persistence. So much of the time there’s so much positivity that it drowns her out and she falls away, maybe even for a few weeks, or even a whole month. But she is a part of me, after all. 

Another later journal entry, reflecting on the sadness

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The antidote : Connection

Sometimes I find myself feeling down for no apparent reason. The reality is I have an abundance of loving and supportive friends, but my own mind starts to tell me the opposite is true. Often my appreciation for the little beauties in life carries me forward between moments of pure bliss when energy shifts low. Sometimes I wake up with low energy, a negative body image, or maybe I’m just bloated. 

So I try to remember to ask myself “what makes me happy?” since maybe I forgot.

Then someone smiles at me and the sun shines again. I say hello to a new friend at the cafe. I watch ladies in the community garden chat and pick weeds casually. Older ladies exchange recipes over coffees. The sky is bright and the air is warm in a Florida winter. Witnessing these small connections grounds and recenters me. I found the answer to the big question “what is most important to you?” in definite terms. Human connections. All of them from the deep and meaningful to fleeting yet impactful. Authentic humanness is the most beautiful to me and is maybe becoming a lost art. Passing strangers avert their eyes, yet when when I see into someone’s soul I see a light turn on in their eyes and they feel witnessed and held. A small exchange can make someone’s day; I know as it happens with me. Introducing myself and taking up space has allowed me to be held in more ways than I would have predicted. The times when I feel lonely, lost, or off track, I come back home into my body and remember that I am not as in control as I think, and surrendering to the universe is all I can do. Opening my heart to genuine connection always recenters me after anxiety has had her way with me. My control lies only in how I treat others and how I ask to be treated in return. Smile upon the universe and the universe smiles upon you.

Thanks so much for reading my deeply personal thoughts and feelings. It feels much better for me to let it out into the universe so that maybe someone else can relate to how I feel and know they’re not alone. I also feel less alone letting people into how my mind works, so thank you for hearing me.

I go back and read my journal entries from when I feel knocked down by my insecurities and worries for the future. Luckily my support system is strong and am I quickly reminded that most of my worries are not founded in reality and that I probably just need a hug or even just a smile from a stranger. 

I must remind myself that it is okay to need this. Not only is it okay to need this, but it is necessary to have it.

Sadness is real. Anxiety is real. I am so grateful for the moments of clarity when I can accept the negative voices as a part of me, and to move forward with a more nuanced perspective of what it means to pursue happiness as individuals. Join me!