December a Great Month for Reflection: How I Let Go of Fear and Anxiety (Part 1 of 2)

Part 1 of 2.

Every December, I try to reflect on what I have done this past year and what I wish to accomplish in the coming year.  While advertisers would love nothing more
than having me shopping online or at their stores and wasting all my money, I
choose to turn off all the distractions of the world and reflect. 

This year has been a very powerful year of changes for me.  The year began like the others, enjoying the company of my two lovely daughters and my wonderful husband; me working in real estate, but mostly being a stay-at-home mom.  Life was good, but underneath something was still wrong. The anxiety was still there.  I guess I’ve always been a bit of a worrier.  It comes from my mom.  She worries
about everything.  She called me one time from South Florida to tell me that she heard in the news the temperature was going to drop in Tampa and she wanted to make sure I would bring a sweater to work.  Really mom?  Hello, I’m old now, I can handle knowing when to wear a sweater. 

Anyway, I have been working on my anxiety for a long time now.  That underlying sense that “I am going to lose it and everything will unravel any minute now” took a lot of my energy. It was exhausting. Plus, I was frankly bored with life.  Not really enjoying selling real estate and going thru the motions with family life. 
Something had to change.

When my second child was born 10 years ago, things began to change for me.  I had always been a very independent woman, career driven and in charge of my destiny.  Once I had my second child, my husband and I decided that I would stay home with my two daughters.   This was a wonderful idea, but I didn’t realize the emotional journey I was about to undertake.   I started doing all the mommy things.   Going to the library for story time, having playgroups, Wednesday bible study, and I even joined MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers.)   My kids were great, my husband was wonderful, everything was perfect, except I was developing this horrible anxiety and having panic attacks.  I didn’t understand where they were coming from.  So much fear arising, it got to the point that I couldn’t go to meetings at my kids school without sitting by the door, so I could get out of there if I needed to.  I stopped going to things I was invited to and stopped participating in activities; my world began to get smaller and smaller. 

Driving my kids to school was a huge undertaking because it felt like I would lose control, crash and get us all killed.  So I would hold on to the steering wheel and talk myself through it all the way to school and all the way back home.  It was
exhausting. 

About the time that things seem to be at their worst for me, my sister became a partner in a yoga studio.  Her new partner gave her a stack of books to read and a yoga nidra CD to listen to.  She was so caught up in learning how to run the business that she brought me the stack and said:  "You read this stuff and let me know."   Without realizing it, that was the greatest gift she ever gave me.   Among the books was a copy of the Tao Te Ching translated by Steven Mitchell.  This little book, among other things said “Let go of control.”  I would go for long walks along the tree-lined streets of my neighborhood and ponder these words.  Let go of control?  How do you do that?  I’ve always been a control freak, I have to
know what is going on and be ready for it, always.  In addition to this wonderful little book, there was a yoga nidra CD by Richard Miller, PhD.  I would lay down on my bedroom rug and listen to this guided meditation.  I didn’t even
understand what this was about.  I would just listen and I seemed to fall asleep during it —that was fine with me.  Any way to escape the anxiety was fine with
me.  

I should mention that I had gone to my doctor and he prescribed me Lexapro and some other antidepressant stuff, but I’m not one to take pills.  I tried them, but I felt numb to life.  To me that seemed even worse.  I wanted to be present for my
kids and husband, and in my life.  At least with anxiety, I was alive.  With medication, it felt like death.  So, I didn’t take them for long.   As part of
this journey, I developed a lot of digestive problems as well.  So, another part of my journey was to learn how to eat healthier.  I read and read and read about healthy living, nutrition, etc. 

So forwarding to the summer of 2010, I had been dealing with all of this for almost 10 years now.  I’d developed many techniques to keep the anxiety under control, and I had practiced yoga on and off for a while.  I started attending yoga classes at the community room at the Hindu Temple that summer and was now able to practice in a large room with a few people rather than having to do it alone at home because of the anxiety.  That’s where I met him.  The man that changed my life.