How many times have I wished I were different. Not clung so tightly to my tendency for worry. Free from the anxiety that every now and again, too often for comfort, tangles itself around my chest and pulses nervously across synapses. The truth is, this penchant for panic is stamped directly into my DNA, inherited from my Nonnie, and perhaps her Nonnie before her, whose leg bobbed furiously under the table with what we lovingly called the "Talerico Twitch", as she worried about worrying, her mind spinning behind kind eyes.
But what is also just a surely stitched into my genes is a determination, an undying dedication toward keeping my eyes scanning for the beauty nestled in the sacred ordinary, a commitment to discovering the silver lining, and returning home to myself in this perfectly imperfect moment over and over again.
And so as a reminder for myself, and perhaps a sweet fellow soul who also occasionally feels compelled to lock herself in her closet to escape the noise and bustle and constant chatter of anxiety triggers, a list for the days when my hands tremble and my breath gets all hung up on my ribs.
- Breathe yourself back into your body, love, because right now you're all wadded up into your head. Come back down, down, down into your feet, and feel them against the floor. Stretch out into your limbs, those poor joints get so stiff when you're all knotted up in your head. Sink peacefully into your weight, cradled lovingly by earth mother.
- Fill your lungs, full with love, and with that deep, glorious, heroic exhale feel the nerves drain, drain, drain out through your feet. Over and over until all that anxious energy is emptied, replaced with calm.
- Reach out and connect so that your soul can recognize that you're not alone on this journey. Call, text, hop on facebook, it's all good, as long as you make contact with another soul who can see you and hear you and remind you that you're real, not a figment lost in the fog.
- Put on the kettle, my love, because the warmth from a mug sending up ribbons of steam not only nourishes down the throat, warming the heart, calming the belly, but also right through the palms that hug the mug, through flesh to soothe muscles.
- While you're at it, grab that pear that is gold and green and pink all at once, or a hand full of walnuts out of the jar in the cabinet. Why you wait to eat until you are shaking and ravenous will always be a mystery.
- Light the candle that fills the house with the smell of apples and cloves and cinnamon, that tints the shadows amber and sends them flitting and swaying recklessly.
- Pull out your book, you know the one, where the words slide across jagged nerves like salve. Spend a couple moments letting them pull you from your whirling storm to safety.
- Just as soon as you've given yourself a warm hug and a soothing word, wrap those littles tight in your arms, close to your heart. Let kisses land on soft cheeks. Soak in smiles and giggles and eyes that twinkle, they still hold close the secret of magic.
- And take yourself out, out into the day, where a fresh breeze kisses skin, and parched lungs can swallow great gulps of crisp air. Where feet can root into cool clumps of green grass, and the birds remind you how to float on the moment.
Sure some days this will all seem impossible, and your leg will still twitch to the rhythm of your worry, but some days this will deliver you right out of the fire, and even on the worst day it will reveal the possibility of relaxing into the nuance and beauty that awaits.
Above all else, remember you are loved. Always.