This is What Anxiety Feels Like

Falling apart.

Cracking open.

Being squeezed inside.

Ripping outward from the heart.

I know. I have been sitting with my anxiety all day. I have exercised my body to exhaustion. Eaten only foods that support my well-being. Held still. Kept busy. Diffused essential oils. Written. Read. Researched alternative therapies, all of which I have already tried but maybe there is something new. Maybe I can try again.

Anxiety feels like being numb and being on fire. It feels like burning and cold. It feels like shaking and choking and everything stuck in your throat.

Anxiety feels like quick, hot anger at the world because everything is too much. It feels like fear you are not enough. It feels like you are no one and everyone can see it but no one is looking. Or everyone is looking. And its unclear whether its worse to be seen or invisible.

Write. Write, write, write. It is my habit. Write and be honest because that is the truest release. Write with the breath. Write with the heart. Ride your anxiety like a wave knowing there is an end. A beach. A place to land. Just write.

What you are reading is my practice. This is me releasing. Accepting. Breathing. I am sitting in the echoing chambers of my own anxious heart looking for the blood waves to pulse me free. I am immersed, soaked, but surviving.

This is what anxiety feels like: drowning in your own heart. It feels like loss and grief and wonder and hatred. It feels like soft skin shivering on a warm, summer night in the arms of your beloved knowing you are more than/less than/equal to/up to this incautious life experience.

It feels like not enough air and too much, but it also thrills, lifts and supports because it feels like challenge and opportunity. It feels like a chance.

images from pixabay.com

This is my take on the popular anxiety hashtag started by Sarah Fader. It is also my attempt to calm myself at the end of a very anxious day.