Anxiety… control… trust… and some cabbage

My April therapy series started with my doctor putting me in for an immediate cancer screening . Everything worked out, but it was precisely the collision with a close, real threat to life that clearly showed me one very important feature of my life. I realized then that fear is my usual, natural state. Some basic background feeling that is always present. That is, not fear, like a terrible fear, but fear transformed into anxiety. I then realized that as far as I can remember, and I remember myself tolerably from the age of two, I was always afraid or worried, just give me a reason, and there were plenty of reasons with an authoritarian single mother. I have always been like that Nightingale the Robber from the joke: “sometimes you sit not like that, sometimes you whistle not like that.” It turned out that this really interferes with life, that this strategy – to be afraid, has ceased to work. My husband, after I shared this with him, said in bewilderment: “so don’t be afraid!” Such a brave one said to me, cowardly. It’s like saying to a legless man: “Run!” If I could, I would have been “running” for a long time, but the legs of my fearlessness have not grown to run. I went into therapy with this set. We held a dozen meetings , turned it around in every way, considered it. I felt more stable. Something cleared up and straightened out of breath .

There is little work now, I have a lot of rest, we took a summer house, we are busy. The days of the week are mixed up, there is no clarity in the awareness of Monday today or Friday. Just a day. Just a day off in the middle of the week. We arrived at the dacha, changed clothes in the lust to plant cabbage. Phone call. A fitness client calls and says she lost me, waiting for me in the gym. And here I am in blooming apple trees, galoshes, a bathing suit and with a rake. We laugh, I accept my responsibility, we decide whether the girl will stay in the club to walk on the stepper or go home. All decided. Reflection. What is this situation about?

I voice several hypotheses to my husband, sitting under a plum tree and cutting nettles. He listens, sums up: “you are determined to curtail coaching, she dies, you involuntarily sabotage, blah blah ” this is partly true, but this hypothesis does not fit. I understand that the answer is somewhere nearby, right on the surface, but I don’t see it, I don’t feel it, I can’t formulate it. I understand one thing clearly, 5 years ago I would have been drowned and thrown against the rocks by giant waves of guilt and shame. Today, I’m just sad that this happened. No toxic experience. Compensation for damages agreed, what kind of toxins could be in there. There is no conflict. I remain with questions.

Today, unexpectedly, this client has become a very effective cool therapist for me. She came to practice and I told her about my reflection. I have been working with her, her husband and children for four and a half years, we are not friends, but in many ways very close. We know a lot about each other, we communicate very “in depth” And so she masterfully shared her feelings and thoughts about what this situation could be for me. The summary formula was: control of how I gently let go of total control. They responded to me very much, with a soft, warm tongue licked my soul. I finalized it at dinner, while I was telling Slava the hypothesis itself and how Katya (let’s call her that) arose and presented it .

The insight made me happy. Why do I want to have total control over everything? Because there is a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. Why total control? Because it is customary not to trust even relatives. Only I can ensure my own safety. Everyone else can’t do anything. And here behind the phrase “control the release of control”, I clearly see the basic meaning: “control the release of anxiety”! T, I gradually, not backwards , I try not to be afraid, to trust, I move quietly, checking the ice. “Well, what will happen if I do n’t get scared here? And if I don’t get worried here? Oh! Everyone is safe? Nobody died! Everyone did it! Nobody crumbled, and I was the first.” I was very happy about this, that I move well, I train to live without excessive anxiety . After all, a few years ago I would have been tearing my hair out because there is little work, what we will live on, we have to cling to every workout to the blood in our teeth in order to earn any money, that a day off in the middle of the week is an unaffordable luxury on the verge of a crime, aaaaaa ! We will all surely die! After all, only I control whether we can live or not. Panic. Fog. The relatives are nowhere to be seen. They disappear. Even the thought is not allowed to be entrusted, trusted, leaned on, so that they would pick it up. I myself can not stand and try to dump others. Since I have poor control, we fall together !!!

But it turned out to be true that where there is permission to be as it is, with a day off on Tuesday, not to sweat and not worry about those things for which you should not worry, as soon as grace begins, loved ones are picked up in strong hands, who, it turns out, can also do a lot if they are given the right and the place to do something themselves. I did not plant cabbage, in the end, but I am very satisfied with the therapy session from my Katerina, my progressive movement and reality in general. I’m going to sleep happy, I’ll plant cabbage tomorrow or on Fri , or maybe on Sat or Sun – what’s the difference, why worry? I’ll be late with the landing – what am I – I won’t buy cabbage for myself? I will buy. Enough “cabbage” for cabbage.

event_note August 28, 2022

account_box Winona Tse MD

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