Tag: anxiety

Day 10

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Writing into Life, more

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‘Change’ continues to be theme of the Buddhist class teachings at the moment – tonight will be week 3 of a 5-week course.

There’s a lot of internal and external change going on for me at the moment.

Historically, I’ve worked through a lot of change, in different ways, but more is on it’s way, rising from deep within and arising from outside sources.

This is leading me to feel a resurgence of anxiety that I had a massive bout of a while back, earlier in the year.  Then, I was waking with fear in my gut, leading to nausea and retching.  The retching isn’t so bad just now, I think largely because of a lot of the work I’ve been doing to keep myself calm, through meditation, yoga, Qigong, walking, working with clay. Even so, I’m having to work really hard today to achieve a sense of calm, and I can’t concentrate for very long at all.  So, I’ve chosen to rest into it, not push myself, and to focus on bringing my awareness to the absence of any immediate threats.  The fear that I’m feeling is in my mind, to do with past experiences and the unknowns of the future. But I’m OK today. That’s what I tell myself and keep telling myself. I’m OK today.

Lydia showed signs of fear this morning when we saw a dog in the distance. The other dog – Elkie – is one we’ve seen before and her owner is sensitive to our needs. He makes sure his dog doesn’t get too close to Lydia while I make sure that I keep the distance from our side too.  I do what I can to help and talk her through the experience in what I hope is a reassuring way.  She still growls, snarls, barks and tries to lunge, but I hold her on a short lead while stroking her head and ears. We turn to walk in the opposite direction, she has a good shake, and I start using the “heel” command combined with “Yes” and treats to mark and reward. It isn’t long before she’s settled down fairly soon to a steady pace and we resume our walk. I tell her how well she’s done and even though I don’t think she understands this, I hope she picks up the praise from my tone of voice at least. She gets more “good girl” treats as we’re going along. I also repeatedly tell her that we’re OK, that she’s OK, that we’re all OK.

We’ve both still got a long way to go to work through our fears, and all we can do is keep trying, following the guidance we’ve been given, learning, reflecting reviewing, and repeating as and when needed, for as long as it takes.

Day 4

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Writing into Life, more

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A friend told me recently that she had started to suffer from anxiety.

It had taken her by surprise as she loves her life, and considers the anxiety to be a chemical imbalance, that she is addressing through prescription medication.

I remember once feeling so frustrated when a GP described my mental health difficulties as a chemical imbalance. For me, medication has only ever been part of the equation, because of the complex nature of my experiences.

While I continue to rely on a daily dose of anti-depressant medication – a maintenance dose – I continue to additionally find my own ways of addressing internal imbalance, through the practises of Qigong, yoga, meditation and so on.

With no pottery session planned this afternoon, I’m booked in for an additional yoga class.

Lydia and I have had a walk together and she is now enjoying some time out in the back yard – her yard.

I’ve done a bit of housework so far, made and drunk some coffee, had some breakfast – a crusty roll with blackcurrant jam.

It may not be the most exciting start to the most exciting day, but it is just a start.

Later …

I do some front yard work  – tidying, sweeping, cleaning – in preparation for the winter ahead. It’s good to do focused physical work, outside in the fresh air. And good to keep up my momentum of ‘a bit at a time’. Things are gradually getting done.

Working again

'A Poetic Potter & A Potting Poet'Leave a comment

First published 3rd April 2021

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After grinding to a halt last year (when I was 64), I’ve had 12 months of resting and recuperating. It’s been great to have no time pressures, be able to catch up on household jobs and generally just ‘chill’. However, I still don’t feel like giving up on my working life altogether and have just started a new job. It’s part-time and temporary – just for a few weeks – and has tested my ability to keep calm in the face of new technology (use of a smart phone is an intrinsic part of the job). With some effort I’ve been able to keep my anxiety levels within manageable parameters – breathing through the stress and repeating my ever-faithful affirmation of ‘I choose to be peaceful and calm; everything is unfolding as it should’. There have been times when I have felt anything other than peaceful and calm but I seem to be settling in. It’s tiring, but I’m doing it.

When I was going through the worst of my breakdown, one of things I hung on to, to haul myself through, was the knowledge of how hard I’d worked when I was younger – dealing with anxiety without any coping mechanisms for a long time – to develop work skills and experience. I was determined that all that hard work would not go to waste.

I do believe that if more people had more help with anxiety and associated difficulties when they were younger, it would help to avoid the devastation that having a breakdown can bring. As a society we still have a long way to go before we can consider ‘inclusion’ a reality rather than a pretend game.

 

Day 24 – Solutions

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Writing into Life

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Waking this morning with a feeling of anxiety, my thoughts turn to the teaching and discussions at last night’s Buddhist meeting.

After I mentioned that the teachings and practices have been helping to lift me out of depression, another member of the group mentioned that she experiences anxiety rather than depression. The two often go together. In my case, I didn’t start to get any real sense of anxiety until after the depression started to lift. It hit me like a brick at the time: a traumatising blast of raw fear. Since then, I have been working on the fear and that too is usually in abeyance these days.  This morning the anxiety is more in my body than my mind and I turn my thoughts to other things, other people: friends and people I know; close and not so close.

After showering, I do a quick clean of the bathroom; just enough to tide it over while I’m still in rest and recharge mode. A bit at a time stops it from building up and then seeming like it’s too much to tackle.

I’m doing the same with my emotional and psychological journey: a bit at a time now, after feeling so overwhelmed in the now distant past that I didn’t know where to start. Except that I did start – somewhere – and I kept going, am keeping going.

It’s pottery for me this afternoon.  Trev is going to visit Lyme Regis, via a scenic route. Lydia is outside barking. She’ll be on her own for a few hours while I’m out so she may as well get a bit of fresh air and let off a bit of steam before I go.

I’ll probably have beans on toast for tea. I like beans on toast. I may well also go for a large gin and tonic. I like gin and tonic too. Alcohol, of course, isn’t the answer, but it is a solution and one that can be very enjoyable if not over-indulged.  I recognise that it is only a temporary source of ‘happiness’ but it is a pleasure I can partake in for now, and tonight I probably will.

Day 20 – learning

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Writing into Life

Lydia and I seem to have had a bit of a breakthrough in terms of how we manage encounters with dogs and moving vehicles while out walking.

While I’ve been using positive reinforcement with her for over three and a half years, I’ve most recently been practising this with a “sit” and “wait” command combination. I’ve also been asking her to “sit” and “wait” before we go out of the back door and again before we go out of the back gate. She’s been getting really used to this and will now often do an impromptu sit before we go through the door.

Using the same “sit” and “wait” combination is now starting to work with her when we see a dog – from a distance – and also when we’re on a road and have cars passing by.  I hold her on a short lead, reward her immediately for the “sit” and reward the “wait” providing she doesn’t bark or lunge.  I also add a lot of reassurance and extra treats and praise afterwards, as I know her fears are still triggered by these experiences, but it does feel like a big step forward. We’re both doing our best to learn and I hope that we can continue to build on this.

I’ve had to do a lot of learning in my life, including a lot of hard life lessons. Learning can be a good way of avoiding being taught (self-management rule no. 35).

It was also good to see a field of still-flowering sunflowers when we were out today. It may be September, but there are still signs of summer.

Day 12 – volunteering

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Writing into Life

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Lydia had some anxious moments when she saw another dog while we were out on our walk this morning.  I helped her through her anxiety with some guidance and reassurance, and hope that, over time, and with continued reinforcement, she will start to realise that she no longer has anything to fear, providing I’m with her. It’s no easy thing, working through deep-rooted fear. I know that from my own experience.

Latterly, and increasingly, I’m finding guidance and reassurance from the Buddhist community that I’m lucky enough to live near.  When I say ‘near’, it’s about a 45-minute drive away, but it’s near enough and it still amazes me that it’s there at all.

Finding a source of meaningful guidance and support through fear and anxiety is a big thing. It took me a long time to search out and find this guidance and support but I’m sticking with it now, and hoping that I’ll be able to give back through some volunteering work with the Centre.

I’ve done a lot of volunteering in my life, which has been part of my searching journey.

While at 69 I don’t have the same amount of available energy as I had when I was younger, I feel that I have a clarity and a focus that I didn’t have when I was younger either, so hopefully there’s a bit of a balance going on.

I have a friend who volunteers practically every weekend, after a full-on working week. That’s quite something, especially as it involves a lot of driving and early-morning starts.  Most people want to have long lie-ins at the weekend, but not my friend.  She’s a true star in every sense. Some people just keep shining. You know who you are Jo!

Day 9 – trusting

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Writing into Life

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A few months ago I had high levels of anxiety which manifested in various ways.

I became highly stressed about my car, as I was having problems with the gears and I started to catastrophise about ‘worst case scenarios’, knowing the extent to which I need my car for daily walks with Lydia.

I pushed through on positives as best I could at the time, the worst-case scenario didn’t present itself and my car has been fine for a few months.

Recently, I’ve started having problems with the gears again.

In the intervening months I’ve taken a lot of time to rest and continue to practice meditation, yoga and Qigong.

I write my blog, in 28-day cycles. The process of writing is proving to be very therapeutic. I’ve written intermittently and irregularly for years but not in the same way as I do now.

My daily walks with Lydia have also been therapeutic, giving us both a good start to the day with regular exercise, fresh air and that all important connection with the natural world.  In Lydia’s case a lot of her connection is through her nose; for me it is more a sense of the air around me and the ground under my feet; the slow steady movement of walking.

This time I haven’t experienced high levels of anxiety about my car problems.  It’s been a minor inconvenience which Trev has helped me with by picking me up from the garage when I dropped it off this morning. It should be ready later this morning and may need a new clutch in the longer term. 

Anxiety, I’m sure, arises from past experiences when we’ve needed to address a problem, and haven’t been able – for whatever reason – to find and implement a solution; where everything fell apart and we had no help in finding ways to put things back together. We’ve learnt to ‘not cope’ and to retreat instead of establishing ways of knowing what to do and how.

When I was younger, I had none of the personal resources and resilience that I have now. I wasn’t taught any coping strategies as any assertion on my part would have upset the status quo, however uneasy that status quo was (and it most certainly was uneasy, at best).

However, through experience and reflection I’ve done my best to learn and change, to take responsibility for the things that make up day-to-day life and to see and do things differently.

I still rely on a small dose of anti-depressant medication every day, but the main processes I use are the ones that are active not passive.  Moving from passive to active has been the major achievement of my life.  The mental effort it has taken has been enormous and sustained, which is why, at the moment, I need to rest a lot as well.  Re-focusing and re-prioritising takes time and I need to continue to trust in the process, however frightening the prospect of uncertainty may seem. I’ve come a long way, just in the last few months. I’m not going back now.

Day 18

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Continuing the story of Lydia and Me

Waking but not rested, I refer again to the RARE mantra this morning. (https://gladabout.life/2025/07/30/day-17-2/)

It helps me to recognise that the anxiety I have about being tired – and fear of never not being tired ever again – is a delusional thought.

I can then accept being tired for the time being and reduce the impact of my negative thoughts by thinking about something else.

Lydia and I have a dog field session booked for 9.30am so after a slow cup of tea (I don’t do quick these days) I get her ready to go out.

She is such a good girl when I call her to put on her harness and she then sits at the back door without me even having to ask her, waiting patiently until I give her the “OK”.

It’s great to see her bounding around the field as soon as I’ve taken off her harness and lead. She is so excited to catch up on all the smells and she does what she wants to do while I do some knee exercises.

I’ve realised this week that my knees are much improved in flexibility and I want to keep them that way. It’s so easy to become complacent and forget to do my exercises, but I need my knees!

Lydia gets some cardio-vascular exercise when she chases vans that pass on the track that runs along the other side of the fence, and follows my suggestion to have a drink of water after her exertions. We do a bit of “heel” reinforcement work and she’s very enthusiastic about taking the treats from my hand.

There is a moment, in the field, when the warmth of the sun combined with the gentle breeze feel absolutely perfectly balanced. It is a beautiful day.

Back home, Lydia has her breakfast and I have mine:  coffee – made by my partner, Trev – and fruity, nutty flapjacks – made by me.

Later I do some garden tidying. Lydia helps me as she often does when I’m working in the garden, and digs away, covering the area I’ve just brushed clean with fresh soil – how kind of her!

Day 8

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Continuing the story of Lydia and Me

We had an early start this morning, Lydia and me.

It was misty when we stepped out, and the spiders had been busy all night by the look of it. There were webs everywhere, finely woven and sparkling when the sun started to shine.

After our walk, I gave Lydia her breakfast and headed off to meet up with a friend.

We don’t meet often, this friend and I, but we settled into each other’s company quickly and easily, as only good friends can do.

Like me, she has recently suffered from anxiety, so we were able to ‘compare notes’. She’s found hypnotherapy a great help; I’ve found meditation works for me, along with affirmations.

“I choose to be peaceful and calm. Everything is unfolding as it should.”

I did a quick Google search and it seems that hypnotherapy is not usually available on the NHS, which means that it sometimes is.

I’ll stick with meditation for now, but hypnotherapy is something that I had little awareness of before and know a bit more about now.

We talked about a lot of other things too, of course, and I so enjoyed catching up with my friend. Then I had another good friend to go home to: Lydia of course!

Good friends come in all shapes, sizes and species. I don’t know where I’d be without them.

Day 6

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Continuing the story of Lydia and Me

I needed a rest today; Lydia did too.

It’s raining.

She shows no interest in or inclination to go out in it.

We’re normally both all-weather girls, but today I have no interest in or inclination to go out in it either.

I leave the back door open so that she can go outside if she needs to, and go back to bed.

On checking my phone mid-afternoon, I see that it’s still showing the “connect charger” message.

There is no light on the extension board and no light comes on when I press the wall switch.  We have a power cut.

My phone charge is low so I turn it off, in case of emergency.

Thankfully, I can boil some water on the gas hob so make myself a cup of tea.

This is a ‘down day’ but not a ‘down day’.

The depression that I’ve been working through most of my life has gone, as has most of the more recent anxiety.

I’m tired – of course I am – but I’m neither ‘down’ nor ‘out’. I’m OK. We’re OK.

When I look over at Lydia, she is gently licking her paws and doing what she needs to do to look after herself, like I do.

For now, that means doing very little, and that’s enough.

Later we do go out for a walk, between showers.

When I give Lydia her tea, feeding her by hand as I always do, she waits a full two minutes in the “stay” position before I reward her with a raw chicken drumstick.

As always, I remind anyone and everyone to take veterinary advice on any aspect of dog feeding and nutrition. I only know what works for me and Lydia.  All dogs are different, just like all people are different.

The power comes back on.