Wisdom Anxiety Has Taught Me

Just over two weeks ago I was all geared up, excited, ready for change. March Magic had come to an end and all signs pointed to exciting times ahead. It looked as though my dreams were within my reach!

Then it happened.

On the whole, I am a positive person. I like to believe all things are possible and I want to live my best life and encourage others to do the same. That said, I'm really sensitive when it comes to the slightest negative emotions coming from others. Negativity sends me down very quickly into my own cycle of negativity and hopelessness. Well, as the holidays began, I felt the downward pull of negativity online. I had to take action by turning off notifications on Facebook/Messenger. This gave much needed respite from online negativity, but nothing could prepare me for what I was going to experience from my neighbours. 

A Dark Night Of The Soul

What I'm going to share I haven't shared with anyone. I woke up this morning knowing this had to be blogged.

My new neighbour is a mother of I think three. I can't be sure. The situation is very complicated. It's not important to this story. Anyway, she shouts...a lot. I'm not talking about "normal" shouting. I'm talking about every swear word you can possibly imagine kind of shouting. She gives off really bad, negative energy. It feels like she actually pollutes the air around her with it. 

A couple of times it affected me. I'd get shaky and upset by it. But one day it got so bad that I woke up about 5am shaking. I had a full on panic attack. It felt that there was no way forward. That this was it for me and the constant cycle of bad neighbours. That I would be stuck here forever. I got up, went to the toilet and threw up. Nothing would bring any relief or comfort. Only sheer exhaustion got me back to sleep.

Light Of Dawn

When I woke up, there was a distinct sense of knowing my body dealt with the stress this lady triggered, in the best way it knew how. Yet now it was my turn to give it a helping hand by heeding the wisdom that that breakdown was teaching me. 

I genuinely believe that what this lady does triggered in me what I experienced growing up. Circles seem to be a theme for me lately, and I'll be posting about that in my next post. But I felt I had come full circle. This was now my chance to scoop up the little girl in me and save her. To take back her power, own the sensitivity, to not be shamed into thinking my sensitivity is a weakness. To not allow myself to be intimidated and crippled by fear. That night, and it makes me cry now thinking about it, I saw the child in me curled up in a ball utterly powerless to change her situation. Adult me, however, has learnt enough to know that there is a way forward, but in the words of Brene Brown, it means Daring Greatly. It means being vulnerable.

Give Yourself Up To Life

I have been exerting a lot of energy (and this could be a contributing factor to my 5am breakdown), into trying to get the life I want. Rather than giving myself up to life, because of the fear of being vulnerable, I would find ways to try and control life. This is VERY different to owning your power. It's actually the opposite. It's refusing to own your power and be your true self (be vulnerable) and so try to live life by taking short cuts that actually don't exist. 

It is my understanding now, that we all have that one thing we know we are meant to do, that one step we're meant to take, but we're too afraid to. I know what mine is. It's different for all of us but it's the same in that it requires being brave. 

I'm still feeling very tender and bruised from the other night. But I know this, that it's time for me to throw myself into the flow of life, rather than trying to control that flow. Going back to circles, just as I began berating myself for finding myself in the same place, again and again, falling back into the same bad habits, I came across something someone said, 

"You are stubborn. You are afraid to risk genuine change. But you have learned. Your circles are actually spirals. You will make the same mistakes until you see them so clearly that the patterns become separate from you. Then you will be able to choose the old patterns or not to choose it." 

As if on que it went on to answer my thought that I want it to happen immediately; 

"It is a process, and you are inside that process."