Pandora’s box swung wide open on the night I had my first panic attack, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could just not stuff back in what had come up for me.
What on earth was going on with me? I had no idea at all. I was 30 years old with a one-year old baby and was the happiest I’d ever been in my life.
Of course, hindsight being what it is, I had no idea the significance of that moment, that this was to be the starting point on a journey that would change me forever, would provide me with opportunities for exponential growth and would lead me on a course to discovering my life’s work.
It was a long and winding path to even figure out that the multitude of mind and body stuff I was going through was anxiety. Anxiety? I did not know a single thing about anxiety. I felt enormously alone. I didn’t know where to turn. No one seemed to know how to help me. They said it was “anxiety” and then sent me on my miserable way. I realized then, and way too often since then, that I was just going to have to figure it out on my own. And that I was going to have to lean in to my Spiritual Support for whatever help I was going to get along the way.
I was guided to teachers and through many (many, many) stages of recovery, up and down, over and through, and led into more epiphanies and ah-ha moments than I could ever imagine was possible! It changed me. It made me who I am today. It opened up a whole new world for me. It opened up possibility. It showed me that I could be just as close to the Divine in my life as I wanted to be.
AAnd, of course, there was the pivotal moment in which I first heard about “self talk” – tape 3 of the anxiety program I listened to all those years ago! – pretty much wore that tape all the way out! I vividly remember being so astonished at the concept that many of the thoughts rattling around in my brain were not necessarily even true and that I had control over them. Are you kidding me? Why had no one ever told me?! This was the beginning of bunches of study and a passion first for self help and later for all things personal growth and inner work. Consciousness and awareness had dawned and a new world had opened up before me. And now there was no going back . . .
If you’re dealing with lots of anxiety right now, whether it’s brand new or rolling back around in an anxiety flare that has you feeling like you are in crisis, you can read here about how I would start the recovery practice.
