Dear Feeling in my Chest

Hi there. I feel we need to get acquainted as it appears you’ve made yourself comfortable and do not plan on departing anytime soon. You’ve found a comfy spot it seems – the perfect space for practicing your gymnastics, or jumping on the bed. Did you bring your butterfly friends too? Only, you don’t appear to be alone, and, while the butterflies are regular visitors, they too appear to have joined you this time for an extended stay.

I know you’re the not the most welcome of visitors, and you’re probably used to being told to “go away!” and “leave me alone!” and I confess I’ve often said this to you in the past…However, I was listening to The Anxiety Advantage where, in one episode, Yang-May talked about her own relationship with Anxiety – with you. She suggested that we all too easily treat you as the enemy, someone to fight off and send away. But what if we flipped our attitude towards you. What if, instead of treating you as a pain in my backside, I calmly approach you like I would a friend who is only trying to help. I do understand that’s what you’re trying to do. You're acting as you always have since humankind existed, keeping us safe from the dangers of the world. The thing is, the world has changed my friend. No longer are we cooking and sleeping in the open, contstantly needing to be vigilent for wild animals approaching and eating us for dinner. Back then, it was important that you were there, ready to warn us and to set our hearts beating faster and blood pumping so we could get up and run or fight for our lives and our families. Those days are gone. The world is a different place now and those wild animals now appear in the shape of long to-do lists, the never-ending feeling of pressure to be busy and to achieve things, financial worries, social media. Instead of being out in the open and our bodies simply setting us up for the best possible means of survival, we are sitting in our houses, or at desks, or surrounded by friends, with adrenlanine surging through our bodies with nowhere or way to be released. In these instances, we don't need all that blood pumping to our muscles ready to run our fastest or fight our hardest.

So, what am i trying to say to you? Well, basically, what I learnt listening to Yang-May the other week, is that I need to remember why you're there. I need to remember that you're just doing what comes naturally to you, and doing your best to try and keep me safe from the dangers of the big wide world. Instead of trying, and failing might I add, to send you away, I should talk to you and perhaps reassure you - and myself, my brain - that there is no iminent threat. I should have a gentle, understanding conversation with you and explain that, while I know you're only trying to help, I don't actually need all this adrenaline and you to sit in that comfy spot you've found, when things are actually ok. So, I wanted to write to you perhaps to begin this new relationship, to re-introduce myself as a friend and to reassure you. In doing so, I'm also hoping perhaps my friend Brain may intercept this letter and get the message too. Perhaps then the two of you could work together to improve your perception of real danger, and just relax. Ha! I'm the ultimate hypocrite. Relaxing is something I need to learn to do too. But perhaps, if we all work together, you, me and and Brain can learn. It sounds ridiculous, but even writing this letter is a big step for me. Not in terms of specifically writing to you about this topic, but in terms of writing my letters at all. I enjoy doing this, it is something that bring me comfort and satisfaction, that gets my creative brain whirring and releases the goings on inside my head. It's a form of therapy, of self-care. Thus, it is not something that I feel you actively encourage. There you sit, telling me I need to be "busy" and "productive", that my to-do list needs adding to or there are important adulting things I'm probably forgetting about. You tell me, not with words but just by being there, that lying in bed writing and listening to the rain outside my window, doing something I love and that, as an added perk, will help my mental health, is not achieving whatever it is you believe I should be doing. What if I find that I spend all this time writing this letter when I could have been...what?

So here's my message to you: I am allowed to relax and to do things that bring me joy. A conversation with my parents the other day centred on them telling - perhaps reminding - me that I work hard and that I am allowed - in fact i should - use my time off to do things that make me happy. I do not need to be "achieving" things (whatever that means) every moment of the day. If I want to spend an entire day in my pyjamas after a full working week of looking after two small humans, then I can do that. They reminded me that I'm one of the lucky few who has many solo pass-times and am very happy in my own company - that if I want to, there is nothing and nobody stopping me from spending my non-working time reading an entire book cover-to-cover as I did over afternoons as a child, or quietly cross-stitching with the radio on. The only thing that does feel like it's stopping me, is you. For a while now, particularly prevalent during the last few months of change in my life, you've sat there and made me feel - rightly or wrongly - that every moment must be filled with more "important" things than those that simply make me happy. Perhaps you simply don't value well-being and happiness in the way that I do. It's ok if you see things differently to me, however I want you to see things from my point of view, so that we can, as long as you're here, live in harmony together.

With all this in mind, here's my thinking. Let's keep communication channels open. I understand you're probably not planning your departure right now and I get it. There's been lots of change and you're stepping cautiously. I don't blame you. However, when you're feeling energetic and throwing out adrenaline here there and everywhere, let me talk to you and reassure you. Let me assess the reality of the situation and I'll - hopefully - most likely be able to tell you there's nothing going on right this moment that could result in somebody dying, the world ending, general impending doom. I'll tell you that we don't need to restart that to-do list of dread, writing down every little thing that I think of, because if something is important, either I'll remember it, or someone will remind me, or, worst case, something will happen because I didn't. And unless that thing that happens is the world ending or somebody dying, it's probably something that can be rectified.

Remember: THERE ARE NO WILD ANIMALS PROWLING THE STREETS OF NORTH LONDON. I want us to be friends, not enemies. Anxiety and you have been part of my life for as long as I can remember and so, while my ideal would be to let you check-out indefinitely and find somewhere else to stay, for now, I'll simply try and give you the reassurance that you need. All that adrenaline pumping must be quite tiring for you, as well as me, so we just need to learn to give each other a break.

And, I promise, if I am in a situation where wild animals are present or my life is otherwise in iminent danger, I'll let you do your thing. I'll sign off, by thanking you. Thank you for allowing me to write this letter. It did my heart and soul good. For now, my friend, speak soon.