Find Your Ease

Nothing makes me feel more anxious than being on an airplane that’s experiencing turbulence. As soon as the plane begins to bump and bounce, my entire body constricts. My shoulders rise and meet the bottoms of my ears, palms begin to sweat, and I freeze…as if my lack of movement will somehow lull the frenzied air pathways into submission and allow for a smoother ride. My thoughts become irrational, suggesting things like: “if that man would sit down instead of trying to get to the bathroom with the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ sign on none of this would be happening” or “if that baby would just stop screaming, the air around us would smooth out”. I begin to think that everything happening inside the plane is creating a ripple effect outside the plane and I can feel myself becoming angry - angry that others don’t seem as focused on doing everything they can to help the plane level out! I’m laughing as I’m writing because it.is.just.so.ridiculous. However, no matter the lunacy of it, this is what happens to me. Sometimes I’m able to look around and notice other passengers who continue to read their book, sleep soundly, or carry on a conversation with their neighbor and I take some comfort in seeing that they don’t appear to be concerned so, therefore, “everything must be okay”. Sometimes I’m able to slow my breathing and, in turn, my thoughts. And, sometimes, I can unglue my shoulders from my ears. I don’t fly often so I can’t say if my flight/flight/freeze response would lessen with more time in the air, but I do fly enough to confidently say that my best efforts to self-soothe and get through this experience more successfully than the last barely work. Typically, I don’t think of something that barely works as a great success. In this case, though, I consider it a huge victory.My anxiety flying through turbulence, though deeply unnerving, gives me great insight into what so many of my clients who suffer with anxiety go through everyday. For them, the experience I described above is their emotional baseline. Meaning, they wake-up and go to sleep (if they can fall asleep) with that level of dis-ease and desperation to try and control everything because they simply can’t tolerate the feeling of uncertainty. To live with that kind of intensity day in and day would not only be exhausting, but also debilitating. It’s no wonder that coping mechanisms like alcohol, drugs, food, and busyness are used to quiet the noise that anxious thinking creates - they work quickly…albeit temporarily. Think of it this way: when you go to the dentist to get a filling, the doctor gives you novocaine so you don’t feel any discomfort during the procedure. When the novocaine wears off, you feel the ache, tenderness, and dull pulsing pain from the tooth’s trauma. The healing process is expedited when you make good choices around nurturing your mouth back to health: soft food, chewing on the less sensitive side, anti-inflammatory medication, etc. If you don’t take those steps and choose, instead, to resume normal food consumption and resist doctor recommended pain reducers, you risk compromising the work that has just been done and prolonging (if not complicating) your tooth’s health. It’s the same with your emotions.There are times, for all of us, when we struggle to be/feel okay. Staying present and addressing the source of your discomfort with conscious intention, will always be more effective than grasping at anything and everything to remedy it. Metaphorically speaking, deep breathing, a sip of water, and relaxing your shoulders may or may not enable you to continue sleeping soundly through turbulence, but if you can do at least one of those things, you’ll find some semblance of relief for a second or two. Don’t underestimate what can happen in that short amount of time…on my last flight, I got the idea for this month's blog during one of those seconds of reprieve! Whatever your emotional achilles heel might be, whether it’s a diagnosed anxiety disorder or something situational, sometimes alleviating the intensity just a little is the very best you can do…and it really can be good enough.