The Frog

I’m sitting in a coffee shop and watching  a young adult with Down Syndrome. playing with a rubber frog. He is holding it upside down and shaking it so it’s legs move making the frog look alive.He hasn’t set it down for the last hour. It soothes him and calms him, but it makes me nervous as hell! I think he’s lucky that he’s found a way to soothe himself,  but most of us have a much harder time figuring out what can relax and comfort us. I’ve tried those things we call “self-medicating”, like booze, drugs, food, and sex.  They  seemed to work for awhile, but soon  the solution became part of the problem. If  you’re numb, even destructive behaviors that bring pain can be more appealing than feeling numb. I watch him leave with his frog and I’m shocked to realize that I’ve been concentrating on the frog for quite awhile. I’m surprised at how it got my attention. 

I move and fidget when I’m anxious. The frog is pretty fidgety too!  I pace, drum my fingers and tap my foot. Sitting still is so hard for me. I always feel better after I take a walk, or run. This seems to clear my head or help me see solutions. If I work hard physically the kind of tired I feel makes it harder for me to get deep into my anxiety. It’s amazing what I can do to distract myself. I’ve even been known to clean house to ward off anxiety. I love to read and a good novel can suck me right in. My meditation practice can be pretty inconsistent, but when I do it I do feel better. This requires sitting still, so I have to slow down enough and be motivated enough to sit still and clear my mind. I am so fortunate to have a dear friend who has a black belt in listening and punching holes in my crazy thinking.

Dealing with the symptoms of anxiety is important, but still reactive.  I need to be proactive in my understanding the causes and origins of my anxiety. Why do I feel the way I feel? What am I thinking? What stories am I telling myself? In 12 step programs they talk about  “rigorous honesty”. Recognizing, facing and dealing with trauma requires a deeper commitment to get up close and personal with my pain, but my first instinct is to avoid pain. I think looking forward is positive, but I can’t move forward if the past is putting the brakes on and still in control. How do I understand and change the stories I tell myself?  First I have to hear what my stories are.  When I can do it, sitting quietly and meditating in the “sound of silence” can help me hear my own stories of victim hood,  aggrievement and self-hate. I can then challenge myself to see how these “truths” are really lies I tell myself. I think myself into a feeling and then the feeling changes my thinking, what a closed system of dysfunction! Breaking this cycle is critical to lowering my anxiety level. Writing is an important way I discover what I am thinking. If I write quickly without sensoring myself, and not paying attention to punctuation or grammar, I can write without time to edit and  correct myself. The truth is more likely to come out of this unstructured writing.

One thing I know for sure is that worry does not add anything positive to my life and takes my attention away from today . Worrying is not taking action against my anxiety, though I may feel if I worry enough I will be prepared for the bad things that will inevitability happen. I don’t want to be surprised so I worry proactively. There is no guarantee, as we all know, and so much is out of my control. What if I decided to stop worrying so much? That makes me nervous and I could even start to worry about worry. Right now I don’t know how to stop practicing worry.

So where can I find that frog for myself?