Freefalling Through Anxiety: My Soul's Journey
Freefalling through Anxiety: My Healing Journey
"In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness." -Eckhart Tolle
Because I’ve had symptoms of anxiety and depression as far back as I can remember, I can share with you what I’ve experienced and how I’ve healed with the help of Process Coaching. I’ll share my struggles, some of the triggers that have fired off symptoms, and how I finally healed my addiction to pills and food.
In our family photo album, there's a picture of me as a cute little 4 year old. Curly blonde ringlets poke out from under my oversized cowgirl hat and a holster draped across my waist conceals my weapon: a toy caps gun. I understand why my older brother would have been angry at how quickly the spotlight shifted from him to me when I was born. Though his jealousy toward me would be considered ‘normal’ for an older sibling, it was confusing and traumatic to be the recipient of such wrath.
My bouncy little spirit gradually lost air. My father, a holocaust survivor, simply didn’t have the bandwidth or the time to be there for me. My mother, the youngest of 7 children of parents who were both holocaust survivors, was wounded from the emotional and physical abuse she suffered growing up. My parents never seemed to be around when my brother acted out, and when I screamed in protest about it to mother, she slapped me across the face. I soon learned to keep my misery to myself believing that what my family said about me had to be true: I was a spoiled crybaby.
In his book “CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving”, Pete Walker pegged the plight of those of those who have suffered from emotional trauma and abandonment:
“No one is there for reflection, validation and guidance. No one is safe enough to go to for comfort or help in times of trouble. There is no one to cry to, to protest unfairness to, and to seek compassion from for hurts, mistakes, accidents, and betrayals…In the paraphrased words of more than one of my clients: “Talking to Mom was like giving ammunition to the enemy. Anything I said could and would be used against me.”
The seeds of self-loathing, guilt and shame were geminating. I reasoned that it must have been a giant mistake to have been born into this family. I avoided doing or saying anything that would provoke my brother and grew hyper-vigilant to any nuance that he might go on the attack. I controlled anxious feelings with my drug of choice at the time which was junk food which would induce a food coma? A food coma is defined as ‘a state of sleep or extreme lethargy induced by the consumption of a large amount of food." I gorged myself and dropped into that place, as often as possible.
My first husband was emotionally and physically abusive and the marriage only lasted 6 months. At 37, I remarried and at 42, after the birth of my 2nd daughter, my anxiety worsened. I remember a pediatric nurse saying: “You better look out because your girls are so cute, someone may steal them.” Her comment triggered a flood of anxiety, paranoia and agoraphobia. My girls were my only pleasure, other than food and the occasional good relating with my husband. I became terrified they’d be taken away. Any slight perception of danger could trigger a fugue of emotional flashbacks and bring on what felt like uncontrollable catastrophic projections around a calamitous and terrifying future without my daughters.
I was ashamed to tell anyone or reach out for help. First of all, I didn’t expect real empathy from anyone, and secondly I was afraid of being labeled ‘crazy’. My husband knew there was something terribly wrong, but he traveled 80% of the time and when he was home he tried to reason me out of my state by explaining that everything would be alright.
The doctor prescribed the antidepressant, Paxil and anti-anxiety pills and they were a lifesaver. Soon my spirit came back and the paranoia, panic attacks and agoraphobia dissipated. I also doubled my weight to over 300 pounds pounds and reasoned that the upside of feeling some joy outweighed the downside of being heavy.
Fate has serendipitously drawn me me toward my life purpose. Growing up in my family of origin, feeling bullied and teased and marrying my first husband have been orchestrated by some invisible conductor who delivered me closer to a deeper purpose I was not to have known until the moment I arrived.
I’ll never forget the day, when, the Process Coaching Manual caught my eye at a bookstore where I work. I remember sensing the hands of fate turning each page and feeling something stirring some ancient memories. My journey since then has felt magical and in retrospect, I see how every painful event has catalyzed more self-realization. We say "the Universe is good and operating correctly at all times' because we haven't known the why of things until we reflect back on the big picture.
In time, and with the support of my physician, I titrated off the antidepressants. I made some new loving friends in the Process Coaching cohort and gradually learned to trust that others had good intentions for me. It was scary but for the first time in my life, I learned to be with fear in a radically different way. Instead of avoiding or numbing out, I learned to make friends with a subtle energy source within me that has enabled me to drop out of my over-active mind and into deeper body presence. This body presence is so entraining and fascinating that when drop into that place, the scary thoughts melt away and in their place I’ve found a warm, comforting puddle of unconditional love; a warm fountain of loving peace that's available to all of us, at any time.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a feeling heavy in my chest, that I’ve associated with dark thoughts. I can ‘freefall’ into the rhythm of my internal sensations which Eckart Tolle has called ‘the enternal NOW’ and soon I’m feeling more resourceful and hopeful again.
I’ve learned a few things to take me back to exploring the sensation instead of allowing the relentless thoughts of a catastrophic future spin compulsively out of control. Dropping myself the vortex into body sensations and staying with them, no matter how determined my mind has been to drag me back into terrifying thoughts has taken practice. Dr. Phil asks “how’s it been workin’ for ya?” and now I can say emphatically “Great, Dr. Phil.”
