Anyone who knows me knows I suffer from intense anxiety about almost everything and am a chronic people-pleaser— which is exactly as fun as it sounds (not fun at all). All of this is made worse by constant stress (school), work (I swear if I’m not at school I’m at work), health problems, lack of free time, and constant bombardment of notifications, emails, and news.
At times my anxiety makes it impossible for me to complete my responsibilities, which obviously makes me feel much worse. Of course no amount of will-power is going to cure my anxiety, but the more coping strategies I can come up with to minimize breakdowns and maximize being able to function in life, the better. And in honour of the age old phrase “new year, new me”, I’ve decided to adopt a new mantra for 2023; “It’s actually not that serious”!
Now a new mantra is great, but I’m not a person who can just repeat some words over and over to make myself feel better. I have to actively work at applying those words to the required situations in my life.
The most recent situation I applied this to was my wisdom teeth removal last week. When I tell you I was freaking out, I was FREAKING out. For almost a month leading up to it, my mind was coming up with a wide array of things that could go wrong, including some things that have probably never gone wrong in the history of modern wisdom tooth removal. The closer it got the more obsessive my mind became about it. Until I decided it wasn’t that serious. Of course this involved literally going around in circles with my mind trying to convince it but we got there eventually. The day of the surgery came and I wasn’t nearly as anxious as I thought I’d be (at least in my head, my heart rate of 102 bpm says otherwise).
Wisdom tooth removal is a more major event than most of the things I face in my daily life,so it should be even easier to apply my new mantra to everyday life events right? WRONG! It feels like I have to work even harder to fight against anxiety I get from normal things that I do all the time. Like sharing my art online. I love to draw and paint, and over the years I’ve learned a lot and have gotten much better. But I still feel like I have to be even better in order to say I draw and share the art I make on social media, which of course isn’t true. Art is a hobby and there’s no reason the things I make need to be good enough to make it into a gallery; it really isn’t that serious! So I’ve started to post all of my goofy art to my private story and posting anything that took me more than an hour to my story so that anyone who follows me can see. Now I don’t share everything because that isn’t necessary, but sharing my art with people is really bringing some of the joy back into it.
Hopefully, throughout the year I can start to view my interactions with people, my performance in school, and some of my responsibilities as not that serious (that is exactly as serious as they are, and not as some blown up life or death situation). 13 days into 2023 I’m already starting to feel a little lighter and if this continues I may finally be able to navigate the world without being crippled by anxiety.