Anxiety man. It can come from the smallest things and at the most random times, like a baseball game where it’s 86 degrees and sunny, with some of your favorite people, watching hot boys play baseball. But that’s the outside, inside your stomach looks like a tumbleweed and your head’s spinning as fast as a bowling ball. It pulls you from the present and creates unnecessary scenarios. It leaves you feeling paralyzed, unable to move, because in your head you’re sprinting. If you don’t struggle with anxiety, then this all might not make sense, and you better be thanking God that you don’t. But for my fellow friends who struggle with me, I hope yall always know that you aren’t alone.
Lately, my anxiety has been very situational based. I am normally someone who gets anxiety about the future, and of course I still get that alot. But lately I’ve been getting anxiety about the past. I’ve been overthinking past actions and conversations 24/7. This is all new to me, managing past anxiety is hard because you can’t change anything and just have to accept how your past actions are going to affect your future. It can be the smallest thing, like a text message you wish you didn’t send, a kiss you wish you didn’t have, or it can be a larger thing like a friendship you wish you didn’t lose, or an argument you wish didn’t happen.
Regret. Regret is what is written all over those feelings. In the past few weeks I’ve really been struggling to hash this all out and connect all my thoughts to feelings and reasons. I’m the type of person that needs to understand the reason for things. I’ve found a few things through sitting in my thoughts lately.
One, I need to sit in my thoughts and allow myself to feel emotions. This one’s a hard one for me as I love to not acknowledge how I’m feeling or when I do I don’t validate it and allow it. The minute I feel anxious, I push the feeling away and tell myself that I shouldn’t feel that way. So message number one is your feelings are valid, and you are allowed to feel that way.
Second, I need to learn to love myself more. A Lot of the regret from the past is coming from me not being confident enough in myself. I seek affirmation from others and that can be really difficult the minute I don’t feel that or get the response I was seeking. This one’s also extremely hard for me because I am very slowly working on it. I’ve started with just giving myself small compliments throughout the day, especially when I find myself tearing myself down, I change it to a compliment. So message number two is self love. You are incredible and amazing and everything anyone could want, but you need to believe that yourself.
Third. God has a plan. This one helps me a lot, but I know it sounds cheesy. However, it can be so calming to realize that yes you wish that hadn’t happened or you said that differently but in the end God knew exactly what was going to happen. In fact, he planned for that and he knows how it affects your future. Which just means that he’s got you, and you are safe because God knows how that situation plays out already. So message three is God’s plan for you is exactly where you are supposed to be and everything that is happening was meant to happen.
I hope that sharing some of this helps or at least resonates with even one person that reads this! As always, so much love for you all and know how incredibly strong every single one of you is.
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