Anxious Not?

Is my anxiety me, or is it a circumstance?

Is my anxiety me, or is it a learned survival identity?

Is my anxiety temporary, or permanent?

Is the root of my anxiety a coping mechanism for a temporary traumatic situation, gone viral?

When I first discovered/acknowledged anxiety in me and all of it’s flavors, manifestations/forms.  I wanted to deny it, like I had all along, with action, distraction, chaos and food.

When I began acknowledging studying, healing etc., believe it or not, anxiety diminishment occurred.

In the peak of engulfment of learning/being in my anxiety, I answered the first questions as, yes I am an anxious person by nature and always have been.

In the post of my years of learning self care, protection, nurturing, creating, I can acknowledge, no, I’m not an anxious person.

Yes the recipe of my life was an anxious creation, yet the conscious living of my life since, has lead to a calm endeavor, rich with serenity, I bit of chaotic and growth spice, followed by calm seas.  Each helping define the other.

In July, for the first time in my life I declared I was a calm sane, “normal” individual left up to my own devices by nature.  Since then I’ve dealt with a series of work and life storms that have invited me back to “I’m just a crazy person”.

NEWSFLASH to my soul:  I’ve ridden the storm, discovered underlying causes, and declare once again, I’m sane.

This is huge for me, because I rarely felt that as a kid, and never as an adult since I was locked up for 5 weeks at 17.

My adult life, began in a state run psychiatric institute.  Go figure, I’ve been driven by the anxiety of being officially labelled crazy, and the fear of being locked up again, ever since.

Thank God, I chose to believe, I wasn’t junk, I was created this way for a reason, and that I would and have find a way to live autonomously, with the gifts that I am.

I never, ever, in 25 years since I was released from the mental institute, think I could consider myself sane, and normal.

Miracles Happen,  I know this, because I am one.

If I can figure a way out, maybe my words can be of service to the next individual willing to wrought their way out of their inner angst.

peace,

George Denslow

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Anxiety

“The world I wish to be in is behind the thinly veiled seemingly impenetrable moment of anxiety” George  Denslow

Let’s face it.  We all deal with it.  You know fight or flight.  Dream and act on your soul’s directives, or succumb to the numbness of dreary existence.

The

deeper I seep into my soul’s interior frontier, the more I drift from the exterior label of bipolar disorder.  I begin to see bipolar as more of a series of coping/integrating behaviors to a higher intellectual emotional, bigger picture, truth.

As I do my best to cope organically with current bouts and waves of anxiety and subsequent insomnia, about life changes, I receive the opportunity to sit still, and let the anxiety… dance… inside my mind, body, and emotions.  If I allow the dance long enough without action, the still small soul voice inside bubbles up real truth and constructive actions about my current situation.  Time and again simple journaling appears to be the best method of recording and releasing my fears.   I even burn them sometimes (kinda expensive to burn my Smartphone so I had to switch back to paper).

STOP! Wait a minute here George that is not a productive societal culturally endorsed method of dealing with Anxiety!

Stopping? Sitting?  BREATHING? into your anxiety without action until you hear a calm clear message from your soul?… THEN??? take action?

Yes.

As I delve deeper, releasing my soul’s art inside out, like I’ve always dreamed of, it has re-triggered the usual list of anxiety monsters designed to shut me down.

I deal with my anxiety demons as calmly as I can.  I do my best to create an ongoing nurturing compassionate environment of internal and external self-nurturing.  I purposely establish habits, routines, environments, and schedules to deal with my insides, as compassionately and completely as I can in the real time moments of being triggered.

Oh hog wash what a bother, what about XYZ of in completes?(oh hello anxiety, guess what, it wasn’t all done before I arrived on earth and it certainly wont be fore I depart)

bReathing, again…

gEorge

An Unscattered Life

“Kissing is good.  Driving is good.  Both are even better when you do them one at a time.”  from Alan Cohen’s new book A Daily Dose of Sanity February 13th.

Never a room I once left which a tornado couldn’t have organized better.  Chaos was my modus of operendi…until I got fed up with and had enough of anxiety in my life.

In Alan’s writing today he talks about a life of integrity, living in tune with where our heart, minds, and souls actually are.  One thing at a time.  I couldn’t agree more.  One of the many gifts with my unique mind I’ve gotten the pleasure of unsorting, is horrendous paralyzing anxiety attacks.  I was so focussed on learning the bipolar opportunity in my life, I just coped with the anxiety as best I could, my desire to provide my own room and board was always greater then shutting down completely, and when I did shut down, by the grace of God I was able to “come back online” in time to do the next necessary thing to keep my job or whatever I was focussed on in the moment.  After years of learning the bipolar dance, become stable in a highly paid professional job, and once again being in a relationship, my anxiety surfaced as the next big thing to tackle in my life.  The woman that I was with at the time, was the antithesis of my disorganization.  She also had very little tolerance for chaos.  A definitive case of opposites.  Being the open minded adventurer that I am, I decided to play with it a bit and see what I could come up with.  Fortunately for me my workload doubled, and then tripled, in such a manner that it was physically impossible for my people pleasing/do the right thing/take care of everything mode /was impossible.  I no longer had moments to unsort my mental self much less the physical chaos I generated around me.

Finally a circuit blew in my brain and I just sat down, turned off my computer, put a sticky note on the message light of my phone, and decided I would only work on one task at a time to completion, and completely ignore everyone, and everything else.  I no longer cared if I kept the job, or got it all done, I was only interested in my own sanity at that point.  I constantly stopped, refocussed on the one thing, and took the next step.  There were many unhappy people and a couple of times my boss got in my face.  I simply stopped what I was doing, looked him in the eye, and asked him if there was any greater priority than what I was currently working on.  I would either refocus on his bigger priority to completion, or continue on with the task at hand.  Even though I walked around in complete chaos around me, my inner life and mind was slowing down.  I checked emails and phone messages once a day, and spent the rest of my day with my hands, completing the next priority.  Slowly, through being affected by the organization and cleanliness at home with the woman I was living with, and the focus at work, I started to go through the other areas of my life.

Five years later, the energy continues.  The miracle I’ve noticed as I’ve slowed down and focussed, is I am also able to slow down and focus with people.  And this has been the unexpected gold from anxiety. The workload dropped away, and the ability to be “in to me see” with people has remained.  In fact, I’m physically still at my job, but my heart, soul, and mind has awakened to the people that I am with, and the people that I meet.  Honestly, it’s a much bigger spiritual dividend I receive by being able to be with whoever is in front of me.  As I have allowed this way of living to expand, I enjoy going to spiritual retreats and workshops for the ease of being with like minded conscious people, I also like dancing with complete strangers and long time coworkers because there is absolutely nothing that beats being focussed and present with someone regardless of the circumstances.  I’ve discovered this as my true passion.  To actually be, with whoever I am with, wherever I am.

Breathing,

George

Panic Button

A friend of mine wrote this morning and said she was feeling desparate.  Wow, I can relate to that.  I’m feeling panic and terror, and have been experiencing a huge ongoing anxiety attack.

I am excellent at creating drama in my head, that may or may not ever materialize.

I run around in the control room in my head and push the big red button labelled Panic.  Alarms go off paperwork gets spilled the coffee pot sprays everywhere and I run around in circles.  In one of my laps around the control room in my head this morning after reading my friends email who is feeling desparate I tripped over a Buddha.  What???

Yeah go figure a buddha in my control room when I am busy having an anxiety attack.  What the???

So any way this buddha whispers something like, George, go push the Calm button.

I can’t I scream as I get up and run into another chair and going flying.

But George, it takes just as much or less energy to push the calm button as it does to push the panic button.

Hmph.  I ignore this guy smash the panic button, more alarms, chaos, and another lap around my  mind reviewing everything I am screaming about.

But this time around I trip and accidentaly hit the calm button instead of the panic button.  As I fall I notice my legs cross my back goes straight and I start slowly breathing.  Before my eye close I manage to look over and spot the Buddha with an odd smile on his face and his hand looks like he just flicked something.

Before I know it my eyes are closed I’m slowing breathing.  1,2,3, breathing in, pause, 1,2,3, breathing out.  A kitchen timer appears before me set for 10 minutes and I’m grateful because my mind pays attention to the tick tick tick.  But then a c.d. player starts putting out ocean surf sounds…

20 mins later, my eyes slowly open, and I hear a small voice this time from inside me say.

“What if all is truly well?”

“What if spirit really is in charge?”

“What if I live in an abundant universe that is conspiring to help me at all times?”

I get up walk over to the Buddha, smile, and go about my day.

George