Dear Nervous System,
How did we get here?
I’m so sorry, for not taking care of you until now. For not even being connected to you until now — for simply going about my days and Life not knowing you or having a relationship with you.
Thank you for always looking out for me, for doing all you could to protect me. You’re still doing that. I’m so grateful.
I know that when I was really young, I struggled a lot — like, a lot — with anxiety. It was near crippling at times, and I felt powerless to the sheer panic I often felt. And, our body felt frozen more times than I can count. Things felt really scary for us. Even now, as an adult, there are times — most especially within this past year — when waves of anxiety will rush through my body, as if someone took a shovel, dug into the “ground” of my body and then “water” — which would be the anxiety — just burst up to the surface, steadily flowing out more and more.
It’s been… a lot.
I promise, my nervous system, to stay with you, to learn more about you, and to do things that will connect me more deeply with you, like being present, being aware of my breathing, and just Being in my body.
And - I want us to work together to build new patterns, new ways of being, and new ways that we can connect to the world and to each other.
I know that, as a child, I was often really scared and anxious to try new things and to step out into the unknown, and that you did so much to help me through all of it. I really value you, and I’d really love to go on new adventures with you. We’ll — one step at a time — try new things, do things we’ve never done before, and step out of our comfort zone. We’ll go slow, I promise. I’m really excited to do this, and I know we’ll have an amazing time out there. There will probably be times that we fall, or get hurt, or feel uncomfortable, but I’ll be with you every step of the way. We’ll do this all together.
Let’s start now. Giving you the biggest hug.
I love you,
Christina
So, where did all of this begin? My intense anxiety?
It’s a long story. One that begins in my childhood.
Now, before I get into it, I do want to say that I don’t blame anyone for how I am or how I "turned out.” My patterns originated mainly from my upbringing and how my immediate family acted with and responded to me, though I understand all of that now as a) a reflection of who they were and are as individuals and the patterns they had/have within themselves from their own upbringings, environments, and internalizations of what happened to them — more than their reactions were about me as a human being, b) their own internal states at certain points in time, and c) how they expressed their love for me. Understanding all of this helps me to understand where my own mental and emotional patterns that I had/have originate from, that I am not powerless to them, and that I have control over myself and my life - something I didn’t think to be true for most of my life.
I was born 31 years ago. My mother was, at the time, a stay-at-home mom, and my father was a businessman who worked often. I have a brother who is twelve years older than me and a sister who is six years older than me. Growing up, I was pretty reserved. While I loved hanging out with friends, I felt the most at ease being at home, either playing in my room with my toys, reading books in my room or on the couch in the family room, watching my favorite TV shows, or playing Neopets. My parents, who were both born and raised in Vietnam (but who both came to the US as teenagers), raised my siblings and I with mostly traditional Vietnamese values — though perhaps not as strictly as they would have if we had all lived in Vietnam. (And, my parents were pretty easy-going on me in terms of not giving me a bedtime and never having grounded me — though I also never did anything that would bring them to have done those things.) As such, one of the things I was taught was to always listen to and obey my elders. So I almost always listened to (and obeyed) my parents and siblings. I pretty much believed that they knew everything, that they could do no wrong, and that they knew what was best for me. They were, in a sense, gods. In addition to this, I was very timid as a child and as a teenager. And so my family saw that, I’m sure, and wanted to help me by doing things for me (ex: getting food from the buffet line for me because I was nervous to leave the table and get it myself). My parents and siblings helped me in a lot of other ways too — my sister doing 99% of some of my elementary school projects (I vividly remember such projects in second and third grade) after I waited until the night before they were due to start them, my mom putting food on my plate/in my bowl even though the food was right in front of me, and more. Essentially, I was coddled.
One of the biggest things that happened throughout my childhood and teenage years was my parents and siblings “coming to my rescue” whenever we would visit my relatives.
Most of my older relatives didn’t (and don’t) speak very much English, if at all, and I’m not fluent in Vietnamese. (I can understand most all of it and can speak conversationally, though some words may take me a few seconds to recall.) I remember always being so nervous on the drive to a relative’s home, sitting in the backseat and asking my sister how I should address them (in Vietnamese, certain pronouns must be used depending on your age — and even that of your parents — in relation to the person you’re speaking to), and frantically asking her again how to address them as we were walking up to their front door. When inside, my parents and my relatives would speak to each other, and as that was happening I would feel a dread looming over me, like a great big gray cloud. Looking back now, I recognize that dread as intense anxiety. It felt like a giant knot of jumbled twine in my stomach that got tighter and tighter, and the tighter it got the more difficult it became for me to breathe. Why did I feel so nervous? Because I knew that, after speaking with my parents, my relatives would speak to me. And I had no idea how to respond to them — even though I understood everything they said, which made me feel extremely frustrated and like my voice was stuck and trapped, since I couldn’t say anything to them except for a few words and basic phrases. It made me feel so stupid, so embarrassed, and so ashamed, because I felt like I “should have” known how to speak Vietnamese fluently and was letting my family down. When my relatives spoke to me, it felt like the room went dark and a bright spotlight shone on me. Many times, when they would ask me something aside from “How are you?” or “How old are you?,” my parents would immediately swoop in and tell them more about me. Phew, I’d think. Relief would immediately wash over me.
But, looking back now, I can see how times like those — as well as the times when my sister did my projects for me, when my mom got food for me (that was right in front of me), other times when I was “rescued,” and just overall being coddled — greatly hindered me and my growth. I felt helpless as a child, and I believed I was weak and powerless and that I needed others to do things for me, speak for me, and even tell me what was okay for me to do and believe — even though I knew what the answers were. I simply didn’t trust myself — at all. And so I always felt that I needed reassurance and validation from others.
Add to that my overall feelings of being unworthy and “not enough” in comparison to my siblings, my friends, and my peers, and I felt useless. I believed that I could never accomplish anything on my own, and that I needed someone else to save me.
Yes, I was extremely co-dependent.
And I have started to unravel all of that.
I was in my early 20s when I began to realize just how much being pampered when I was younger hindered me, and how much I wanted to change. (Again — I’m not blaming anyone for how I “turned out;” it was a two-way street once I could make choices of my own, and I played a part in the cycle too. I could have easily told my mom “It’s okay, I can get the food, thank you” when she offered to get it for me [which I did at times], or accepted a low grade on my class projects rather than accepting my sister’s help.) In the time since, I’ve done many things to build up my self-confidence and self-worth, to show myself that I am capable of achieving things, and that it is safe to trust myself.
I’ve made a lot of progress from who I was and how I felt about myself as a child and teenager compared to the person I am now. And — there are days now when I can feel the anxiety creeping in. The doubt, the insecurity, the questions. Am I doing this right? Is what I’m doing okay? Maybe I should get someone else’s opinion — even though this looks and sounds really good and I do feel confident about it… but maybe I’m wrong. I don’t think I can do this… I’d feel better if someone else believes in me before I go for this. Can I even succeed?
So many questions. I’m getting much better at quieting the storm of fear and doubt in my mind though, and being still. In that place of stillness, I remember that I am capable, that I have strength within me, and that even if I make mistakes, I can come to my own rescue. As Angi Fletcher, someone I admire for her mental and emotional fortitude says, “We can do hard things.” Putting myself into situations that I didn’t think I could thrive in — or even handle at all, doing things that I didn’t think I was capable of — like hiking up mountains in Peru (as seen above), coming out the other side of heartache and grief, and living on my own — taught me so much. I’m “still” in it, still learning and growing, still creating stillness in the storms of anxiety that come up for me, and still creating practices that will help me along the way of Life.
One new practice I’m starting to incorporate in my daily routine? Box breathing. First thing in the morning, and before I go to sleep. And, if needed, a few times throughout the day. I also bought incense recently (arrived yesterday) and plan to add that to my morning ritual.
I used to think that there was something wrong with me for feeling so anxious so much of the time, for frequently feeling scared, and for feeling so insecure. I thought all of that was proof of how inherently helpless I was as a human being. And for a while, I thought the goal for me was to get rid of anxiety completely. To never feel anxious again, and to get rid of fear too. But I now understand that that isn’t possible. Not just because Life is filled with experiences that we could never have predicted and that we will inevitably feel some anxiety and fear toward, but also because our nervous systems — and our bodies — are geared to helped us survive perceived threats through our fight-or-flight (or freeze) response. And so, having come to that understanding, my new goal has been, and is, this: to build up my mental, emotional, and physical resiliency. Because Life will always throw curve balls at you, and how you choose to and are able to respond to those is key to living a fruitful and rooted life.