Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Rebooting Your Anxious Mind
Tips from one anxious witchard to another.
Hello witchards!
I hope your week has been less chaotic than mine đ„Č I am finally in Greece! The first couple of days were a mess because of exams and errands, and now that the storm seems to have passed, my airline is sending me emails to âGet ready for my next tripâ. Yeah, thanks for that. I donât think I will đ
During my travels from Portugal to Greece, and the whole packing process for the move to France, I realised that in my last blog I didnât really address the reality of moving from country to country, and travelling frequently to see family. You see, I have severe anxiety related to moving and travelling. Terrible combo at the moment, as I am doing both. A few hours before a trip I canât eat, my stomach is a knot, even breathing is a challenge. My anxious mind brings up all that could go wrong, all the unrelated things I am stressed about as well, and then during the travelling I go into zombie-robot mode and just mechanically go from checkpoint to checkpoint until I reach my final destination.
I wanted to come out with this because I am against romanticising everything. Yes, life can be exciting and beautiful, and during my numerous flights I had a lot of nice calm moments admiring the skyâs and lifeâs beauty, but life is simultaneously ugly, hard, and stressful, even when it seems at its peak to outsiders. This is also discussed in the context of social media, where people usually post about their lives in a filtered, romanticised way, making others feel like they are missing out, when in reality they are just filtering the ugly and stressful out. We stand to gain a lot from honesty in the content we consume, so I donât want to hide things for that matter.
Now that we have established this, my goal was to provide you with some of the tricks that help me deal with the stress. I must say that these are not exactly âcuresâ. If I had the cure for anxiety Iâd be writing for a medical journal now, not a witchy blog. Itâs just things that make it a bit easier for me. At the end of the day, all I can do is accept that I canât help feeling so anxious, and not pressure myself to feel a certain other way. Without further ado:
Tips to Ctrl+Alt+Delete your brain when you are anxious
Call up a friend while you are doing the stressful thing (in my case packing). Just chit-chatting about nothing and everything really gets your mind off of the stressful task, enabling you to do it a bit more mechanically without overthinking.
Talk about your anxiety to the people closest to you. This creates an environment of understanding. If the people that surround you care about you and know how to react to this information (I am lucky to have such people in my life), it usually results in them giving you more space and love during that time of anxiety.
Puzzle games! This is a weird one, but my top travelling activity is listening to my true crime podcast (Ash and Alaina down at Morbid Podcast are my best travel companions) and solving puzzles on my phone. My favourite one is plainly called âColor Puzzleâ and involves arranging tiles to form gradients of colours. Very relaxing, 10/10 would recommend.
Donât pressure yourself. This is tied to both the second and the third tip above. Just as you wouldnât have your loved ones have unrealistic expectations from you during your anxious times, you mustnât set those expectations for yourself. Donât plan to do work during a trip if trips give you anxiety. If you can afford it, take time off work, or at least do the bare minimum. Stressful times are for color puzzles and distracting yourself and not for getting that stressful assignment done.
Accept the feeling. I often find myself following a train of thought where the narrative is: âWhy am I feeling so anxious? Nothing is going wrong, why do I have to feel like this? I know things are fine so why canât I just relax? Why are these deep breaths not working? For real my life would be so much easier if my feelings werenât this intense and my body didnât have this stupid reaction to such a small thingâ. In that moment, I am trying to suppress a feeling just because I âshouldnât feel this wayâ considering the logical facts that point to the fact that I will be fine. However logic does not apply to everything. Feelings are valid whether they are based on facts or not. Thatâs the beauty and the intricacy of human emotions. It is much more helpful to accept the feelings than reject them.
Currently I am dealing with the stress of the next trip and the move. I canât help feeling a bit impatient for the days to go by so I can be over with it and start my Chapter 2, but I try to learn things about myself during this âlimboâ time between chapters. After all, my only true chance to shift my anxious perspective on travelling and moves (I did say I want to live like a nomad, didnât I?) is to study it when itâs happening. This has been a good opportunity for that, and I have come prepared!
Off to pack the next bags now and get my affairs in order! Stay safe everyone. Anxiety is a nasty feeling, but more or less we are all going through it at different times, and thatâs reassuring. Letâs use our understanding of it to help ourselves and others when going through it and create a more accepting and supportive environment. Stay witchy loves <3
I WISH there was a way to delete anxiety from the brain but nothing really helps, even if you do all the things mentioned and beyond lol. I think we just ought to accept that this is a part of life eh.