We went to watch Fleabag, on screen from National Threatre Live, earlier today. Jarrod saw the guinea pig ending from a mile away, while I, still tracking the television plot, didn’t see it coming.
It’s taking me a while to get over that, but I’m getting there.
.
Day 5 of Forty Days On Being A Seven, and it’s about befriending anxiety. It’s reminding me of the parts in Internal Family Systems, and understanding that all the parts of you are just trying to keep you safe.
Anxiety is usually there to keep you from getting injured.
The exercise today is to do a centering prayer — choose a word, and every time a thought comes up, just come back to the word. Gideon, the author, likes “still”, “here” or “compassion”.
He asks readers to try it for five minutes, and to notice what happens to thoughts and anxiety. And to scribble in how it feels to “rest simply in yourself”.
I’m gonna choose “space”, as in holding space.
Setting the timer for five minutes (already getting a twinge of “will i get a shock when the alarm rings?”).
What do you notice about your thoughts and anxiety?
Wow my thoughts are fast. I once heard someone describe his thoughts as floating up, and he just let them go. Mine some so fast they almost just appear, fully-formed and finished and gone before I even realise I had a thought.
(Heard Suzanne Stabile say Sevens pride themselves on how fast their mind moves. I do enjoy the brain buzz when I’m working out a problem successfully.)
During the five minutes (in which I might have fallen asleep, because I had that falling off and rising up feeling), it got quieter near the end.
Is the opposite of anxiety just silence?
As for anxiety… I wasn’t anxious much to begin with, so I can’t say “oh I feel so much better now”.
The space a little above the middle of my eyebrows ache though. Did a meditation class many years ago that got us to focus our attention there. I’m not trying to do that anymore, but this exercise brings that old connection up.
How does it feel to rest simply in yourself?
I don’t feel like I “rested”. It’s cos I don’t need the tool to get there, so this felt like extra steps. This felt like work.
To sit in myself, to hold my own space, it’s a feeling, and I’ve found other ways to get there. I just… sit there.
Or I go where I know my Divinity is and I just sit.
Sitting in myself is quiet, safe, easy. I can let go. Things will work out. I’m usually in that state when I actually need to be moving my life on my own, which can be trouble. But I am trusting in that state.
Hmm.
The tool is just the way. It’s the actual sitting in myself that I need to remember to do.
I guess that’s my one-woman show.
Ahh. Found my title. 🙂
🩷🌧️
Image of a rose garden by subak214 from Pixabay because that’s where I go sometimes in my mind.
