Breathe

No Therapy today. My counselor had a workshop to attend. But last week she left me with the task of working on my grounding tools. Things like the five senses (5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste), box breathing (inhale for a count of 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4, repeat), and laying on the floor with your legs up the wall. Saturday I tried all of these when I started to get overwhelmed with anxiety. I can’t say I was super successful, but I tried.

Yesterday my daughter got extremely upset about a project she was working on for school. She had put it into her backpack, which crushed it. In her perception it was ruined and nothing would fix it. She got herself so worked up that no amount of talking would bring her down. So I sat with her on her floor and had her tell me her 5 senses observations. Then I did the box breathing with her. And her heart rate slowed down, her breathing calmed, and the tears dissipated. When I saw that she was calm I didn’t jump straight into helping her with the project. Instead I explained why we had done the exercises and had her notice how she felt after. I told her that any time she starts feeling overwhelmed like that she can use these techniques to calm down. Either on her own or with me if that helps. Hopefully she can use it in the future. And for the record, she was able to fix her project and was excited about the end result.

So it got me to thinking. Clearly I know the tools to use and when they are useful. So why do I have such a hard time doing it for myself? Maybe I need someone to breathe with me?

My counselor recommended an app called Headspace, but when I downloaded it, I can’t find any way of trying anything without paying for it. I have a Christian meditation app called Abide that I’ve subscribed to, which I use to help me get to sleep. It has lots of other features too, which I haven’t fully explored.

Partially because I’m afraid of other people overhearing. I know it’s ridiculous. But I never like to do anything with sound when others are around. I once received a voice message via Instagram and I hid in my closet to listen to it. And I don’t like using headphones. I will if I’m on a run or by myself, but it drives me crazy when my family is listening to theirs and I don’t realize it and try to talk to them and they don’t hear me. I think anxiety is preventing me from helping my anxiety. And I really need to get over that. I just need to figure out how.