Excerpt from my upcoming book From Fear to Faith
This is an excerpt from my upcoming project: From Fear to Faith. A book about my bout with anxiety and my many attempts out of it. I would love to hear what you think! Please note that this has not been edited.
“ Knowing what is a root cause of something doesn’t mean that you get healed. I think so many times we hear that we need to get to the root of something in order to heal it. I believe that knowledge is key, but it does not mean that having knowledge makes you understand how to apply that knowledge. Having an understanding of what it is that causes my anxiety doesn’t free me from it. And sometimes having done years of work on it doesn’t either. This is not to say that there is not a route to freedom from the fearful behaviors. It is to say that the road is going to be different for everybody.
I can offer all of the ways that I explored and attempted. I can share with you what worked and what didn’t. This doesn’t mean that I’ve done the work so that you don’t have to. Hopefully, you will listen to my story and create a great ending of your own. Don’t skip the traveling part. Even at the crappy times, it still was movement.
Throughout these years, I have loved and I have lost. I have had my heart broken and mended…and broken some more, and finally mended by me. The road has been long and weary. I am standing on another one now and it’s not full of crap like the old one. It hasn’t been easy, and certainly hasn’t always been fun. This is life though! We forget sometimes when we are anxious, or depressed that life is happening all the time! We really can create our own destiny, but this means we can easily create our own hell. It is not intentional, and sometimes it is biological. It is up to you to figure out your triggers, and your source of relief. And when you do find your relief, don’t let anyone tell you that it is not the best choice. Along this road there will be many people giving you the ‘answers.’ It is up to you to listen to them, and then feel what resonates within you as something that you wish to pursue. This also applies to what I have to share.
I took the long road, many times over. I am not an authority on how to heal. I have learned though how to keep trying. I have learned that settling for a crappy existence is a fate worse than death itself. I have also learned that there is something at the end of the rainbow, but you must be willing to ride the ride and slide down to find it. Life is full of surprises, but it is how we handle and view those surprises that counts.
When we are in a space of anxiety or depression, none of that seems to exist. For me I felt like I lived in a glass house, always afraid that it would shatter. I did not enjoy myself very often and when I did, I would follow it up with some sort of dooms day voice inside my head. I felt like life was a series of tally scores and anytime that I would go up, the other shoe would have to drop. That’s such a shame to feel that way.”