Thanks for this, Stephanie. I'm happy to be in on this conversation, and very curious as to how it might unfold. I just finished my Masters in Counseling and am trying to finish all the paperwork and pay all the absurd fees for my licensure. Finishing was the end of a marathon year, my first year of actually seeing clients, working for free as an intern logging 700+ hours. I loved it, but by the end was feeling so, so tired. But when the longed for break came, I had no idea what to do with it. I think I had gotten a little hooked on the work of therapy. Not a bad thing, to love one's work. But it's been difficult slowing down so much. My baseline anxiety has been way up. I'm writing this, in part, because I've been realizing that "the work" for me over the past few weeks has been to learn to befriend my anxiety. It is, don't get me wrong, *not* my preference to be feeling the kind of anxiety I've felt. But turning towards it and saying "Alright, I'm listening" or even just "Okay, I guess you can join" has been a healing experience. I think that my anxiety has been a part of myself that has wanted to counteract another tendency I have towards stupor and shutdown, and for that I'm grateful. Perhaps to your point about zeroing out: of course, the stupification and the edginess don't in any way simply cancel one another out. But to hold them as lightly as I can together does feel like striking balance. And holding the balance helps what could be depressive feelings be more like rest, and what could be anxious feelings be more like energy. Here's to befriending the parts of ourselves that feel threatening, but are really just worried about us and, at times, unskillful in how they make themselves heard.
Oh, interesting. The last six years or so are also the time when it has come home to me just how much anxiety and depression are flip sides of one another. For me, they feel like flip sides because the anxiety pushes me to do allthethings (so that I won't feel bad for not having done them) and then the depression kicks in when I am totally fried from trying. I have never framed the anxiety and depression themselves as parts or characters that are trying to look out for me. I like that a lot.
Also, I'm sorry this is so strong. And it makes total sense to me that taking a break like you have would rev up anxiety. I feel like the opposite happened to me when Lucy was born, and somehow the fact that my nights were suddenly built around somebody else's schedule seemed to put my anxiety to sleep (like someone else was taking over the job of causing disruptions) so that my insomnia actually got better rather than worse.
Thanks for this, Stephanie. I'm happy to be in on this conversation, and very curious as to how it might unfold. I just finished my Masters in Counseling and am trying to finish all the paperwork and pay all the absurd fees for my licensure. Finishing was the end of a marathon year, my first year of actually seeing clients, working for free as an intern logging 700+ hours. I loved it, but by the end was feeling so, so tired. But when the longed for break came, I had no idea what to do with it. I think I had gotten a little hooked on the work of therapy. Not a bad thing, to love one's work. But it's been difficult slowing down so much. My baseline anxiety has been way up. I'm writing this, in part, because I've been realizing that "the work" for me over the past few weeks has been to learn to befriend my anxiety. It is, don't get me wrong, *not* my preference to be feeling the kind of anxiety I've felt. But turning towards it and saying "Alright, I'm listening" or even just "Okay, I guess you can join" has been a healing experience. I think that my anxiety has been a part of myself that has wanted to counteract another tendency I have towards stupor and shutdown, and for that I'm grateful. Perhaps to your point about zeroing out: of course, the stupification and the edginess don't in any way simply cancel one another out. But to hold them as lightly as I can together does feel like striking balance. And holding the balance helps what could be depressive feelings be more like rest, and what could be anxious feelings be more like energy. Here's to befriending the parts of ourselves that feel threatening, but are really just worried about us and, at times, unskillful in how they make themselves heard.
Oh, interesting. The last six years or so are also the time when it has come home to me just how much anxiety and depression are flip sides of one another. For me, they feel like flip sides because the anxiety pushes me to do allthethings (so that I won't feel bad for not having done them) and then the depression kicks in when I am totally fried from trying. I have never framed the anxiety and depression themselves as parts or characters that are trying to look out for me. I like that a lot.
Also, I'm sorry this is so strong. And it makes total sense to me that taking a break like you have would rev up anxiety. I feel like the opposite happened to me when Lucy was born, and somehow the fact that my nights were suddenly built around somebody else's schedule seemed to put my anxiety to sleep (like someone else was taking over the job of causing disruptions) so that my insomnia actually got better rather than worse.