The Wisdom of Anxiety

by Sheryl Paul

  Sometimes this arises even several years into a marriage around a particularly painful transition. Let’s say that your wife loses her father, to whom she was extremely close. If your wife is someone who has a hard time turning to face her painful feelings, she might deny her grief and loneliness, and then find that she’s suddenly not feeling love for you anymore. Her squashed-down, painful feelings morphed into a projection onto you, because the ego-mind would prefer to focus on the tangible realm of thoughts rather than the vulnerable and amorphous realm of feelings. Her work then would be to pull the projection off you and find the willingness and courage to feel her pain.

  If you hear the following thoughts spring up from nowhere, you’re likely projecting.

  •I don’t love him or her anymore.

  •I don’t want this.

  •We’re too different.

  •I always imagined myself with someone more [attractive, financially stable, educated, social, witty, sexual, affectionate, etc.].

  Another way to understand projection is to think of it exactly as the word sounds: it’s what’s hidden or unconscious inside of you projected onto the screen of your partner. Your partner’s face has become the movie screen. Your partner’s mannerisms or laugh or the way he chews or lack of social fluidity can all become screens onto which your fears or difficult feelings are projected. If you’re new to the concept of projection, it can be difficult to believe or understand. But if you roll it around in your mind for a while, you’ll start to see that there’s something here, and it will help you take responsibility for some of the shadow places inside you.

  The second key concept to understand is the pursuer-distancer syndrome, a pattern in relationships that we’ve been brainwashed to believe is real love.

  In almost every relationship there’s a pursuer and a distancer. The pursuer is the one who holds the certainty, the in-love feelings, and the apparent lack of fear. The distancer is the one who carries the doubt, the lack-of-love feelings, and is more often the one erecting walls and barriers of various kinds. When a client says, “I was so in love with my last partner. I didn’t have any doubt at all,” I immediately ask, “Were you the pursuer or the distancer?” To which they invariably respond, “The pursuer. My partner was never fully available, and I always had the sense that there was one foot out the door.” There’s usually a thoughtful pause, and then, “The only time I’ve experienced butterflies and certainty is when my partner wasn’t fully available. Once the chase ended, and I knew that he/she wasn’t going anywhere, the walls went up and the doubt set in.”

  Many Hollywood films are predicated on the theme that the story ends when the relationship begins. This means that for ninety minutes, we’re hooked on characters who are chasing after each other, always missing each other, both literally and emotionally. Our longing builds in direct proportion to their longing: watching them miss and then kiss and then miss each other again until — ah, at last! — they make mad, passionate love, and then ride off into the proverbial sunset.

  As a result of this programming, we’re wired to equate love with longing, which means that the only time we feel in love and certain is when our partner isn’t fully available. We chase. We long. And then we think we’re in love.

  News flash: love is not longing.

  It’s essential to understand that it’s not that the pursuer is more in love or has any less fear about intimacy than the distancer; rather, it’s that the pursuer feels safer to let in the love feelings because he knows that his partner will put up a wall. This wall, no matter how subtle, makes it safe to feel “madly in love.” If the tables were turned, and the distancer became the pursuer, as often happens at various points in a long-term relationship, the pursuer would then come into contact with his fears.

  In We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, Robert Johnson writes:

  So much of our lives is spent in a longing and a search — for what, we do not know. So many of our ostensible “goals,” so many of the things we think we want, turn out to be the masks behind which our real desires hide; they are symbols for the actual values and qualities for which we hunger. They are not reducible to physical or material things, not even to a physical person; they are psychological qualities: love, truth, honesty, loyalty, purpose — something we can feel is noble, precious, and worthy of our devotion. We try to reduce all this to something physical — a house, a car, a better job, or a human being — but it doesn’t work. Without realizing it, we are searching for the sacred. And the sacred is not reducible to anything else.

  Our culture misdirects the basic and essential human longing for the sacred onto people and things, primarily love relationships. So what happens when you find yourself with someone who’s fully available and there’s no longing? Or if you fall madly in love only to find the feelings fade or disappear one day? Or if those intense feelings of passion were never there to begin with? What typically happens is that you mistakenly assume that you’re with the wrong person, that you don’t really love them, or love them “enough.” And if you’re prone to anxiety or are an overthinker — and you don’t understand the normal, healthy trajectory of love and concepts like projection — you’ll likely find yourself spinning on the hamster wheel of anxiety, asking unanswerable questions.

  Unlike the Hollywood version, that’s when the work of learning about real love begins.

  PRACTICEWORKING WITH PROJECTION

  When you notice that you’re stuck in your head or trapped in a projection, remember to call the witch by its true name and say, “I’m in a projection.” That one simple act will help you de-fuse from the story that your fear-based mind is feeding you, and help you to take the next step, which is to ask, “What are these thoughts protecting me from feeling?” Then see if you can gently, with your inner wise parent at the helm, walk yourself through the process described in chapter 11, “Becoming Curious about Longing,” with the following subtle changes: Focus on your breath. Notice what you’re feeling. Name any old patterns, beliefs, or stories that arise. Come back to the feelings. Above all, be gentle and have patience. None of this is fast or easy. But with time, commitment, and courage, you will start to notice the small shifts that lead to change.

  NOTE

  If you don’t have children, I encourage you to read this section anyway and replace the focus on actual children with your inner child. Also, consider how your own upbringing was different from or similar to the principles revealed in this chapter and the effect that they had on your anxiety.

  16

  PARENTING IN AN AGE OF ANXIETY

  There is no growth without real feeling. Children not loved for who they are do not learn how to love themselves. Their growth is an exercise in pleasing others, not in expanding through experience. As adults, they must learn to nurture their own lost child.

  MARION WOODMAN

  Coming Home to Myself: Reflections for Nurturing a Woman’s Body and Soul

  Our culture sets up an impossible model for parenting, one that is becoming more and more focused on perfection. And, as you’ve learned throughout the book, there are few things that create more anxiety than unrealistic expectations. Countless mothers have shared with me over the years that they feel like they’re constantly doing something wrong no matter what area of parenting is being discussed: sleep, food, socializing, academics. Everywhere they look, they receive the message that their choices fall short of an impossible, unstated standard. As you now know, as soon as you’re in the shame mindset of, “What’s wrong with me?” it’s a quick and slippery slope down the rabbit hole of anxiety.

  The truth is that there is no manual for raising children, because no two children are the same and no parent-child configuration is the same. However, there are some basic premises that, when implemented, can make the challenging road of parenting a bit easier by calming some of the inherent anxiety that is par for the course. In this chapter, I will offer these premises and, by sharing stories of my own parenting journey an
d those of my clients, provide you a broad roadmap for what it looks like to parent with self-compassion and kindness, so we can raise children who know themselves, like themselves, and trust themselves. Ultimately, that’s all we really want for our kids.

  Worry Is the Work of Parenthood

  Anxiety is part of parenting. It’s not possible to care as deeply as we do about our children and not worry about them, and if we’re judging ourselves for worrying, we only entrench the worry further. So before we launch into a wider discussion about parenting, we must make room for worry at the banquet table of the parenting psyche.

  With each new baby, the worry makes an appearance all over again. If worry is in your genetic line, it will reappear during each transition as an opportunity to help you heal one more layer of this inherited trait. As always with transitions, when an unwanted trait rears its head, you can either learn how to work with it, which leads to growth, or ignore it, which causes it to become even further embedded into your psychological makeup. Most people, without consciousness and guidance around transitions, take the path of least resistance and allow the habit to become further ingrained. Parenting offers daily opportunities to learn to work with worry more consciously and effectively.

  This point was driven home when I was giving birth to my second son. I was twelve hours into my labor but hadn’t progressed into the strong contractions that would push my baby into the world. My midwife could sense that something was emotionally holding me back from the internal surrender that needed to occur before my body would open enough to move to the next stage of labor. She moved closer to me and said, “You look so sad.” And that’s when the floodgates opened, and I cried about how worried I was over losing my exclusive relationship with Everest, how worried I was about how Everest would respond to his little brother, how worried I was about my ability to love another child the way I loved Everest. She sat at the bottom of my bed and said to me, “Worry is the work of motherhood,” quoting from Pam England’s book Birthing from Within.

  I had come across that sentence when I read the book during my first pregnancy, but there was no way for me to metabolize what it meant until I became a mother. When Everest was a baby, I worried constantly about him: Was he healthy? Was he happy? Would he get hurt? Was he hungry? Was he in pain? When my husband would take him for a few hours, I could barely relax from the worry about their safety. I would have catastrophic visions of car accidents and police officers appearing at my door. I felt grateful for the invention of the cell phone and utilized it multiple times during each of their excursions. Worry is the work of motherhood.

  As Everest got older, I worried less. He was more stable, less vulnerable, years away from the baby and toddler stages when I would check to make sure he was still breathing at night, every night, usually several times a night. My husband could take him for a day, and I usually wouldn’t need a cell phone check in (although I didn’t oppose a text message). I developed more trust that Everest was going to be okay, and that if he wasn’t okay (if he got hurt or sick), I would find the resources to handle it. I became more adept at utilizing the following keys to manage the inherent worry of parenting.

  The first key, as I mentioned, is to accept that worry is part of parenthood. We’ve talked extensively about accepting and embracing the authentic and existential feelings of grief, fear, jealousy, boredom, and loneliness, which are part of being human. We don’t usually include worry on this list, but when it comes to parenting, it’s nearly impossible to love a child as deeply as we do without worrying about their well-being. Context invites acceptance, which inspires compassion; when we accept the worry instead of judging or berating ourselves for carrying it, it becomes easier to manage.

  The second key is to accept your powerlessness over the outcome of your children’s lives, including their day-to-day health and their long-term emotional well-being. Of course, we do everything in our power to make sure they’re healthy and safe, but since we can’t put them in a bubble, we have to accept that life will happen. Bee stings will occur, bones will break, illness and fevers will take over, accidents will happen. This is a continual lesson in surrendering control: reminding ourselves every day, usually several times a day, that we cannot control most of what occurs in our kids’ lives. Our egos just hate that reality! But our higher selves take solace in that fact because it means that we can only do what we can do, and the rest is in higher hands.

  The third key is to pray. Every night since my kids were born, I’ve prayed to God to please keep them safe, to please keep my husband and me safe, to help me be the best mother I can be. When I used to see Everest climbing up to a high spot on a play structure, I prayed. When he was sick, I prayed. When I saw Asher struggling with the immense discomfort of new teeth trying to pierce through bones and gums, I prayed. And when the worry threatened to consume me to the point where it eclipsed my joy, I prayed. “Dear God, please remove my worry. Please help me surrender. Please help me.” As I’ve said at other points in this book, even if you don’t believe in prayer, pray anyway. It helps to move the energy along some invisible channels that you don’t have to believe in for them to do their work.

  The fourth key is to practice gratitude. Worry is a negative frequency, the mind’s habitual tendency to focus on something bad happening. When my boys were young, I practiced daily visualizing changing the channel on my internal television set from worry to gratitude until it became a habit. On the worry screen, I would see Everest falling down the stairs or tumbling off a play structure (horrible images). But when I changed the channel, I tuned into the gratitude station. And there, projected on the screen, I would see my beautiful, healthy, happy sons. I would see their shining faces and big smiles. I would see Everest running across our green grass, laughing his head off as he tried to avoid the sprinklers. I would see Asher, safely tucked into the sling, watching his big brother like he was watching a hero, a big, toothless grin spreading across his face, brighter than the sun. Sometimes I would see them as young men, standing with their arms around each other, leaning against our fence, laughing at some inside joke as my husband and I took their picture. Sometimes I would see even beyond that, to wedding days and other joyous occasions. And then I would come back to the now, this moment, and the sheer joy of watching them as they moved through the day.

  Three Antianxiety Medications for Parents: Gratitude, Attunement, Taking the Long View

  Let’s talk a bit more about gratitude as it’s such a powerful antidote to anxiety. If a parent is disconnected from gratitude, the joy and excitement of raising a child quickly degenerates into resentment and a sense of drudgery. Among many other things, parenthood is a sacrifice, and, for women, the sacrifice begins during pregnancy. A woman hands over her body to house the growth of a new human being; she births the baby during the ultimate initiation of her life; and then she must lovingly care for the child day and night, sacrificing sleep, freedom, separateness, and sexuality to varying degrees for various lengths of time so the child survives, thrives, and hopefully grows into a caring, compassionate, confident adult. What a task! And none of it would be worth it if we failed to see the miracle inherent to every stage of this process.

  One of the misconceptions about gratitude is the belief that you have to feel it in order to connect to it. You don’t. Sometimes gratitude washes over us like water, and the feeling floods you like warm sun on a cold winter’s day. But more often than not, especially knee-deep in the often overwhelming, usually exhausting years of raising children, gratitude is something that you must reach toward until, like a steady hand, it reaches back to you. Just like smiling even when you’re not happy can bring a moment of calm to your nervous system, saying thank you even if you don’t feel grateful can help you tap into and activate the current of gratitude inside of you.

  We do this by remembering to slow down and say, out loud, thank you. We do this by looking with eyes that see and hearing with ears that listen. One of the many reasons why my husband and I loved
co-sleeping for so many years is that it was built-in time of lying down next to our kids and seeing all the day’s stresses and frustrations unravel and float away until only the soft, angelic face of sleep was left. And the two words that naturally emerged from my lips every night as I stared in awe at their peaceful beauty were: thank you.

  If you have a child entrusted into your care, you are blessed, indeed. When you take the time to acknowledge the blessing, the normal negativity in the day in the life of a modern parent is absorbed into the positive stream of love and gratitude that can fuel your days.

  The second antianxiety medication for parents is to learn to attune to who your child is, not who you wish she would be. At some point, every mother and father have to grieve their fantasy child so that they can embrace the child they have. You thought your child would excel at sports, and it turns out she’s a bookworm. You thought he would follow in your footsteps and love science, but he’s in love with music. We have ideas of who we think our children will be, and those ideas need to shatter and be grieved, otherwise they will mutate into anxiety. You grieve so that you can see accurately and love fully, thereby supporting who your child is, not who you wish he would be. Just like anxiety is created when you try to contort yourself into the mold that our culture says you should be in, when we do this with our children, we’re perpetuating this damaging cycle, not only calling up our own anxiety but also transmitting it down to our children with the message that they’re wrong in some way.