drawing my way through my panic
sometimes the balm is in an unexpected place
On saturday morning, I woke up feeling really anxious. It wasn’t a subtle anxiety that I could ignore, it was loud and persistent, a fog that hung over my whole morning. If you are also an anxious person you know what that is like. I was supposed to start a virtual class but didn’t feel I could focus, so I decided to start working on some illustrations for a collaboration I was recently asked to do.
As an act of care for myself, I tidied up my drafting table so it was functional instead of balling myself up on the couch to draw in a way that would make my back hurt later. When I finally sat down, I realized I had zero ideas for the project. In the midst of so much anxiety, my brain couldn’t think about very much except myself. I did my therapy exercises, I checked in with my body, I took deep breaths, I noticed what I could see and hear and touch. And when none of that did what I needed, I started to draw myself. I drew a little portrait of myself sitting cross-legged, looking worried and unsure, and I wrote, “This is me sitting on my floor contemplating my entire life”.
I do a lot of that, sitting on my floor contemplating my entire life with a worried look on my face, and I think I captured it pretty well.
After I finished it I looked at it for a while, and then I decided to draw myself doing something else mundane. Trying to look professional for work, my hair tied up in my social worker bun. And then I drew myself again, and again, and again.
By the time I was done, a lot of time had passed, I’d listened through Olivia Rodrigo’s newest album at least twice, my feet were asleep from sitting cross legged, and my coffee had long gotten cold.
And I felt a lot lighter, which surprised me. I had been feeling so frustrated with myself all morning for not being able to shake my anxiety, and that frustration made me want to look outside of myself for an answer, for a way to feel better. Mental health stuff makes us all look at ourselves like the enemy sometimes I think, and it feels hard to imagine that the medicine could exist in the same place as the hurt- but, a lot of times, it does.
All my nervous system needed was presence and slowness. Not hyper fixation, analyzing, or distraction- just presence. Presence with a safe person, and the perfect safe person just then was me.
I have a note hanging above my desk at work that says “settled bodies settle bodies”, a reminder that co-regulation is a powerful tool. But what I often forget is that, sometimes, I can be the settled body for my very own self too.
Okay that’s all. Happy Thursday, I hope you’re feeling gentle with yourself this week. <3