Orienteering

It’s early on a weekend morning. I’m drinking coffee as I talk to a friend on the phone. The normal exchange…she has toilet paper, but can’t find dog food; I have dog food, but can’t find toilet paper. Fifteen or more years specializing in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), I inadvertently begin to observe and describe. (For any interested parties, observing is noticing what happens and describing is putting words on the experience. Without their benefit, psychologically speaking, we’re sunk. Observe and describe are like two “old friends” that help us figure out what is, so that we can figure out what to do about it.)

My old friends (observe and describe), cautiously and a bit hypothetically point out the following: Emily, are you aware that your shoulders are clenched? Just checking in on that? How about your jaw? Yep, that’s clenched, too. Hmm, now that you mention it, my whole body is tight and my stomach feels like it’s in a vice.

How is it that after two decades as a therapist, I still don’t notice right away when I’m even the most anxious? Ugh.

Coffee may not be helping now. In this state, I know from experience that there are consequences to me, to my relationships. With the smoldering intensity of life and death, I find my husband in the middle of vacuuming, “any chance you’d like to go for a walk?” Turning off the machine, he offers as casually as possible, “Sure, let’s go now.” Later, he admits to having seen the panic in my expression.

Walking and talking and walking and talking and walking and talking, always helps me. In Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR, a trauma treatment), bilateral stimulation of the central nervous system helps to calm the body. While certainly not EMDR, I wonder if walking is a version of this calming reset. (Disclaimer: EMDR is a very specialized treatment, which should not be taken on without professional assistance.) Halfway through the walk, the anxiety shaken off like an animal escaping a lion in a wildlife special, I begin to think more clearly.

Fear, for me, is a tricky bedfellow. She sneaks in and takes over without me even realizing what has happened. My thinking mind is as impotent as a child driving a car with a toy steering wheel. I remind myself that society still functions, my family so far is fine, and that the search for toilet paper is not a life and death pursuit.

With the illusion of imminent threat dissolved (at least for now), I am more relaxed. Bringing attention to my relationships, I take my children tea with honey while they do their on-line studying. Steady, gentle, calm and with consideration, I think about how this inner state tilts my perspective, my behavior and my outlook. I don’t even know where I am, until I know where I am.