That shoulder’s tight, shallow breathing anxiety about a scenario that isn’t even happening. That I was close to enduring some kind of punishment for being happy. That life always punishes those who are happy.

Some stupid idea that came from where? Probably the news, tv shows, movies, friends, family – you name it, we are constantly bombarded with negative information. That big bad scary world is out to get me if I have an ounce of happiness.
Funny, ironic, that it was my fear that damaging my marriage. My fear that life was too perfect was damaging everything around me.
Where does that ‘fear of the other shoe’ dropping coming from? It feels so deep in my soul, some kind of childhood wound? How could that be, I literally had the perfect childhood. So why in the world was I ‘like’ this? Who could I blame? What kind of drug could I go on that would ‘fix’ this?
I did, I tried the medical route because this fear was leaching into all areas of my life. I was getting closer and closer to never leaving the house. And screw driving after dark, that held a litany of unacceptable risks. Highways were out, in fact, I had my drive time down to a seven-minute ride from my house to the grocery store.

The medicine worked for a minute. Until it became – no more fear, but no more amazing either. No real happiness, it was more of that dullness I was already getting pretty good at manufacturing on my own except it did go a long way in improving my ability to leave the house for longer stretches. So, yay, I could go places – but I didn’t care to anymore.

For the sake of my family, I had to figure something out. This wasn’t working. I began searching for alternative treatments. Mindfulness became important through meditation. Staying in the moment was huge. Anxiety is a fear or projection of something that ‘might’ happen but hasn’t yet. I started all kinds of classes and brain training. It was after all my brain.

And I think that’s what gets lost in all this. The fact these are OUR thoughts, OUR emotions. No one else’s. We might experience the same problems. But at the end of the day, what will work for one person doesn’t always work for another. It comes down to rooting out the cause and debunking the lie that our mind is trying to convince us of. Somewhere along the way we got lost and forgot that it is in fact – OURS. Your heart and mind, my heart and mind. We’ve been ushered into this one size fits all mentality and lost our individuality.

It’s time to get back to basics. Meet ourselves. In earnest. I met myself. I took a good long look at ME. And said, well hello there! I forgot you were there. Haha.
I sit in the quiet, with myself. I’m getting to know her on every level. Shadow & Light. And I’m learning every day to accept who I am on deeper and deeper levels. It’s no joke when people liken the awakening process to the peeling of an onion. We have so many layers – we may never peel them all back. Which is fine – you’re never done living and experiencing and that’s the beautiful part.

Life is meant to be lived, not survived. I’ve learned so many new and amazing things over the past three years. About myself and about the world. And now I want to share what I’ve learned.

So, back to the ‘fear of the other shoe dropping’
I learned to take the power away from the anxiety.
I learned to say to myself –

So, what if it does?