How Safety Can Become A (Bad) Habit
Do you know why this photo is important to me?
Because it marks a big turning point in my journey towards overcoming crippling anxiety.
An affliction I didn't even realise that I was suffering from, until I stopped resorting to the coping mechanisms that were taking me away from feeling it.
Behaviours such as:
always 'rising to the occasion', regardless of what I was feeling inside
being unflappable or the 'strong one' in a crisis
always 'putting on a brave face' (because I was so out of touch with my fear that I didn't even realise it was there)
I knew that these behaviours weren't serving me years ago. And it's been a long process of learning how to listen to my body and my emotions ever since.
What I hadn’t realised, however, is that the behaviours that I had first adopted in order to create safety for my inner child, had lately become her prison. And that the list of things that felt safe was steadily shrinking - I had begun to say no to everything that felt remotely unusual, simply out of (bad) habit.
When this became clear, I realised that I had to release all of the old, stuck anxiety from my past, in order to re-parent my inner child through it.
The result?
This photo: the first time that I have done something new - all by myself, for no reason other than pleasure (so no outside ‘shoulds’ or duty to perform for anyone else) - in a very long time.
I said yes to something scary because I reassured my inner child that this situation wasn’t in fact just like her past.
And that she didn’t need to be ‘strong’ when she didn’t feel that way, that she didn’t need to ‘rise to the occasion’ and push on through, and that there was no need for her to ‘put on a brave face’ in order to escape shame, rejection and punishment.
I respected and validated my inner child’s desire for safety. But instead of this leading to avoiding something new, I chose to re-parent her through it to the other side.
(And guess what? It was awesome!)