Waiting for Perfect and Learning to Breathe

I haven't posted on here lately because in the name of honesty I was waiting until everything was perfect. I felt I couldn't authentically write about being your best self until I was my best self. So I have been blogging about my feelings on my other blog, and things continued as normal, but there has been this nudging telling me it was time.

And  I realized, as the crickets chirped around me, life was passing me by, and I will never be exactly my best self. I will always be striving for more or for different or for even greater contentment. So this morning, amidst a slightly stressful change which is causing me anxiety, I decided I would be true to myself and how far I have come and just share.

The anxiety producing event isn't a big one. But it takes control and autonomy out of my hands and it is stressing me out. I feel my breathing getting stressed and my mind starts running through several different ways I can approach this issue. After being told changes were coming, I said what I wanted, and now I find myself thinking, "If I don't get what I want, then the other person wins." I lose. And that is hurting me. Who wants to lose? So I think, Hmm, maybe I should backtrack and pretend I don't want it, so noone knows what I want. But I have spent a lifetime throwing people off trail to protect my inner me. I am done with that! People tell me I am too blunt and honest, but when it comes to protecting my mushy insides, I tend to throw out false trails and slight deceptions. I hate being vulnerable.

So in the name of self-love and all that is good and pure in this world, I am practicing breathing. When my mind starts tumbling over the whole issue (which lets face it, I am not starving, homeless, or seriously ill-it's a first world problem), I just stop and say to myself,"Breath." And I think about my big, deep breaths in, and concentrate on filling my belly with air, and then slowly breathing it out. The combination of slow, careful breathing, and turning my attention to something else (and the back of your mind will try to edge back into overthinking-be conscious of that), helps to mitigate the panic over the lack of control I feel.

Interested in learning more? Anxieties.com has great info on the technique of breathing for calm.