I saw this post yesterday on Instagram from The Brave Box; which is an eating disorder recovery page I follow. Even if you don’t have an eating disorder I highly recommend following this page. She encourages everyone to accept yourself right where you are now.
This hit me because as I have written about before summer can be a stressful time for me. Everyday I have been cycling between being fine then bam! a panic attack. Every time one hits I chastise myself because I should be beyond them. I shouldn’t have panic attacks anymore because I have come so far. I know so many tools I should be able to stop them before they even start. I should be able to stop them altogether.
Then I saw this quote yesterday, “You can never truly feel at home in a body that you view as temporary.” I view this anxiety thing as temporary as something that I should overcome. What if instead I changed my thought to: this anxiety is part of me and it will always be here? Just typing that out lets me take a deep breathe.
Changing the thought that it is part of me and not something that I need to keep fighting against gives me peace. Does that mean that I am just going to let the anxiety take over? No, I am going to continue to find ways to stop panic attacks. But I am no longer going to look at them as a fault, as something bad about me that I have to fix.
I am going to quit beating myself up because I still have panic attacks. Stress is a part of everyone’s life, unfortunately, my stress comes out as a panic attack. From now on I am going to acknowledge that I am stressed, work to deal with the stress and love myself through the panic attack.
Love myself through the panic attack.
I want that to be a line by itself because it is life changing for me. Every time a panic attack has started I go into fight mode. I try to figure out what is causing it and how to fix it. I try to figure out what is wrong with me so that I can fix it and stop all panic attacks. Instead now I am going to love myself, I am going to love the part of me that is afraid instead of pushing it away.
I think that I will get much further with loving all sides of me than I have with trying to “fix” a part of me. Where can you let down some barriers and love yourself more? What changes will happen in your life as you love all parts of yourself? As Glennon Doyle always says, “Love Wins”. We each deserve love spread it around your life liberally!
