No, seriously. Legit--I thought I either had a mass on my brain, or I was having a heart attack.
You can laugh. It's funny now. Those two things aren't even slightly related.
I started back to work last week--new everything--and I felt anxious and nervous and overwhelmed, but nothing that gave me a full on panic attack...
...only I was totally having them. I sat in meetings last week and suddenly my heart would race, I would start sweating, and it felt like all of the blood was draining from my head. My legs would get tingly and I'd have to grip something to keep from falling face first into my coffee.
I had a migraine daily. I had so much Excedrin migraine coarsing through my veins that I was like Jessie Spano circa 1989...
"I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so...so...!"
Once my Russian doctor (I feel like I should tell you she's Russian because her accent is awesome) was sure I was not, in fact, dying, and I just needed to find my groove--"and relax!" she said (with her Russian accent)--I felt a bit more at ease. Pun intended.
In fact, I haven't had a panic attack since.
It wasn't until Sunday, when I unrolled my yoga mat in a class, lay down in the toasty room with that familiar and soothing China Gel smell, and exhaled with much gusto that I had this thought:
"The yoga teacher had panic attacks."
Shit. Seriously?
I
My morning commute isn't nearly as long (I swear, I'll stop talking about this new job eventually), but since it's the place I do my best thinking, and I've had a few days to sort this out, I thought I'd share my conclusions.
- It isn't enough to just practice breathing on my mat. When I practice, I am there. My mind is a one-track-inhale-exhale-flow machine. Why can't I stay in that flow when, say, my kids are climbing into drawers and sitting in them with the toaster and throwing raisins on the wall when I'm cooking dinner (because yes, that happened. Recently. Ok, last night)? Where does my breath go and why can't I stop and say to myself, "Breathe"? My conclusion is because it's not part of my daily practice--my drive to work, pick up kids, go home, make dinner, give baths, bedtime routine. At no point do I say, "Inhale as you put the car in drive, exhale as you roll down the window." And while it doesn't need to be as black and white as that, well, maybe it does. And so post-its are helping me. I wrote out a whole bunch at work today, and they're going in special places around my house. "Breathe you idiot" happens to be my favorite. Kidding. Not very yogi like to call yourself and idiot. But maybe it would get the point across.
- Remaining in the moment is hard when your mind is organizing and categorizing and processing a thousand files a minute. My mind was on overdrive. I was overthinking everything: every lesson plan, every word, every idea, every movement, every new name on my roster, every new person I met. I analyzed and overanalyzed and rethought each movement I made. I relived it all in my head, hashed it out time and again, and then I anticipated the next interaction or idea or thought with so much anxiety that my heart had nothing to do but race, and my head had nothing to do but hurt. Duh, Russian doctor. Textbook panic attack. Now that I've established a routine, I'm giving myself deadlines. "Things don't feel awesome now, but they will by Friday...or next week...or October," and that seems to make my mind shut itself up and calm the fuck down.
- Sorry for the profanity in this post. It's not very "bright" of me.
And also, yoga teachers aren't perfect. Yogis aren't perfect. You can count on me to stay positive to anything that's going on in your life...but I often struggle to remain in that bright spot with my own.
We're all on a journey, doing the best we can. Every morning we wake up and it's a new opportunity to grow.
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