“Staying in low-level, constant activation is more draining than actually confronting the thing I’m trying to avoid.”
The Cost of Not Sitting With It
I don’t get anxiety very often these days. I used to have it all the time- ever since I can remember into young adulthood. But I think I was so used to it that I didn’t even notice the difference. My nervous system was always activated. I always felt slightly on edge, a subtle constriction in my chest, but it was normal. Or at least it was my norm.
Over the last ten years or so, my anxiety has steadily decreased the more I’ve explored and confronted my inner world. But I still notice that when there’s something I’m not looking at (something I don’t want to sit with) I’ll experience anxiety until I do.
And what’s interesting is that sometimes I still don’t fully realize my nervous system is activated until I’ve already been in it for a while.
Lately I’ve been experiencing a bit of anxiety on and off, with this quiet awareness in the background that there are things I don’t want to look at or deal with. And for some reason, even though I know they’re connected, a part of me still wants to avoid them.
Even though I know that sitting with i & facing it is the only way to actually integrate it and allow it to pass through.
Sitting with it gives me the opportunity to do what I can to change my reality or shift the trajectory for the better. And it also allows me to release what I can’t control. But still, a part of me avoids it.
Which is strange, because staying in that low-level, constant nervous system activation is more draining than actually confronting the thing I’m trying to avoid. By not confronting it, I just leave it there to fester.
And of course- my autoimmune condition has been flaring up lately, and I’ve been throwing food and supplements at it, wondering why it’s not improving. And then it clicked today. Of course it’s connected to this unresolved, unsettled activation in my system.
I can gloss over it mentally. I can ignore it to some extent. But my body is still expressing it. It’s still manifesting my reality, regardless of what I choose to look at or not.
I’ve noticed that one of the most activating things for me is uncertainty.
So I’m learning to sit with that. To explore whatever emotion I’m trying to avoid. Because once it’s actually confronted, then I have a choice- I can change what I can, and I can accept what I cannot.
And that, more than anything, seems to be the most freeing place to stand..
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