Curiousity Killed the Catastrophizing

We all have a level-headed angel on one shoulder and a mischievous devil on the other shoulder, and then there's the anxious troll just pacing from one shoulder to the other. It sometimes hides, plays dead, but when we get that hot feeling behind our ears and the hair on the back of our neck stands up, it's waking up. That calm decision-maker is replaced with panic, finger-pointing, and impulsiveness. Forget fight or flight, we don't have time - just spiral. Explode and implode at the same time, leaving a completely unproductive crater in our wake.

Anxiety can be so slow to wake up, such a delayed response it's hard to tell where it's actually from. When it's hard to recognize it and identify its source, it makes it hard to control. It also will wake up at the MOST inconvenient time. Loves to rear its troll face when everyone else has put on their best face. Everyone is dressed up for a nice family dinner, a milestone celebration, an important work event ... holidays! Loves a holiday. None of us are in the clear either. Just when you think, "I've never had an anxiety attack"... she opens an eye.

It can happen to the sweetest, smartest, most sensible, and open-minded people. Taking all sensible reasoning and completely manipulates it. It gaslights your good senses into thinking you need to worry about something that doesn't exist and can turn you into someone you are not.

I don't picture my dormant troll looking like the fun DreamWorks animated Troll.

I picture Aughra, the haggard troll from Dark Crystal. She wears an old house dress and smells flammable—and also like wet cardboard. She waddles around talking to herself because she has burned all her bridges with her conspiracy theories.

Working with so many people everyday, different kinds of people, you start to see we're all being tugged around in the same web. Everyone's jobs might be different, places in life are different - but we are still very connected and feeling similar pressures. Universal concerns that I hear about during studio "cooler talk." Maybe with honest movement encourages honest conversations but I've noticed a common sentiment that we're all going through.

What I've gathered from everyone lately is we are all trying to function, or more malfunction, through everyday life with a deep sense of fear for the future - anxiety. Going through the motions but with this glazed over look. I can see it in the studio sometimes when there's a lack of presence; dazing off so much that we stumble out of simple moves. We start to assume an exercise without fully listening to queues or noticing the universal move around us. Instead of grabbing for a water bottle because we're thirsty, we grab our phone and scroll through messages. When we "need" to run out right before the last minute of every class. Convinced that we "need" these limitations we put on ourselves, otherwise we are not ahead of our day. If we're not ahead of the day then ... of boy ... here comes the list of worst case scenarios.

In general there is low key panic where folks are either reacting or protecting. Which in an actual Apocalypse this is needed. The problem is if we stay here, normalize this, our curmudgeon troll Aughra starts driving. We aren't able to make rational decisions. We are not able to be present enough to really know the best next move.

Trust me, this isn't a finger-point. I hold my hand up! I know all the signs because I do them too. I have been that person to dart out of an exercise class when in reality being there for the last 60 seconds wouldn't have made any difference. All it did was feed into the invisible race I entered myself in. My anxiety looks compulsive. My movements are impatient. I skip the crucial fine print but obsess over unimportant details. I look for a shortcut when I'm already on the fastest path. I assume the price without actually looking. I DEFINITELY don't ask for help. One thing that looks the same in everyone's anxiety is it's a lonely feeling. In the moment, you are convinced no one gets it. You HAVE to do this your way. This is when I get a delivery for an overpriced rug that is completely the wrong size. What was supposed to be the new living room rug is now a bath mat.

When my husband starts to go into his anxiety loop, his physical movements look like an actual record skipping. He'll obsess over the same details, repeat concerns that have already been solved, vacuums a rug/bathmat that's just been vacuumed, walks in the same tight circles trying to find something he doesn't actually need. Not widening his orbit enough to see it's in plain sight - or asking himself if it's even needed. Like a rumba that keeps bonking into the same corner. When it's not actually stuck, it's range of motion is too limited to know how to pivot. Another universal characteristic of anxiety; your periphery is too narrow to know there are options.

It shows up a bit different depending on the person. I'm seeing the whole range pop up this week in my relatives. I'm putting on my dad's 80th in New Orleans this coming weekend, essentially a huge reunion. This has brought up some excitement and also complicated feelings. As we know, our anxiety troll loves a big event! Some family members are fully hiding. Not responding to the invite or family obligations. At the same time they are also bitter they are not seen - in their bunker. The one they voluntarily went in and locked themselves into. Another looks very indecisive, questioning everything, worried about everyone's opinion to the point they talk themselves out of everything. They'll finally agree on a solution, sign off on it, then want to go back and reopen a case they already solved. Only to land on the same conclusion. This repeats itself like Groundhog's Day.

Another common symptom of anxiety, not believing in the obvious solution.

Anxiety can also show up as covert controlling. This one will give you whiplash because they are seemingly chill and agreeable, even helpful, right up until the day. Then all of a sudden they have a lot of say. It's like they come out of a coma and they learn about all the things that have been planned and they need to change it. Usually small scale changes but there's enough of them where the whole event has tiny mind fields that the planner (me in this case!) has to navigate and dismantle. The covert controlling ones will obsess over what they want and will not let go easily. Like all anxiety, it's sneaky and they themselves don't realize they're doing it.

We know it happens to all of us, and I really mean it when I say it happens to the BEST of us. So many of my favorite people suffer from a version of this. The question is, how do we avoid this!? Because so much of my inner circle suffers from deep anxiety, I find myself collecting a lot of articles about this. The one thing I keep coming back to is that we have to break the algorithm. This is easier said than done, and in many cases it means finding the right prescription and talking to the right therapist to help balance you out enough to nudge you onto a better path. Dr. Chris Lee is a speaker and influencer on the neuroscience of mental health. Honestly, I don't know much about him at all, but I do think he was spot on when he explained anxiety like this:

"In the midst of transition and chaos your brain chooses catastrophizing something that doesn't exist, instead of sitting in the discomfort of what could be.

Your brain's default mode is not to think and ruminate about potential, it thinks and ruminates about problems. This is what "overthinking" really is.

The way we turn off "overthinking" is by directing your focus and answering questions."

Dr. Lee explains that the default mode network in your brain gets fired up when experiencing a situation that is similar to a past problem that was scary or fearful, or when we didn't have the tools or resources to process it. Once it's activated, it rehearses the problems instead of looking for solutions. We need to recognize first that the replaying is happening, then change the algorithm and ask different questions. Redirect that catastrophizing into curiosity. Both require similar rabbit holes; you're just switching up the shovel and your digging site.

Very similar to what Dr. Gabor Maté believes, a Hungarian physician and writer. If you are at all interested in this topic, he has a ton of resources and is really amazing. He writes a lot about trauma, stress, and addiction. He believes the most powerful gift you can give yourself is self-awareness. In his New York Times Best Seller, The Myth of Normal, Maté recognizes the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false. "Our society neglects the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health." Maté is not only saying that our anxieties are normal, they are valid. We have every reason to feel like we feel. He believes we do have to get ahead of it though. Come into relationships open about our traumas and concerns. That vulnerability is not intended to be a heavy load for your family, close friends, or partner to now carry. It is something you actively are doing the work to recognize. When you start to feel impatient and impulsive, you want to retreat and feel like a victim, you become a rumba bonking into the same corner, you feel the need to control every detail. Noticing these signs when they start to happen, being open about it, and actively changing the perspective. Ask yourself different questions. "What can I do to liberate myself from the impact of my past?" How can I see what I went through that was unfair as not absolving me of responsibility, but giving me the responsibility?

I'm only in the studio for the beginning of the week this week:(, off to New Orleans, but will return teaching Wed 10/15. I will have plenty of make-up opportunities the week I return and a Virtual 10a (PST) mat class Friday, 10/10. Whether it's virtual, in the studio, or we happen to hang out outside the studio, I always hope to provide a nonjudgmental space for you. One where we can accept where we are, be open about it, feel validated, sweat, giggle, even have dark humor about it all. My hope is that right there will help break up our algorithm. Tell our girl Aughra she needs to get out of the house more, stop buying bath mats, and talk to a therapist.

Excited to make your bodies sweat, smile, and encourage honest movement along with honest conversations. Where we don't let anxiety take the wheel.

XO,

Celeste