Next to Nothing - On the Beauty of Anxiety

The days are lost between my thoughts. Every morning upon waking I ask myself, what day is it? What's happening in my life? Who am I? I feel a new person. There is someone different inside, someone I am still trying to get to know. Someone who is trying to kill the bad old habits. But that someone is confused about time. When did we grow up? When did we feel alienated from ourselves? When did that new self come and where did it come from? So many questions that are as intriguing as they are exhausting, but I guess the good kind of exhaustion.

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There is something funny about anxiety. Something that makes all other normal 'down' moods feel OK. The intensity of an anxiety attack makes us brave to face all other daily down moods. When we experience a bad day or a tough day at work, we say, "well, at least it is not an anxiety attack" or something along the lines of "I have seen so much worse with anxiety that I absolutely don't mind these feelings I have now." Anxiety makes us accept all other minor depressive states, all the other fears, and all the other worries that come and go. These are just there to remind us that, a year or two years ago before we experienced the intensity of anxiety, they truly were bliss without us realising.

I am so grateful for how anxiety made me trivialise every other emotion I have, not in the negative sense but in the sense that I have been through so much worse to actually feel bad about those emotions. Outside anxiety attacks, everything becomes so small in comparison. 

I keep wondering, when did I start to feel the beauty of anxiety? I believe when I started accepting it is there for a reason. My mind has chosen anxiety because it is fucking smart it has a dramatic tendency to protect me. And only smart minds have anxieties, because vain people don't think about the deeper purposes of life. They don't ask the big questions: Why am I here? What is my life purpose? Who am I good for? Am I even good enough? What if I just never were here? What difference would that make to the people around me? They don't ask these questions because their minds are so sure, but ours aren't. We wonder if we are good enough, if what we are doing is enough, what we are feeling is enough, and if our purpose (if we found one) is enough. 

Anxious minds are inside smart people. This is why, during therapy, Sophie used to tell me that I am so very smart whenever I said anything about how to deal with my anxiety. She said that anxiety doesn't happen to dumb people. It happens to smart people. And this is when I realised how smart I was.

Dear anxiety, I am so grateful to have you. We have this love-hate relationship, but I do accept you in my life and I believe you have given me the gift of being a meticulous person because of how anxious I can be. Thank you. Alhamdulellah for having you.

Things I am grateful for today:

1. I am grateful for the sun.
2. I am grateful for the rain.
3. I am grateful for having sisters I can talk to for hours.
4. I am grateful for how smart I realise I am every day.
5. I am grateful for every change that happens within me.
6. I am grateful for being in the UK. It is so easy to try new things here and to travel everywhere.
7. I am grateful for coffee.
8. I am grateful for always trying new things and never giving up even when I feel I am tempted to (and by giving up I mean giving up to the boring routines that life sometimes gives us)
9. I am grateful for all the lessons I learned from anxiety and how I am slowly learning to embrace it rather than running away from the thoughts it brings.
10. I am grateful for thinking of Allah in every good mood I am in and thinking of how much He is the one who has helped me all throughout and how I believe I wouldn't have made it without Him. Alhamdulellah.
11. I am grateful for the growth I am feeling these days towards some of my friendships and for trying so hard to understand that it is ok to grow out of a friendship because of the need to protect yourself.