Right Now

     I have never been a person that could say, "I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," and mean it. Even before my anxiety symptoms appeared, I was what my mom and my grandmother called "a worrier". If there is a situation, my default setting is to worry about every single aspect and every single possible outcome of that situation all at once until I'm overwhelmed and exhausted, even if I don't need to worry about an aspect or outcome of said situation. 

    With the current health crisis, with all the other things that have happened so far this year, and with all the changes I have implemented so far, I've been worried about a lot of things. Week after week, I was taking these worries to my therapist in our bi-weekly phone sessions and telling her that I was anxious and then also exhausted from being anxious. It seemed to be a constant stream of, "What if X, Y, or Z happens, then this, this, and this could happen. And then..."

    My therapist, time and again, has had to remind me not to focus on the future in this way. She's told me over and over, "Just focus on THIS moment. The one you're in right now." She'd follow that up with the questions that I needed to ask myself to pull myself into the present moment. Questions like, "What are you doing right now? What do you have to deal with right this second? Is everything okay in just this moment? Are you okay RIGHT NOW, in just this second?"

    Usually, as I answer those questions, I'm able to say, "Right this very moment all I have to deal with is this phone therapy session. Everything is okay in this moment. I am okay in this moment." Then I'm out of the future and all the possibilities that something bad could happen, and I'm firmly in the present, where I don't have to worry about anything except my current reality. 

    It's super easy to do that while I'm on the phone with my therapist, when everything actually feels fine. It's between the phone sessions that I have trouble stopping myself once that ball of worry starts rolling around in my mind and getting bigger and bigger, like a rubber band ball, as it collects more and more worries that are littering my brain at any given moment. It takes considerably more effort for me to stop myself and ask, "What do I have to deal with, right now, in just this moment?" And, "Am I okay right now?" But...once I can break myself out of the future-centered worries and realize that, in the current moment, I am actually okay, my anxiety tends to drop.

    After being a worrier for my whole life, learning to stop myself when that ball starts rolling around in my brain is taking a lot of practice, but I can eventually get there. I still forget to do it sometimes, but learning to use new coping strategies always takes time. The point is that I'm working on it. 

    I'll end with this: Learning to focus on only the present moment when our anxiety constantly wants to take us into the future isn't easy. However, asking certain questions to pull yourself back to the present can make it less difficult. Asking yourself, "What do I have to deal with right now, in this moment?" and "Am I okay RIGHT NOW?" can be helpful ways to get yourself to a calmer, present-focused place.