Finding a way through Anxiety

I have a Being Chair, also known as a reading/praying/napping/eating breakfast, watching-the-world-go-by chair. It’s a grey leather recliner with a footstool, which sits by the patio doors at the back of our house, looking out into our small walled back garden. It has a shawl slung over the back to ward off any chills and it’s one of my favourite places in the world. It’s so comfortable that I’m sure I sighed out loud the first time I sat in it in the shop. I decided there and then that it would be a moving house/semi-retirement present from me to me.

It’s not my first being chair. In our last house there was a green recliner chair inherited from my parents, which sat in the conservatory, again overlooking the back garden. It became really important to me during the first Covid lockdown last year. I was the manager of a busy foodbank and suddenly overnight we were faced with having to change everything about the way we operated. My blood cancer diagnosis made me clinically vulnerable, so I needed to stay at home. Thankfully I had a fabulous deputy who was able to do the face-to-face stuff in town, but the admin task that faced us was huge. Everyone wanted to know what our plans were, even though things were changing on a daily basis. I lost count of the number of times I wrote in an email “Thank you for your patience while we work on a plan moving forward.” I was hugely stressed and became very anxious about what I would find in the emails when I opened my laptop each morning. To be fair, these were usually empty worries as everyone was really supportive, but I felt the anxiety nonetheless. It became really important not to rush to the computer as soon as I got downstairs, so I started the habit of sitting in the chair by the window with my breakfast, reading, praying and trying to calm my swirling mind. Sometimes it helped, sometimes not. We were also planning a house move and relocation, so it really felt like everything was up in the air and a bit stressful.

Anxiety has always been a physical thing for me. I haven’t always felt anxious, but my body reacts in such a way that I feel really sick and like I can’t eat anything, sometimes for days on end. I eat enough calories to get by, but it’s not pleasurable. In normal circumstances I love cooking and eating good food, so it’s really distressing when it happens. Looking back I always thought I had a weak stomach, but I’ve realised that the times it’s happened in the past have been due to anxiety. There are so many examples when I think about it. When the children were small and I was working as a part-time music teacher in two primary schools, one or more of them would choose the night before I was due to go to work to be sick. One school was really understanding but the other had a Deputy Head who had no children of her own and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t leave a sick child with someone else and come to work! (We had no family nearby.) It was a constant source of anxiety and I regularly laid awake with stomach churning listening out for which child’s turn it would be that week!

It’s only relatively recently that I’ve been able to read about why this happens. Our minds don’t really differentiate between the panic caused by physical threats (like being chased by a lion) or mental stress. Both cause a “fight or flight” reaction in our bodies, whereby all the blood in our bodies moves away from internal organs and toward our muscles, ready to fight or flee. Basically my digestive system tries to shut down to allow me to run! It really helped to just know what was happening – that I wasn’t just odd! Sitting in that being chair, I knew that it was time to find a way through these times of anxiety and maybe even work out how to cut them off before they completely took hold.

Mindfulness has become a bit of a trendy subject in recent years. I’d been recommended a book on the subject (“Mindfulness – a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world” by Mark Williams and Danny Penman) so I decided to have a read and see if it would help. The essence of the book is that mindfulness is not just a good thing to do, it is a way of life. Being present in the moment, using all our senses to be fully aware of what we are experiencing, good or bad, moving from doing mode to being mode, just… being.

I’m a planner. My mind is always full of what needs doing, how and when I’m going to get things done, a plan of action. This has been an asset in many situations, not least when sorting and packing the house after 25 years, ready to relocate. Generally it allows me to be pretty organised and get lots done in a short space of time. However, I’ve learnt that being a “doer” has its downsides, particularly when I need to relax or switch off.

Mindfulness suggests that when we are permanently in a doing rather than being mode as a default setting, then this will also affect how we deal with anxiety. When faced with a stressful or unhappy situation we immediately go into problem-solving mode to try to make it better. We start to ask ourselves questions like “why am I always like this?”, “what’s wrong with me?”, “why do I always make these mistakes?” Our minds go to all our previous mistakes and even conjure up imagined future situations to worry about! We allow them to take us into a downward spiral, almost like emotional quicksand. It’s like a few fleeting thoughts and emotions feed off themselves – sound familiar? Mindfulness teaches that rather than being trapped in this way of thinking we can be aware of the thoughts and emotions but not be controlled by them, acknowledging them but treating them as temporary and not who we really are. I’ve often heard people say we can control our emotions, but I’m not so sure. Seemingly unhelpful thoughts and emotions are on us often before we’re aware of them, but we can control how we choose to act afterwards. This awareness of how we are thinking and feeling at the present moment is part of our being mode and mindfulness teaches that it can be practised. In many ways that’s where my being chair comes in.

When I choose to spend some time in my being chair, I have a few things I always try to do and not do. Generally there is no other sound, no TV or music. I try to make sure I’m not too hot or too cold and I’m comfortable. Most of all I try to be aware of everything a bit more than normal. Growing up, I was always encouraged by my lovely parents to take pleasure in the small things. When I’m in my chair, this can be the different colours of the stones on the path, the way the grass is moving in the breeze, the shapes in the sky, anything really. If I’m eating my breakfast toast (I’m probably the biggest toast fan in the world) or drinking a really good cup of coffee, I make sure I don’t rush to get on with the next thing as I used to, but I try to really taste it and appreciate the texture. You get the idea. Sometimes it’s just about being aware of my breathing, which is one of the first things that mindfulness teaches. Breathing is the essence of who we are, but we do it without thinking. It is immensely calming. There is a recognised way to deal with an anxiety attack called 5-4-3-2-1 method. The idea is that you look for 5 things to see, 4 to touch, 3 to hear, 2 to smell and 1 to taste. Real things which take us away from being trapped in past regrets or imaginary worries and make us focus on the here and now. Again, I have to stress that I haven’t mastered any of this, but I’ve really started to notice that I approach my thoughts and emotions a bit differently, and that in itself is encouraging.

As a Christian, I know that the Bible has much to say about being still. Not just sitting still but being still and knowing that God is God. Really spending some time becoming more aware of who He is. Of course that is easier said than done! The minute we try to still our minds the opposite happens, a bit like asking someone not to think about pink elephants! Mindfulness suggests that it’s OK when our mind wanders – it’s natural and not something to criticise in ourselves, we just gently guide our thoughts back to whatever we’re focusing on, whether it be our relationship with God, a positive affirmation, our breathing, whatever.

One of the times when I have felt most at peace in recent years, ironically came at the end of an awful bout of anxiety. We were in Egypt on holiday and had booked a trip in a large glass-bottomed boat on the Red Sea. I was so excited about going and looking forward to seeing amazing coral reefs and sea creatures. Unfortunately, the previous day I had met someone who had done the trip and felt quite unwell, so I ended up feeling a bit apprehensive. When our time came to go downstairs into the viewing section of the boat it was initially an amazing experience, everything I’d hoped for. However, as the boat started moving through the reef I started to feel dizzy, a bit claustrophobic and sick. I went back on deck and dropped into a now familiar time of stomach churning anxiety and discomfort. I had the usual beating myself up questions like “why do I always do this?” “why can’t I be normal?” The rest of the passengers went up onto the top deck for a meal which I obviously couldn’t face, so I settled miserably on the lower deck and watched the sea, hoping it would pass. Then something amazing happened. The deck was at horizon level. The sea became really calm with a beautiful warm breeze. I started to be reminded of psalm 23, which says “He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul.” I started focusing on the whole psalm and the beautiful scene in front of me. I started to feel not only better, but elated and more peaceful than I could remember. My anxiety passed and I was able to enjoy the rest of the trip. The professional photographer on the boat captured this time, which I’m so grateful for. The picture is on my lock screen when I open my phone, to remind me of the value of being in the moment and at peace.

Of course, just being doesn’t make all our very real problems disappear. There are still things which need facing and sorting out, but maybe we can do that from a different perspective. A bit like going on holiday. Daily stresses of work and home life don’t disappear when we’re away, but sometimes the distance allows us to see them in a new way. For me, learning to be a bit kinder to myself, not judging myself too harshly and practising these times of just being, has helped me to face difficulties with more calmness. I don’t feel quite so possessed by my occasional bouts of sadness or anxiety, although this is very much a work in progress. My memories and worries about the future are not “me”, they are temporary. They come and they go – “This too shall pass”.

Having a blood cancer diagnosis has obviously been a huge challenge in terms of not being overwhelmed by imagined future worries. Even though regular bouts of fatigue have often forced me to rest my body, they certainly haven’t always coincided with a restful mind! As I approach some quite intensive treatment in the coming year there are many unknowns, particularly in how my body will respond. It’s really important to me that I approach this time with as much peace and calmness in my heart as I can. I’m ready to take it as it comes, recognising that there may be feelings of anxiety or discomfort, but they will pass. I have a feeling my being chair will have plenty of use, particularly as a resting-under-a-blanket chair!

I’ve recently been reminded of the poem by A. A. Milne, later immortalised in song by Kermit the Frog, which says

“Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit.
There isn’t any other stair quite like it.
I’m not at the bottom, I’m not at the top
So this is the stair where I always stop”

I like to think it was a being stair.