Your anxiety doesn’t belong to you alone
Sometimes, I don’t like who I am around my parents.
I am much more easily triggered, I am more angry, I am more tense.
I love them dearly but I sometimes feel suffocated in that environment. (I am not proud to say this. In fact, I feel quite ashamed to admit this.)
They worry. A lot.
Even though their intentions are good, I can feel the weight of worry upon my shoulders.
I can feel my body tense up when they are exuding such strong anxious energy.
It made me think.
The feeling of anxiety that has accompanied me for a long long time, it doesn’t belong to me alone.
It belongs to my parents, and very likely, their parents and grandparents too.
Although I’d like to think that I am very different from my parents, I am very much like them too.
I often feel restless and anxious.
I used to think – what’s wrong with me?
It’s becoming clearer to me that I grew up in a family where there’s a lot of worry and anxiety.
Much of how I feel is shaped by the environment I was in.
Acknowledging this isn’t pushing away responsibility.
It is accepting that everyone’s baseline anxiety level is different.
Some are more prone to anxiety, some less.
If you grew up in a family like mine where there’s a lot of worry, you may also experience more anxiety than someone who grew up in a family where it’s much calmer and stable.
Accepting this, I don’t blame anyone.
I feel more compassionate towards their worries and remind myself that they too, carried the worries and anxiety from previous generations.
At the same time, I don’t have to continue this cycle and carry this worry and anxious energy to the people around me, or my next generation.
It takes effort to build new mental and emotional muscles.
It is natural and easy for me to feel restless.
It takes effort to notice that I don’t need to rush and that I have time.
It is natural for me to feel anxious and project worst-case scenarios.
It takes effort to notice that these scenarios are not true and there are upsides too.
Yes, it doesn’t come naturally but I am learning.
Although I have made much progress over the years, I am still learning.
With mindfulness and compassion, I learned that I can break the cycle and keep choosing a way of living that will serve me best instead of succumbing to fears passed down from earlier generations.
Pause and reflect - What are some inherited stories and energy from your family that are not serving you right now?
You are an adult now.
You have a choice.
What choices can you make that will positively impact your quality of life and work?
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