He everyone, it's CALLI here for this week's Mojo Monday.

So the last couple of days, my body has been in pretty much a heightened state of anxiety, so I thought I would talk about what it has felt like for me and what I did about it.

So before I do that, I just want to talk about anxiety in general, because it's important that we are wise to our experience of anxiety.

So wisdom is part of the four Stoic virtues, and it really is the umbrella to the others, because if we are not wise to what is going on in our mind and our body, we can end up so reactive and out of control.

So let's develop our wisdom so we can better respond to our anxiety.

So anxiety go up at any time.

And I'm talking less about anxiety disorders and more about the everyday experience of anxiety, which certainly doesn't mean that it's not hard.

So you can be under very difficult circumstances and feeling incredible distress without it being a disorder.

And I think the lines can really be blurred here because so much of this is about context and our capacity to tolerate the stress that comes in.

And one thing that has helped me is putting a bit of separation between the thoughts and the physical experience of anxiety.

Sometimes anxiety starts with the worried thoughts about a possible danger in the future, and then our body reacts to that.

But sometimes the body reacts first, so you know, it could be that tight chest or that sort of buzzing energy or the racing heart long before the mind has a story or a narrative to a to it.

And so that's why anxiety can feel so complex and confusing.

But either way, the experience can be incredibly distressing, and because it's uncomfortable, our instinct is to try and control it, to force ourselves back to quote unquote normal.

But that's where we often get stuck.

So the harder we try to control the sensations that can't be completely controlled, the more anxious we become about being anxious.

And then suddenly we're in a spiral.

Our world narrows and everything fades into the background while we focus put all our attention onto what is happening inside our body.

So, in a nutshell, it's not the anxiety itself that is the real problem.

The problem lies in our capacity to experience it.

While it's there.

So it's our tolerance of the anxiety, and that's what determines whether anxiety becomes a wave that we ride or something that clouds are life and we start making decisions based on avoidance rather than on our values, the things that are important to us, the person we want to be, how we want to live our life.

So learning to increase that tolerance and to develop acceptance means that we can still live the life that we want and ride the anxiety a wave until it dissipates.

So back to me and my experience of anxiety over the last forty eight hours or so.

So, my nineteen year old daughter put a pack on her back, and the other day I said goodbye to her at the airport as she headed off to Central America.

Now, as you can imagine, saying goodbye to your child wherever she decided to travel is really, really difficult.

This is the first time she's gone off on her own.

Although she is meeting her cousin over there, she's still traveling thirty hours.

I was three flights on her own.

I'm full of anxiety because all of a sudden I can't protect her.

So of course, all the what ifs are coming into my mind, and my role as a mum and having that sort of protector role has been a major role for pretty much to this point.

She is incredibly organized and I have had very little input into any of the plans.

So as much as I am very proud that she has done that, again, there is this lack of control for me.

So my role as her mother has really pivoted, and I'll be honest, it's been really hard.

So in the lead up of going to the airport and then dropping her off and seeing her through to departures, up until now, my nervous system has pretty much been on high alert.

So I'll tell you what that feels like for me.

So my heart rate is sitting higher than usual, so I've been able to actually feel my heart rate so i can notice that it's higher than usual.

I've pretty much had a tightness across my chest, a little bit short of breath, so I've had to sort of take deeper, slower breaths, felt teary at random moments, checking my phone a lot just to check as she's gone on her trip, whether she has text me, just to check that she's at each location.

So these are all kind of the classic signs that my system is activated and also that something matters deeply to me, And I think that's really important to know that the reason I am feeling the anxiety is because I obviously love and care for my daughter and want to make sure that she's safe.

So what have I actually done with all this anxiety?

So the first thing is, I've been really curious about the sensations in my body without trying to change them.

I'm just noticing them.

I'm allowing them to be there, so there's no fixing and no fighting.

So I could have gone straight into breath work to try and control to regulate my physiology, and on another day that might have been exactly what I would choose to do, But in those moments, I knew that focusing on my breath would only make me zoom in more on my physical sensations, and that's not what I needed.

So I didn't want to add any pressure by trying to control my physiology.

And that's really that was really just a choice and probably the opposite of what many experts would prescribe.

That what I was doing is just listening deeply to what I actually needed in that moment, and that was full acceptance.

I found just being fully accepting of the anxiety that was showing up was more helpful than trying to regulate it.

The other thing that I've done is something that the stoics call the view from above, and this is really powerful.

It's a reminder to zoom out, to take the wider perspective, because the fears that I have they're not real.

They're not right now.

And of course, yes, the what ifs that come into our head, they could come true.

And that's the nature of parenting.

Really, We're always going to have those what ifs in our mind.

But I knew in the moment they're just predictions in a crystal ball that doesn't exist.

So when I take the view from above, I can see exactly what's really happening.

I'm her mother, and of of course my instinct is to protect her.

Saying goodbye goes against that instinct, so it makes perfect sense that my nervous system is on high alert.

So this view from above is really part of the acceptance work.

But the same wider view also shows me something else.

It shows me the fruits of my parenting.

That she is brave, she's adventurous, she's curious about the world.

She's interested in culture's food, people, languages, And yes, her independence makes me anxious, but it also makes me really really proud.

So underneath that anxiety is something much bigger.

There is a gratitude for who she is becoming.

So what that does is it shows me that there is more there than just my anxiety.

And so from that perspective, I can imagine my future self looking back on this moment, and I can see that future self thinking, you handled your anxiety without letting it run the show, like you didn't shut your life down.

You didn't force her to stay you know, you stayed open, present, and connected.

So that view from above brings a lot of steadiness.

And something else that I remind myself of this is that thoughts are not facts.

You know, they are worried thoughts about the future, and as normal as they are, they're really not helpful.

Like she's already gone, and the what if thoughts don't keep her safer.

All they do is stir up my nervous system.

The only helpful action was to brief her on safety before she left.

So yep, okay, they are helpful in that context, and that part is done, so instead of letting my anxiety take the lead.

Here, I come back to my compass.

Who do I want to be?

What kind of mother do I want to be?

What kind of person do I want to be?

And this is what we can learn from the stoics.

They base their life on virtues rather than basing their life always on emotions and thoughts.

And so for me, that was or is still that openness to life, that courage in the face of all the uncertainty and the anxiety that's showing up, and the wisdom to choose my actions rather than react from fear, and that compass gives me something solid to orientate towards when my internal world feels really unsteady.

And to be honest, my anxiety is still here right now.

Even as I speak to you.

It has come down a lot because she's now there and I've heard from her, and so my nervous system can have a little break, but you know, it's still there.

So I'm not waiting for it to vanish before I can live.

You know, I'm riding the wave knowing it is going to rise and fall over the time that she's away.

So this morning I got up and I went to the gym, connected with supportive friends, picked my son up from his first job and celebrated that moment with him.

And the anxiety has eased, it's come back, it's eased again, and it's resurfaced, and that's okay because that's what it does, and that's what I'm expecting it to do over the next couple of months that she's away.

But what it doesn't do.

It does not decide how I live my life.

I do that.

So I really hope if you are struggling with anxiety, or if you know somebody that is going through some stuff right now and you think this could help them, please share.

And we always can learn from each other's experience.

So have a great week, everybody, and I will catch you next week.

Sia