we adopted a new cat (which brings the total up to four) (it’s a lot of cats) recently and while also being an excellent change of energy as i enter into my sixth month of pretty strict shelter-in-place protocol, i’m learning a lot. i am learning about cat-cat interactions, seasonal shifts in animal life, but most relevant here, i’m learning a lot about central nervous system soothing.
not what you thought i’d say?
yeah, that wasn’t the lesson i thought i’d be learning either. but let me start at the beginning.
we all have scripts that play in our head about how we get out of an emotional/physical state that we’d rather not be in. and for many of us, that script looks something like this:
i’m really behind
i feel badly about that
i need to not feel badly
better work really hard (exercise a lot) (eat better) (start a whole new life of routines and structure)
or they could look like:
i’m really anxious / sad / frustrated / upset / distracted
this feels uncomfortable
better work really hard to distract / solve / run away from / avoid that
but many, many of us assume that work will make us feel better. or that being caught up will make us feel better. or that if we can just stick to a routine, the feelings will resolve and we’ll be accomplished and that will make it easier overall.
i don’t know about you though, but when i am buzzing with anxiety, or really, really dragging myself through a pit of emotional quicksand, i don’t necessarily do my best work. it’s a lot harder to focus, it’s a challenge to stay on track, i get distracted easily, i’m more likely to make mistakes. and the more i keep trying to push through that, the harder it gets, which of course just increases my worry that i’ll never be able to work, which makes the anxiety worse.
it’s sort of like if you have a cat (or dog, or any animal really) and they’re nervous, or scared, or angry. you wouldn’t yell at a cat, who has no relationship with you, to get over here right now and snuggle in my arms! you wouldn’t tell a dog that was afraid of the stairs to just jump down them right now and stop being afraid of stairs forever! chances are that if you force the animal to do what you want it to do without calming it down or reassuring it first, it’s going to hurt itself, or hurt you, or just not trust that you have its best intentions at heart.
animals need to be able to trust you - the deeper that relationship, the more they relax. the more they relax, the more you adjust to where they are - rather than demand that they meet you where you are - the smoother the interaction goes.
brains can be like that too. if your brain sends you the important signal that it’s anxious, and then you invalidate that, or ask it to set that aside, or just demand that work commence immediately, then you’re trying to work through the haze of emotional/physical reaction, and you learn to not trust yourself, either.
so, imagine your brain as a beloved animal or plant or being that needs your care. and the next time that it’s in an emotional state that you find overwhelming, think about taking care of it:
do you need a basic life supply - like water, or rest, or food?
can you reset - take a walk around the block, have some water, look at a new wall?
do you need to do something to take your physical sensations into account? - deep breathing, breathing exercises, moving your body in a way that releases tension?
can you acknowledge how you’re feeling and remind yourself that it’s okay?
another way to think about this is: how can you get to a place where you feel supported, and then start to work?
trust is hard - it takes time to build. but if you can consciously start to cultivate trust with yourself, it reduces some of the fear. if you force yourself to your desk, no matter what, then every time you feel something sticky or tough, you not only have the weight of that emotion to deal with, but the knowledge that you won’t have any time to process or deal with it. it creates a cycle where the feeling is tied to the absence of work, where you assume that you’ll be unfocused, won’t finish things, and will fall behind just because you feel something, which only increases the anxiety, which in turn increases the chance that you WILL have trouble getting to work.
so experiment a little bit - picture bedelia, if you need to. we’ve gone from initial trepidation to full, deep chested, alien chirp purrs in just a few weeks. she trusts that i won’t rush her before she’s ready, and i get lots of head butts. win win.