If you’ve been a reader for this blog long enough, you know that anxiety and I have had quite the close relationship for most of my life. I contend that I came out of the womb anxious with “What if?” questions swirling around in my hours old head. I have learned many coping strategies over the years to dealing with my anxiety. Deep breathing, meditation, exercise, acceptance, etc. However, with the recent events in the world my anxiety seems to be in a place that my typical coping strategies aren’t having the same lasting effects as they once did. Apparently anxiety and the rise of an oligarchy don’t go well together.. who would have thought!

I was talking with A+ therapist about this the other day and she had the idea of scheduling time each day to be anxious. Her suggestion was to set aside 15-20 minutes each day as my time to be anxious and when that time is up I leave my anxiety there until I return the next day. I’ll be honest that I almost laughed out loud at the idea of scheduling a date with my anxiety each day. The idea of course is that if you have a set date with anxiety then you don’t spend your whole day walking on the hamster wheel of anxiety. If you start feeling anxious at 10 am. you tell yourself to wait to feel and deal with that until your scheduled date with anxiety.

Anxiety and I had our first date yesterday and while it wasn’t the best date I’ve ever been on, it certainly wasn’t the worst. Anxiety could use some work in the conversation department as the conversation ideas she was bringing to the surface weren’t the most pleasant. She also didn’t take me out to a very fine place for our date as we met in my living room. That being said, I do feel like I went to sleep last night less anxious and woke up less anxious this morning. I’m going to continue dating anxiety in the hopes that my small visits with her can help keep her at bay the rest of the day.

If you find yourself feeling anxious these days and spending time during your day feeling like your insides are running an endless marathon with no resting in sight, maybe try dating your anxiety. Try putting her on your schedule and allowing yourself time each day to meet with her and feel what she thinks you need to feel in order to release her and move on so the rest of your day can be anxiety free. Have your date and then leave your anxiety there until your date the next day. If one date with your anxiety a day isn’t enough, meet her as many times throughout your day as you need to in order to let her go and allow yourself a respite from the never ending swirling thoughts she brings with her.

While I am committed to dating my anxiety and seeing how it goes, I won’t be changing my Facebook relationship status to “In A Relationship with My Anxiety” anytime soon.