to be known...

i am so grateful for people in my life who know me almost better than i know myself.
today in my therapy session, as my leg is flying 100 miles an hour and i am twirling the anchor on my necklace incessantly, my therapist stops what she is saying and asks me what i'm so utterly anxious about.
anxious? me? never.
i told her i wasn't anxious and didn't know why she would think so. of course, she pointed out the obvious. as i began to semantically rationalize with her after she asked me to stop and breathe, i found myself saying "when i stop to breathe my heart just races."
anxiety, anyone?
i'm pretty sure that is one of the cardinal signs of anxiety, ha.
so the big question was, what was i so anxious about?
nothing came to mind. i sat searching for an answer to justify my feelings, but i had none. i've had a wonderful day, stayed pretty busy, drank some coffee, and really had no worries or complaints.
so then my therapist said something that totally threw me for a loop. she said, "leah beth, sometimes there is no reason why."
HOLD UP.
therapists and treatment teams have spent years and years connecting behaviors to emotions. wearing headbands was a coping skill, shaking my foot was a sign of anxiety, blinking less frequently meant i was zoning out. after a while i began to believe that every behavior had a corresponding emotion and vice versa. you can see where this concept of emotions just being emotions without a cause sort of rocked my world, so to speak.
sometimes i think we can become over "therapized." don't get me wrong, i still find therapy very helpful but in a different kind of way. initially, it was a quest to find answers and uncover dark truths and figure out healthy vs. unhealthy behaviors. now, we work on management skills. we work on dealing with the day to day and keeping me healthy and well. we spend a lot less time trying to search and dig and deal with things as they come up. i've had to figure out what i want to get from therapy and ask for that, otherwise i might still be stuck somewhere getting mind-probed once a week ;)
other than the anxiety piece, we also talked about my suddenly busy schedule. yes, i've got work to add to my day, but i also manage to find things to fill just about every hour of my day. my therapist questioned my motives for staying busy, but i assured her that it just feels so amazing to actually have a "normal" life. i have friends to do things with, places to go, meals to eat out, and awesome nature surrounding me for my daily enjoyment. i stay busy because i spent so much time over the past year doing the exact opposite and now boredom and downtime feel dull and painful, ha.
don't worry, i recognize the need for balance in my life so i won't let myself get too busy. afterall, i've still got nursing applications to work on and many naps to take :)
life, not just food, is really all about balance, variety, and moderation!