Monsters Traveling on the Anxiety Bus

“Monsters on the Bus” by GTDUMAS*

Clinical Anxiety is a wide ranging disease.  In dealing with it on a daily basis I tell myself each morning that I have a mental illness called Anxiety and I need a game plan for the day.   I remind myself that I am a person that carries Anxiety monsters (the disease) around with me at all times.  My only decision is what I do with them that day.   I imagine I have them in a bus and I am the driver.  They are an active crew and I can feel them in my body 24/7.  It is a bit like pain because it is a physical feeling all over ones body. While depression is focused in the head or mind…thinking space – anxiety has no focal point in the body… it can be in my hands, feet, legs, back, neck and mind. Or it can be in all places at once.  While how you think about things can make it worse or better,  it can not be totally controlled cognitively.

Cognitive tricks like being mindful, being in the moment, help me direct my traveling monster show from moment to moment all day long.

The second thing I do each morning is come up with a mindfulness plan.  First I do a body scan mediation that ends in asking my Higher Power what my focus should be today. If I ask myself that question pre mediation and post mediation, the answer is always different.  My post mediation answer is more on point and reflective of the real issues I am dealing with on a given day.  It also lets me know the pitfalls I should expect.  Lastly I pick a word or a physical touch which will remind me of all this great insight I had in the early AM.  Anxiety is so bewitching  it is easy to forget everything and go careening down the road with my monster bus heading for trouble.