In my younger years when I first started this online journal, I had much less knowledge and awareness of anxiety issues. I had certainly experienced anxiety myself but my mind hadn't ventured to the extent of it in the world. Now, I am aware of its existence every day. The world probably hasn't changed all that much in the past nine years, but rather I've become more aware of the fact that people face ordeals, not least of which is in their own minds.
Let's take the last 24 hours of my life. I went to school to volunteer and did my first full school day, exhausting! I began with the Preppies, listening to their reading, and that went quite well. The little chap Tom who had been such a concern had come back from a term break with a sense of confidence I hadn't seen until yesterday. I got the sense that he had made a decision, that he could do this school thing; that if he tried very hard he was going to make sense of the 26 letters and their combinations. He's still functioning at a slow rate but I, and his teacher too, felt less anxious.
By noon I was in the Second Grade classroom and that's where I stayed until the end of the day. I've got to know the children in this class. There is no denying there are issues here. There's a huge range of ability and some aberrant behavior. I like to give the teacher lots of praise and tell her the progress I note, because as she says, and it is true, it is not so easy to gauge, day by day.
I've seen some great progress with literacy, though not so much with numeracy. I fail to understand why we are not teaching children how numbers relate to one another. I hate having them use tokens to work out simple problems, 13-8 = ?, when it seems to me that if they understood the relationship of numbers they could feel more at ease. If 7+3= 10 then we know that 3+7=10 and that 4+6=10,and so on, and thus if you know 10-8=2, you can quickly devise that the answer to the problem 13-8=5. I've done this sort of massaging of numbers all my life.
The classroom is chaotic, the whole school is chaotic in terms of noise levels. It is anxiety inducing for me to listen to a teacher go on and on at high pitch levels when the children and I are working so darn hard on these problems, at the same time as I am trying to give them strategies to make math seem more like fun than a hard slog.
Anxiety induces anxiety and her anxiety to maintain supreme control really gets me on edge, to say nothing of the children. One little chap was in tears so upset was he at the tongue lashing he was getting, and one of the little girls in my group overheard the teacher talking and promptly broke into tears. It's probably against policy but what the hell, we had a hug and I rubbed her back. Understood, she was settled two minutes later.
Ir was such havoc that when a child asked me if he could get his drink bottle my response was, "Is it going to upset Miss K?" Oh yeah, I'm just one of the kids in these situations. All this anxiety I felt in the school reminded me of my own anxiety in being in anxious school situations and the dreams that never ended. I dreamed for years of losing my school bag, or of being at the mercy of merciless people and I think it all started when these school teachers who were so dictatorial had me in their sights.
'Where's Jack?" I asked another teacher and she had the sad news that his mother had moved him to a closer school, a rougher school, where Jack was highly unlikely to flourish. The poor wee lad is functioning at the lowest level, has a hopeless home life, and yet we had the loveliest conversations; a dear little gentle giant.
I decided it was time for a workout of the body this morning. As I sat on my mat I heard someone talking about her relationship. 'After this, he's a stranger to me.' Really? Even in the pilates class there is no relief from this?
After working my core until it burned I went up for a fresh juice. I didn't want to talk much. I'd done enough of that yesterday, but a woman engaged me in conversation. I found myself hearing about her sick husband who has bone cell cancer, very rare, and how the dog, 17 years, had to be put down last week.
'It's so hard. They are part of the family.'
'He was my family. I don't have children,' she said.
Potentially, I just found someone new, or someone found me, to fret about.
She went on to tell me about the friend she was about to visit who had broken her leg and then she talked about our terrible traffic and the behavior of drivers on the road, and how entitled so many people seem now. I couldn't disagree with a word she said. It can feel that the world is on steroids and people, anxious to keep up and to get up and to keep going, are simply knocking people out of the way to get ahead. It's all so primitive.
But, all is not lost. I am reminded that during the Pilates class I had this random thought: 'My body is my temple'. It came out of nowhere but it was a thought that encapsulated my thinking of late. If my body is my temple then I don't put into it unhealthy things. I exercise it and walk it. I keep anxiety away.
But, how? How does one keep anxiety under control? Here are some of my thoughts as I walked home:
1) What's the worst that could happen? We have to learn not to think of every little biddy thing as a big thing. Yeah, I misplaced something recently, so rather than sweat it, I remind myself that this doesn't happen too often. Just let go. Save it for something big.
2) The world could be considered chaotic. It isn't really. It is our perception that the world is chaotic. So, change the perception. In my case, this might be cleaning a room, or a cupboard or writing down dates into a diary. If it all feels too much, sort, because this helps.
3) Sometimes the world feels like it is full of bad guys. There are bad guys but there are way more good guys and lots of hurting guys. People suffer just like me. We are not alone. This is a comforting thought. We are no different to anyone else.
4) Rather than worry about the world, do something, act. If everyone helps someone, that's a good thing. Do what you can, where you can. It adds up.
5) If you are feeling anxious, and who isn't feeling anxious sometimes, remember that you are probably worrying about the future or the past. Slow down. Slow it down so much that you actually say to yourself what you are doing. 'I am picking up the soap'. How does it feel? 'I am lathering the soap'. How does it feel?
Get back in your body. You'll be amazed how good it feels to remind yourself that you aren't just a talking head.
Let's take the last 24 hours of my life. I went to school to volunteer and did my first full school day, exhausting! I began with the Preppies, listening to their reading, and that went quite well. The little chap Tom who had been such a concern had come back from a term break with a sense of confidence I hadn't seen until yesterday. I got the sense that he had made a decision, that he could do this school thing; that if he tried very hard he was going to make sense of the 26 letters and their combinations. He's still functioning at a slow rate but I, and his teacher too, felt less anxious.
By noon I was in the Second Grade classroom and that's where I stayed until the end of the day. I've got to know the children in this class. There is no denying there are issues here. There's a huge range of ability and some aberrant behavior. I like to give the teacher lots of praise and tell her the progress I note, because as she says, and it is true, it is not so easy to gauge, day by day.
I've seen some great progress with literacy, though not so much with numeracy. I fail to understand why we are not teaching children how numbers relate to one another. I hate having them use tokens to work out simple problems, 13-8 = ?, when it seems to me that if they understood the relationship of numbers they could feel more at ease. If 7+3= 10 then we know that 3+7=10 and that 4
The classroom is chaotic, the whole school is chaotic in terms of noise levels. It is anxiety inducing for me to listen to a teacher go on and on at high pitch levels when the children and I are working so darn hard on these problems, at the same time as I am trying to give them strategies to make math seem more like fun than a hard slog.
Anxiety induces anxiety and her anxiety to maintain supreme control really gets me on edge, to say nothing of the children. One little chap was in tears so upset was he at the tongue lashing he was getting, and one of the little girls in my group overheard the teacher talking and promptly broke into tears. It's probably against policy but what the hell, we had a hug and I rubbed her back. Understood, she was settled two minutes later.
Ir was such havoc that when a child asked me if he could get his drink bottle my response was, "Is it going to upset Miss K?" Oh yeah, I'm just one of the kids in these situations. All this anxiety I felt in the school reminded me of my own anxiety in being in anxious school situations and the dreams that never ended. I dreamed for years of losing my school bag, or of being at the mercy of merciless people and I think it all started when these school teachers who were so dictatorial had me in their sights.
'Where's Jack?" I asked another teacher and she had the sad news that his mother had moved him to a closer school, a rougher school, where Jack was highly unlikely to flourish. The poor wee lad is functioning at the lowest level, has a hopeless home life, and yet we had the loveliest conversations; a dear little gentle giant.
I decided it was time for a workout of the body this morning. As I sat on my mat I heard someone talking about her relationship. 'After this, he's a stranger to me.' Really? Even in the pilates class there is no relief from this?
After working my core until it burned I went up for a fresh juice. I didn't want to talk much. I'd done enough of that yesterday, but a woman engaged me in conversation. I found myself hearing about her sick husband who has bone cell cancer, very rare, and how the dog, 17 years, had to be put down last week.
'It's so hard. They are part of the family.'
'He was my family. I don't have children,' she said.
Potentially, I just found someone new, or someone found me, to fret about.
She went on to tell me about the friend she was about to visit who had broken her leg and then she talked about our terrible traffic and the behavior of drivers on the road, and how entitled so many people seem now. I couldn't disagree with a word she said. It can feel that the world is on steroids and people, anxious to keep up and to get up and to keep going, are simply knocking people out of the way to get ahead. It's all so primitive.
But, all is not lost. I am reminded that during the Pilates class I had this random thought: 'My body is my temple'. It came out of nowhere but it was a thought that encapsulated my thinking of late. If my body is my temple then I don't put into it unhealthy things. I exercise it and walk it. I keep anxiety away.
But, how? How does one keep anxiety under control? Here are some of my thoughts as I walked home:
1) What's the worst that could happen? We have to learn not to think of every little biddy thing as a big thing. Yeah, I misplaced something recently, so rather than sweat it, I remind myself that this doesn't happen too often. Just let go. Save it for something big.
2) The world could be considered chaotic. It isn't really. It is our perception that the world is chaotic. So, change the perception. In my case, this might be cleaning a room, or a cupboard or writing down dates into a diary. If it all feels too much, sort, because this helps.
3) Sometimes the world feels like it is full of bad guys. There are bad guys but there are way more good guys and lots of hurting guys. People suffer just like me. We are not alone. This is a comforting thought. We are no different to anyone else.
4) Rather than worry about the world, do something, act. If everyone helps someone, that's a good thing. Do what you can, where you can. It adds up.
5) If you are feeling anxious, and who isn't feeling anxious sometimes, remember that you are probably worrying about the future or the past. Slow down. Slow it down so much that you actually say to yourself what you are doing. 'I am picking up the soap'. How does it feel? 'I am lathering the soap'. How does it feel?
Get back in your body. You'll be amazed how good it feels to remind yourself that you aren't just a talking head.
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