My Toolbox

A toolbox of skills and practices to help in times of anxiety and depression is essential for getting through my day to day life.

Some skills are harder than others to master - some I’m still mastering to this day. The key is to use what feels natural to you and practice using others that feel right to you, but maybe not natural yet. Have patience.

There is no failure as long as you try.

Meditating

This is the biggest tool in my toolbox. Meditating can be done however, wherever feels right for you. Some people find sitting someplace quiet best, personally I like doing one of several things. I’ll meditate while doing some light yoga, while crocheting, while lying down, or even while doing the dishes. As long as you are focusing on something, you can meditate.

But have patience. This doesn’t come easily. There are intrusive thoughts (also called “monkey brain”). I struggle with this all the time. It takes practice to clear your mind and just relax. It often helps me to envision something as I meditate.

I’ll list the practices I find most helpful for me:

1. Distancing my emotions from my thoughts. I name my emotions (anger, frustration, fear, sadness, etc.) and I literally walk the emotion away from the thoughts so I can evaluate the thought - is it true? Is it worth the energy I am spending on it?

2. Counting my breaths. This one is pretty simple and a good place to start. Count to 4 slowly as you breathe in. Count to 4 slowly as you hold your breath. Count to 5 as you slowly breathe out. And repeat. Focus on the counting and clear your mind. This one I find especially helpful during anxiety attacks.

3. Drifting away in a boat. This is one of my favorites for letting go of people, thoughts, things - whatever needs to be let go. Imagine you’re in a boat, effortlessly drifting along a river. Whatever you are letting go of drifts along with you, in separate boats, tied to yours. In your own time, cut or untie the ropes connecting the other boats to yours. Watch calmly as the other boats slow down, drifting further and further behind you as your boat drifts more easily - lighter. Then envision the people closest to you - those you love and trust. These are the people with places within your boat. They don’t weigh you down. They support you.

4. Go to either extreme. Find the truth. This practice I find difficult, but still useful and worth mentioning. When you have an irrational thought, think of the worst possible outcome. Get ridiculous - like aliens invading, the planet exploding ridiculous. Then think of the best possible outcome - like winning the lottery or dream life kind of scenario. Then find the middle ground - the truth of the situation.

5. Remind myself I don’t have all the information. So wait. Tying in closely to the last practice, this one focuses on “pausing” the anxiety until you have all the information you actually need to evaluate a situation. For example, I thought I warped childrens dishes in the dishwasher at work. I was beating myself up about it, but I didn’t even know if that actually happened. It didn’t. So I freaked out and lost sleep over nothing. I panicked before I had all the information.

Letter Writing

This is the next best thing to actually talking to the people who hurt you. It’s also far less frightening since you are under no obligation to send this to anyone. It can purely be for yourself, or - as I have done - used it as notes for a real letter to send in order to start a conversation.

The first type of letter seems pretty obvious - write a letter to the people you need to confront or let go. Dig deep and take your time. Don’t worry about spelling or punctuation. Let the emotions out as you write. I know I cried during every letter I’ve written, but in a freeing, lightening way. I also found it a great way to really dissect what lies under the emotions.

The second type of letter is to your younger, hurt self. This one is far harder in my opinion. I like to think of myself as a kind, caring person, but for years I could never turn that kindness towards myself. This is your opportunity to do so. Say the things you know your younger self needed to hear back then. Tell your younger self that things will get better because one day you will put forth the effort to heal. Things will be better.

Giving Permission

Give yourself permission to cry and to forgive yourself. Crying can be immensely lightening and freeing. It allows pent up emotions to release. But most importantly, forgive yourself. You can’t fully heal until you give yourself permission to heal. This is far easier said than done - as most things seem to be regarding this matter - but once you reach that point, the inner peace that comes next is incredibly freeing.

You must forgive your younger self for things that you may have done or things that happened to you or things you felt you had control over. It’s in the past. You’re no longer that person and are free to move on. (I say this assuming most of you haven’t committed illegal crimes and face incarceration. Pasts regarding some extreme wrongs, of course, warrant far more work than just forgiving yourself.)

And there we have it - my top tools that I use to battle my anxiety and depression - in addition to medication, but we’ll get into that in another post.