How are you all? How is everyone holding up in this turbulent energy of late?

There is a lot going on, on a global scale, but also on a local scale with cyclones and floods, bush fires and cosmic resets. Personally, I’ve found the energy this week to be challenging. Between busy work days, my first week of study, the looming due date of my first assignment, my search for a home, processing the declining health of my beloved Grandfather and managing family commitments, it’s been hectic. When stressors pile up like that, one on top of the other, it sends my brain into a spin. This week my brain has turned it up a notch, from mild spice to extra spicy.

I’ve found myself needing to reach for fidgets to help transmute energy into motion to help me focus on the important things. I’ve had a hard time sitting still – well, a harder time than normal and I’ve experienced moments of brain static. It’s what I call that fuzzy feeling in my brain – it’s like watching a black and white TV that can’t quite find the signal. I’ve struggled with sensory input – the world has been a bit too loud this week, and I’ve found myself being extra pedantic with the little things, even down to being weird about the kind of glass I need to drink from.

The strategy I use for dealing with these…idiosyncrasies is to give my brain and body what it needs and try not to apply judgement to it. Allow, instead of fighting my need to fidget, my need to be constantly on the move, acknowledge the brain static, to drink from whatever glass I need to drink from and to seek peace and quiet when the world gets too loud. But, the one that really gets to me, the one that really drives me insane is when hypervigilance rears it’s head.

I found myself sitting at my desk at school, watching my colleagues and analysing their body language, the length of time they looked at me, what I thought I saw in their looks, the judgement on their faces. I’ve spent time analysing what’s not being said in text and Facebook messages, and sitting in the lounge room of a night time with my family, watching their body language and facial expressions and hearing and feeling judgement in their silence. For example, after a busy day of work, a house viewing and a visit to my grandfather, I was sitting on the lounge watching Home and Away with my family and my Dad said, “we don’t want you to take just any house because you think we want you out. It’s different having you here, but we want you to be happy and comfortable.” And that little hint of reassurance wasn’t enough to stop the overwhelming analysis of his body language that lead me to believe they were sick and tired of having me and Luna around. Hypervigilance makes me believe that I am always in trouble, that I’m not meeting expectations and need to try harder, that I’ve said or done something to upset the friends that I care about. Hypervigilance is a particularly difficult kind of self torture, because I have enough self awareness to know when I’m doing it.

One of the strategies I have used in the past, is to call it out. A friend doesn’t reply to a text, and I start to over analyse and leap head first into the conclusion that I’ve put my foot in it again and I’ve upset them, or I’m too much for them. I will mentally sit with myself and call myself out on it. with it comes with an element of self-criticism and it probably isn’t very self compassionate. It normally goes something like… “it’s your anxiety, and you’re doing it again. There’s nothing wrong, people are busy, you haven’t done anything wrong. Let them reply when they can, let them think and do what they want. Stop making it about you.” It’s not a bad strategy in and of itself – acknowledging it for what it is, but it’s important to be able acknowledge it, without the judgement.

The self-judgement comes from not wanting my hypervigilant, over thinking, catastrophizing brain spiciness to have an impact on the relationships that I value the most. And so, I tend to get quiet, I tend to fight the urge to pull away – just in case I become too much for the people around me. Again, with the lack of self-compassion and placing judgement on myself. But, unfortunately, I have experienced the fracturing of friendships because of the way my brain reacts to a compilation of stressors.

During an extra-spicy brain day, meditation doesn’t work. I’m unable to be still enough, to quieten my brain enough, but another strategy I find effective is distraction. I find ways to distract myself from my own thought processes. If I can quiet my mind, it quietens the hypervigilance. I like to read, and I find science fiction/fantasy books, with their focus on world building and character relationships, to be an effective and welcome escape. I have also used drawing as a way of calming my brain down – specifically detailed, zentangle type drawings that require me to focus on a creative level.

One of the things I find difficult is discerning how to tell the difference between my hypervigilant state and my intuition. I value my ability to read people intuitively by their body language, by their facial expressions and by subtle changes and shifts in their energy. It’s a skill that I use often as a teacher, but when hypervigilance comes calling, my intuition is overridden. I’ve learnt that hypervigilance is loud, intuition is quiet. I’ve learnt that hypervigilance is observation combined with a rush of cortisol and a series of thought processes that lack self-compassion; intuition is observation without the surge of chemicals and without judgement. Hypervigilance is self-destructive; intuition is gentle and protective. Hypervigilance is disconnection; intuition is connection. Hypervigilance is a product of the brain in overload; intuition comes from the solar plexus, from the soul.

I’ve found the quote, “the only way out is through, ” to be true when it comes to those moments where stress flicks the switch on your brain. The skill is in learning to manage the stressors. Your brain needs proof that you can do it – that you can complete that assignment, that you can manage your work load, that you can balance family commitments and study. This kind of action, as messy as it feels, and as difficult as it is to push yourself forward, helps to calm your nervous system and brain. It’s almost as if you’re proving to yourself that you can do it, that you’ve got this!

In the mean time, give your body and brain what it needs, call it out, but do so with some self-compassion and understanding. Communicate with your family and friends – tell them what’s going on and how you’re feeling. Keep chipping away at the things that have triggered the stress response – give your brain the proof it needs to see you can handle it, that you have it under control. When you return to a state of calm, then you can hear and tap into the quiet guidance of your intuition.

I’ve got this, and I strongly believe that you do too.