My anxiety journey continues to evolve. New forms of anxiety I have no previous experience with come forward each time I make progress. A year ago it took the form of “I’m going crazy,” then it shifted into existential dread, then it shifted into hypochondria, and it’s now taking the form of insomnia. In each evolution I evolve my own awareness and management strategies and once I feel like I’m on top of it it shifts into a new form.

I already feel like I’m in mid-stage insomnia. About 2 or 3 times a week I get about 4 hours of sleep. The first few nights the insomnia spiraled into full-on panic attacks. Now I lay in bed completely miserable but no panic attack comes. I do all the things. I don’t look at my phone or the time, I read, I meditate, I lay still and slow my breathing down, I take melatonin and anti-anxiety medication if needed. 

I recently visited a new friend who’s an herbalist and had a session with them. I made a tea blend of the recommended herbs at Rainbow Grocery (2 of the herbs coincidentally were grown in Vermont) and I drink that tea every night a couple hours before bed. I also got a kava kava tincture and take two droppers of that each night.

I stopped seeing the latest therapist I was seeing. I had about 8 sessions with him and it was misery. Whatever techniques he was using was triggering my anxiety and it was awful. If I see another therapist I am likely to seek out a CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) specialist and for now I’m playing around with EFT (emotional freedom technique) videos that are online. I’m feeling hopeful about the tea ritual and EFT.

I know I’m in the middle of a classic mid-life crisis. I check all the boxes. Wikipedia says they typically last 3-10 years for men— and my goal is to learn what I’m meant to learn, move thru this period, and experience as little misery as I can. 

I ask the anxiety questions like “What are you here to teach me?” I now talk to my inner-child regularly, like he’s a close neighbor I check in on every day. I’m trying to be as wholistic as I can and I’m also not afraid to binge TV shows and get relief that way also. 

I can intuit, for sure, that I’m being asked (by whatever) to grow, evolve, mature in some way. I’m meant to shed old ways of being that no longer serve me. I’m meant to release any clinging childhood patterns. I believe I’m in the cocoon phase of life. As my friend Nayomi taught me to think—I’m “in the goo.” I can intuit that on the other side is a deepened sense of stability, and some form of spiritual adulthood or elderhood.

I’m increasingly at peace with the process.