Once again, I’m working off the levels of the Challenge Cheat Sheet, or the tall building of stress metaphor.
However I wanted to talk further about the very different experience one might have in moving up one level between Home Base (say, after a wonderful night’s rest) and into a Just Right Challenge (say, a fulfilling and engaging job, or contributory role with others), vs. moving up one level between exhausted Anxiety (say, after a fitful sleep punctuated with bad dreams and bouts of wakeful worrying), and into the Scary storey of fight or flight adrenaline - now needed in order to accomplish anything at all because one’s stores are still not replenished.
It is the same set of behaviours. In both cases one will get up, get moving, get dressed, and go to “work.” But the effect on one’s body, mind, and heart are completely and totally different.
Mistaking one for the other is easy, even when it's my own life I’m looking at. Because I spent such a very long time in that Anxious level, and even more time in the higher levels above it (particularly gravitating to the numbing effects of Overwhelm), it is quite the revelation for me now, to once in a while notice that I feel safe, secure, and calm, even. This is, I hasten to add, entirely separate from my circumstances and situation. Objectively speaking, those have become much, much more difficult, if not downright catastrophic. And yet, by changing the story, I have started to change a great deal of my perception of life.
I’m living, these days, more than just surviving. Which is a pretty big deal to my poor battered nervous system.
Anyway, that’s the fence - more of a continued discussion of the different views, options, and sensations available in each level of this building, which I suspect too many of us continue to ascend far more than is consistent with safety and goodness.
If you are a supporter or caregiver of an anxious soul, consider the idea that they may not know there are calmer storeys underneath their current baseline. Encouraging them to “calm down” might be meaningless to their grid of reality, in that case. It’s another hard thing to work with them to create that home - that base that truly is based on a ground level foundation of true connection and security. I’ll keep writing about that, too. But for now, let’s consider how we can tell the difference between home and that edgy storey that makes us feel less, rather than more, nourished and ready to engage.
Good morning!
