The Beginning ... and End ... of Anxiety!
Not a cure all but a bloody good start!
“Not knowing” is the beginning of fear!
When I was about 5 or 6, there was a person who threw cans or bottles at our house at nighttime.
I was scared every night I heard them. They always did it through a storm. Why weren’t they in bed, all safe and warm? And why my house? Whay had I done to them?
I'd lie awake hearing this noise and couldn't imagine it being anything else. Our next-door neighbor had a chimney made out of brick that went straight up into the darkness. The sounds I heard were exactly like empty cans and bottles being thrown against that brick chimney and our house.
At school I read a story about a boy who was also scared at nighttime.
In the story, the boy's dad sat with him one night as they looked out the window at all the things that happened in the night. The cat that glided past, unheard but seen as a shadow across the fence. It startled the boy, but his dad explained what it was. In fact, it was their cat, which the boy loved and cuddled almost every day. They watched and saw many things that, without explanation, could be seen as “monsters under the bed”, or outside, in this case!
The night went on and, all of a sudden, a light appeared over the horizon. The sun was coming up. The dad and boy had been up all night, exploring the darkness from inside the bedroom and through the window.
Later that day, I asked my dad if he would do that with me. “Not a chance. You have school tomorrow!”
So, later that night, when my brother was asleep, as scared as I was, I climbed out of bed. I was shivering with cold and fear.
Who was throwing the bottles against our house?
I slowly and silently opened the blind a bit so I could see out. There was a moon, the small amount of light giving shape and form to the things outside.
I saw the next-door neighbor’s chimney, the fence, the front porch to my grandparent's granny flat with the sign “Ellerslie” next to the front door. I couldn’t pronounce it correctly back then.
Then I heard it.
The noise. Cans and bottles being thrown at our house. I looked from left to right, quickly trying to scan the yard, both wanting to see the villain and not wanting to see the villain! The villain, as my nan called them, doing his evil work!
I looked up at the chimney to look for the projectiles being hurled.
But ... there were no projectiles. And the sound wasn't coming from the chimney, or off the walls of our house.
I listened very carefully to try and find the source of the noise I was so fearful of. And as I forced myself to listen, I noticed the fear has dissipated. A little at first, then almost altogether.
I was now more curious than scared. Where was the noise coming from?
Then, just outside and to my left, a clanging of noise, like a bottle being thrown, or being dropped on to each other, caught my attention. I was startled again, but not afraid. Just startled where it had come from.
Right outside my bedroom window was a drainpipe. It was raining quite heavily, and the gutters were capturing the water from the roof and sending it toward the opening.
As the water fell into the drain, it clashed with the metal piping, all the way down, at different rates and the waters ebbed and flowed down the pipe - faster, then slower. Deeper sounds, lighter sounds. Making a remarkably similar sound to bottles being dropped together or thrown against a brick wall ... or chimney!
"Huh!" I thought to myself. "Why would anyone be scared of water falling down a drainpipe?" I listened a little longer, just to be sure, of course.
And then, satisfied there was nothing to be afraid of, I stayed a little longer, looking at the shadows of the willow tree making waves on the fence. Would I see the shadow of my cat? “Nah! Cats are scared of the rain! Scaredy cats”, I smiled at my own joke.
The croak of a frog caught my ears, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. But there was definitely a frog out there.
This was so cool. This had been a great adventure; I couldn’t wait for it to rain again. Which was quite common in my hometown.
Like the boy in the story, we are often afraid or anxious of what we don't know.
Sometimes we like it that way and avoid the excursion into the unknown. But what if the source of our fear and anxiety is simply ignorance some level? We are afraid, or anxious, but we’re not really sure … of what?
The only solution, therefore, is curiosity and investigation. Broadening of our knowledge and experience.
The irony is, we are more afraid, and remain afraid or anxious, when we don't venture out
We imagine all sorts of things that could befall us ... if only we'd stayed in "bed".
But every time we venture out, more often than not, we find there is little to be afraid of. As we venture further out, we can look back and see how far we have come from our "bedroom, with the covers over our head", afraid to open the window blind for what may be "outside".
Often the source of our fears is our own imagination.
What causes you to be fearful or anxious?
Will you to peek out from under the covers and open the blind to find … there is nothing to be anxious about?
If you liked this and thought of someone who may also get something from it, feel free to share it. I won’t mind. Promise! 😉
Brilliant….did we have a willow tree? Can’t remember