The Sound of Anxiety (Mindful of Anxious)

What exactly am I anxious about?

I imagine that even my mentor – a man who I remember as being like a dog with a bone – would possibly tell me that pursuing further answers, to the particular puzzle I’m going to discuss, is pointless. He might say: forget this now. And potentially, after this final reckoning, I will. The issue will drift away to the place where it belongs; the past. Forgotten. Gone.

In the meantime, as much for my benefit than anyone else’s, I’m going to discuss tinnitus. Yeap, that persistent, concoction of unnatural sounds, my brain insists on producing. And I’m certainly not alone with this issue

On this occasion, my story begins with last night, and my thoughts and feelings at the time. For the last week or so my partner has been visiting relatives in a far flung land: Florida. As our home is in the UK Florida is some distance away and in fact it’s the furthest we’ve been apart for nearly eighteen years. I accepted last night that I feel anxious about this and other things besides. One of these other things involves my partners safety. She sent me a picture of the boat she intends on travelling along the Peace River in. Even though, as the name would suggest, Peace River is, in general, very calm and still I was worried. What worried me was the look of the boat she’ll be travelling in. To me it looked a bit on the flimsy side and the engine was far too big for the size of the boat. Seeing this I became anxious. As a result, last night, I began compiling WhatsApp messages spelling out my concerns. I didn’t send them. Thankfully. Instead, I pondered on what exactly I was doing. I became mindful of my intentions.

Eventually I fell asleep and woke this morning feeling lighter, happier, and tinnitus was quieter

What I came to realise, before falling asleep, was how fearful I was for my partner and myself. I was anxious about something I had absolutely no control over whatsoever. I decided to trace this back. Along with the awareness of my fear I was reminded of how often I was made to feel responsible for the safety of others during my childhood.

There is no doubt that feeling responsible for other members of my family as a child was anxiety inducing. No child should be made to feel responsible for anything other than their pet hamster. For me this wasn’t the case. With this burden came the coping mechanism of noise. Noise during childhood was used as a release for my parents fear as well as a means of escape for me. Loud noise, has, during the course of my life, been used as a distraction from my anxiety. The end result is I’ve irreversibly damage my hearing. My hearing is damaged but this doesn’t mean that tinnitus has to be the end result. The end result can in fact be quiet. A quiet I’ve come to understand my mind has been seeking for a very long time.

I’m unsure if I’ve ever understood this before or if I’ve conveniently forgotten and need to remind myself. No matter. What matters is that I now become increasingly mindful of how fear (anxiety) for myself and/or others, is recognised for what it is: Unnecessary. Others must be responsible for their own safety. And my fears must be seen for what they are: Unfounded and unnecessary

I think up until now I’ve been pinning tinnitus on many other things. Stress being one of them. However, I realise that stress is never really anything I’ve had issue with. Some stress (eustress) has it’s uses. I feel now, that I’ve been looking everywhere else (and I do mean everywhere), except the very place I needed to.

This place is called fear. A place of fear. Whether this be fear of loss – which ultimately transcribes as fear of the absolute distress I would suffer if any harm came to those I love. Or it’s a fear for the well being of others. As a side note, it is this sense of responsibility, that has caused me to reject so many people in my life. It is the reason I have no children. In reality I carry no responsibility for others at all.

If, in the future I experience extreme tinnitus I must ask myself: What exactly am I anxious about? Could this question help you in some way?

Lets face it. The real fear, most of us harbor, is that of suffering. None of us want to suffer. It is this fear we must all look very deeply at. Potentially looking deeply at this, and welcoming a little self-induced suffering (hunger would be a good example), will lift us all exponentially. Fear can be self-fulfilling and if we, as a species, aren’t very careful, the fear of suffering unnecessarily will become a very painful reality.

I’m happy to report that my partner, Julia, is now safely off the boat. I can see a picture of her sitting by the family pool holding a beer. Lucky girl!!