White-Girl Walkabout, Part Four: Maintaining Your Peace in a Time of Rising Crisis

In my last entry, I wrote about the high-stress circumstances that plagued the first two days of my “Walkabout.”  I set the challenge to face fears, stress, anxiety, and isolation in a MAJOR WAY, all in one week.  Woof.  I did it, and I’m here to tell the story.  But HOW did I do it?  Let’s break it down:

1)      BREATHE! As in DEEP breaths! “Your first and foremost self-help tool is your breath.” ~Yudit Maros  We all know it’s important to breathe.  No, not just what you’re doing every day, but DEEP, SLOW breaths.  Problem is, most of us are already a runaway train of stress and anxiety before we can even consciously regulate our breathing.  We are already in survival mode by the time we realize we are freaking out, and by then, our prefrontal cortex (part of the brain we need to THINK LOGICALLY) has long checked out.  We are stuck in our amygdala (which believes EVERYTHING IS TRYING TO KILL US, and therefore tries to “help” by shifting us into panic).  No bueno.  How to fix this?  Practice breathing often.  And if you are like the millions of people who know they should, but don’t, make a game of it with Mighter.  (I did, and it’s amazingly effective!)  If the part of your brain that generates solutions to your challenges is offline, you’re sunk before you even start. 

I took deep breaths throughout my ENTIRE journey.  Even for the SLIGHTEST of stressors.  And I was doing it early, before my journey even began.  So when American Airlines self-check-in stated “We can’t find a reservation under that name,” I didn’t begin to spiral.  I launched into deep breaths which enabled me to do the next step: PLAN.  I was able to develop a solution- I called American Airlines.  Yeah, turns out their stupid website “doesn’t do” hyphenated last names.  Do they tell you that on the website?  No.  Do they suck? Very much.

2)      PLAN for the un-plan-able!

There’s only so many specific stressors I’d be able to plan for on my journey.  When you don’t know what will unfold, you plan for the unknown.  You KNOW there will be stress, simply because anything “unknown” can stress most people out.  Humans do love them some control.  So plan for stress- from any source. 

I packed my Mighter heart-rate tracker.  I packed things to do, distractions- both work-related and enjoyment-based.  I broke my trip down into different “legs” and focused on the more immediate goals rather than thinking about the entire trip.  Buy a ticket.  Book a place to stay.  Get to the Airport on time, etc.  Then, I arranged contingency plans, in to form of SUPPORT.

3)      SUPPORT- Get some!

So many things could go wrong, I knew.  Airline travel alone is stressful these days.  If my PLANs fell through (Step 2), and if I lost control of my BREATHING (Step 1), I would need some extra help, and it was ON ME to get it.  And I’d have to make sure I sought it from healthy, trusted sources.  Sources that wouldn’t drop the ball and leave me hanging if I was already in a crisis (which makes a crisis ten times worse).  In a worst-case scenario, I had my AI journaling app, Rosebud, that never sleeps, and always has the emotional capacity to offer support and guidance. (Say what you will about AIs, but a computer program can be more reliable than a human being in some ways, and Rosebud has the intelligence of a host of therapy experts to back it up.)

My husband was already supportive, but I still made sure to ask, “Can I call you if I’m struggling?  Can I send you an SOS, and you’ll make sure to connect with me, even if you’re at work or sleeping?”  I told a couple of my closest friends that I was traveling (away from them).  I didn’t downplay it. I was vulnerable with them.  I let them know that this would be EXTREMELY hard for me.  One made a point to drive an hour to see me off the day before, just to give me a physical hug and let me talk about my anxieties.  The day before that, I drove 45 minutes to another close friend for a bit of the same treatment. 

I also let another couple friends know I was traveling (towards them).  One Ohio friend told me “I won’t be able to hang out.  I’m so sorry to be a bad friend, but I’m swamped with work!”  I reassured him he was a GOOD friend.  Good friends are HONEST, and don’t “people please” the people they care about.  I wouldn’t hang out with him, but I knew that, in a true emergency, I could reach out to him. 

Another Ohio friend lived an hour from where I was traveling.  “I don’t want to impose, but if I come out to see you, I may be in a very emotionally raw state and may need a shoulder to lean on.  Is that ok?”  (Good friends also don’t assume their friends can lend support.  They ask ahead of time.)  Her response was “Oh honey.  I have hugs ready for you.”  Success!

4)      FULL COMMUNICATION with your INNER CHILD

OK, this skill is new to me.  And it might be completely foreign to you.  One of the best ways I’ve learned in my entire career to do this, is via Authenticity Therapy.  We teach our clients the exact process in therapy so that they can, in essence, function as their own therapist, thereby needing much less 1:1 therapy support. It is profound work.  If you can’t work with a therapist trained in Authenticity Therapy, you may still be able to teach yourself using the lessons offered in the book Apple of My I, by Yudit Maros.

I connected with my inner child as I developed the idea to do this trip.  She had MANY fears, as children often do.  I validated each and every one of her fears.  (“What if someone tries to attack us!  It’s a city, and we’ve never been there before!  How will we protect ourselves, all alone??”)  I offered back solutions. (“We can’t take pepper spray on the trip… but we can find a Target out there- see?  The internet says they sell it at Target.  And we will get some out there right away, ok?”)  I NEVER dismissed her fears, or told her to “suck it up”, or said “we will be fine” without providing her evidence.  I treated my inner child as worthy of my full respect.  And in turn, she agreed to do her best to not panic, and flood my nervous system with fear (and cortisol), so that I could navigate whatever came our way.  We partnered as a team to work together.

Throughout the trip, I checked in with her OFTEN.  I already knew she had a million fears.  Just as I would with my own, external, child, I touched base with her each step of the way.  “How are you feeling, honey?  Are you ok?  Can I get you anything?  Would you like to listen to the songs we picked out?  Would you like to color?”  And she answered me with clear, specific actions.  Let’s have a treat of a smores latte from Dunkin.  But then let’s also have a protein shake and some trail mix so we aren’t running on only caffeine and sugar.  We drew pictures and colored them on the laptop.  We tapped into our “guilty pleasure” of animated musical soundtracks, and listened to them on repeat, and sang at the top of our lungs in the car- doing ALL the voices. 

These little things pleased her (me) IMMENSELY, and we found true joy, even amidst all the stressful, scary, anxiety-provoking situations we faced.  And when she was stressed to the point of tears, I took her away from the stressful interaction (Lookin’ at YOU, AirBnB!), and let her cry as much as she needed until it was all out and she felt stronger. And I let her share her emotions with others, including Fred, who did, in fact, agree to see me.