Hi. Have you recovered? Whatever your beliefs I want to know if you are feeling calm today. Are you? I hope so. I really do. Life is all about the breaths that we take in between the madness. I’m sorry but I’m going to be that person. The human that uses an exercise analogy to drive a point. If this isn’t your jam, I get it. I do. I’ll try and think of something else, too. Better yet, I’ll try and be so descriptive that my point is made whether it’s your thing, or not.
I like interval training, particularly as of late. I like it when I run and also, when I cycle. Interval training involves these bursts of effort followed by recovery. A sprint followed by a jog or a walk. The idea (bear with me because I am NOT a professional here, just a passionate novice) is that you give it your all and then rest just enough to give it your all again. You train the body to perform at the highest levels by gently guiding it there.
Anyway, that is kind of how I am living life lately. A series of changes, periods of growth, followed by status quo. I allow myself a break from change (when I can control such things- more on this in a minute) so that I feel “rested” or fully prepared to tackle it when the time comes. Okay, minute is up (that was barely a minute, I know- clearly I’m neither a professional athlete, nor a mathematician): sometimes, like in the event of a global pandemic, we cannot control our environment as much as we might normally. So, we might force longer periods of rest or recuperation to account for both self-propelled and externally driven change.
Cool, what’s the point of all this? Well, remember when I was talking about anxiety the other day? Remember when I was specifically pointing out how we sometimes transfer that energy elsewhere and that transference is so subtle that we fail to recognize we are doing that? Well, that behavior is even harder to diagnose when we are practicing interval training in life. Which again, I believe to be a fantastic way to navigate personal growth so….
I know, that sounded lovely but also incredibly vague and a little ‘what the fuck’ish.
I think the best plan here is for me to give you a real deal example of what I am referring to and we can move on from there. Good? Cool.
I have decided that I’m going to tackle some of my dysfunctional friendships. I make some moves that feel good but also not so good. Scary and also sad. All my normal ‘what if I am left alone’ fears come to a raging head. Anyway, I do all the things. I sit with it. I feel it. I live it. Then I take a deep breath and give myself a little time out. I don’t revert back to old behavior. I just get quiet for a while. I allow myself to ease into the reality of the consequences of the decisions I’ve made. Slowly. Pointedly.
The thing is, while good for me, these changes give me anxiety (see above for standard fear based jitters). I feel a bit unsettled. Then I start thinking about people I might have put off at work for one reason or another. Well, on second thought, it is usually because I’m just doing my job and it clashes with what they are looking to accomplish. But, I become focused on the idea of making nice where feathers might have been ruffled. I email. I make calls. I go out of my way to be all sugar. Do you get it yet? Do you see what I’m doing?
I have resolutely determined that I don’t want to overturn the progress that I’ve made with my friendships but I have so much anxiety related to the decisions I’ve made and rather than DEALING with my anxiety, I’ve appropriated it elsewhere. I’ve morphed my anxious energy into what I believe to be productive energy. I’m gonna fix something (that ISN’T broken) to make me feel better about something that feels irreparable.
That is an example of subtle transference. I may not even recognize that the two are tied together until I examine my actions and thoughts more closely.
The conversion of my anxiety is hard to identify in these kinds of situations, particularly given that the place I land doesn’t feel all that harmful. So what if I want to fix relationships at work? That’s good, no? All that energy I was previously expending on broken relationships is now free to be spent in more productive areas of my life. Nope. That’s not true. Like I said before, my situation at work wasn’t broken. And what I’m actually doing is taking my shitty habits and self-sabotaging behavior and moving it to a different kind of relationship.
That’s it.
Now could you argue nothing lost, nothing gained? Sure. Maybe. But I’m here to tell you that the answer is actually no. I had decided to bust out of those habits for good reason. It wasn’t a matter of situational bad behavior. It was behavior that didn’t serve me generally, in any facets of my life.
Transferring the anxiety felt good because I wasn’t failing at what I had set out to accomplish but also, I was. It’s sort of like avoiding chocolate to improve your health (I don’t support that thought process, just using an example here-breathe) and giving yourself a round of applause, knowing full well you are now satisfying yourself with oatmeal raisin cookies. Look ma, no chocolate. Nope.
Really understanding this subtle transference and being able to identify is it really, really difficult. So, when it comes to this particular scenario, I will tell you what I recommend. Walk. Slowly walk.
WHAT?
Well, when you are engaged in running interval training and you’ve become more advanced, a coach might encourage you to jog for your rest periods rather than walking. I’m suggesting that you walk. Err on the side of full rest. You have nothing to prove. You will still make amazing progress, even if it takes a little longer. You don’t need to take it all on at once.
So, when I feel anxious about my newly re-formed or released friendships, I don’t examine my relationships at work. Instead, I work. I work out. I drink tea. I meditate. I breathe. I wait until the itchies subside.
You may not know what you don’t know. You may not see what you can’t see. So, just chill. Walk. Breathe.
L.
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