Q: I have built a successful farm, but I can’t relax. My wife thinks I’m going to drive myself to an early grave.
I get all wired up when it is too hot for few days and equally distraught when we get what I think is too much rain.
My physician thinks that I am struggling with anxiety and wants me to consider medication and counselling. What else can I do?
A: I hope you will continue to work with your family physician and your mental health counsellor. They have the wisdom of research to help them figure out what might be the best treatment to tackle your anxiety.
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My question for you is a bit different: if you let go of your anxiety, with what are you going to replace it? Think about it: those self-doubts, personal recriminations and unimaginable scares take up huge amounts of neurological energy. If all that energy is not going toward your anxiety, where will it go?
How about if you directed your excess neurological energy to personal satisfaction. I would like to suggest that you are a little weak on feeling satisfied with yourself. It is almost like Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones said in one of their first big hits, “I can’t get no, satisfaction”.
That could be your theme song. Satisfaction does not necessarily come from building up your farm. Satisfaction comes from learning to appreciate that which you do. Instead of rushing out of your bedroom early in the morning to hop on your tractor, just take a second to look at your bed and appreciate what a good job you did making it. Love the way in which you brush your teeth, get dressed and fry up a couple of eggs, sunny side up, for breakfast.
The more that you can appreciate the things you do with your personal habits, the more likely it is that you will start to nurture some personal satisfaction. Of course, the greater your personal satisfaction, the less vulnerable you are to anxiety.
I also suggest that you start setting goals for yourself. Not having goals has been great for you because it has meant that you have had huge chunks of flexibility leading to the building up of the farm. But not having goals means also that you are not able to love yourself for having accomplished the task, or, if need be, for making the changes you need to make to finish the task.
When the task is done, it leaves even more waves of personal satisfaction, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to one day bask in the beauty of loving yourself?
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
