I am experiencing a lived feeling of anxiousness.

It’s physical effects, which I am honed into, is of a fluttering in my chest, as if there is a little bird flapping frantically in an attempt to escape it’s captivity in my heart.

It’s mental effects, are a deep fear and foreboding that something is wrong, something is off the tracks, something is happening or will happen over which I have no control.

It’s emotional effects are a constant effort to put on a face to the world, in which I hide my pain, in which I suppress my deepest longings, in which I tell myself that these feelings rise and fall like the swell of the sea which I must just ride out.

It’s cognitive effects are frightening because I fear that I will not be able to sustain my working capacity in a role which demands so much of my cognitive skills to be competent, confident and concise.

These feelings of anxiousness are an unwelcome companion on my journey through life, but they are not unknown, nor are they my enemy, they are thoughts and feelings from deep within my soul calling for me to be safe.

I try my best to attach these feelings to something tangible, something that I can relate to, an event that has happened, or an event which is happening or an event which I fear will happen in the future which I can overcome if only I can understand what its basis is for being present.

These feelings ebb and flow and connect themselves to multipe strands of life, which are in most cases the simple run of the mill experiences that come with being alive.

I am busy trying to be a good husband and father, a son and a brother, and yet my feelings of anxiousness, warn me of impending loss, punch me with feelings of doubt and regret, tease me with hopes and longings that I can never realistically expect to fulfil.

My response is to attack these feelings of anxiousness with physical activity, running, sex, long walks and attack them also with quietness, a space to think, a space to find balance, a space to sleep, and attack them with creativity in reading, writing and painting.

My experience of being integrally coached has taught me to welcome all my feelings, they are all part of a bigger picture of the canvas of my life and that if I welcome them all, I will have a lived hope of respite from the dark days and emerge once more into light, peace and calm.

Eventually the fluttering bird trapped near my heart, will be free once more to fly and soar in the vastness of the sky.

William Defoe