Dark to Light - Coping with Anxiety + Panic Attacks as Business Owner & Therapist
Heavy.
Overwhelm.
I’m not enough.
Numb.
Racing thoughts.
Trapped.
Shaking.
I am broken.
Hopeless.
Alone.
Heart racing.
Help.
DARK DAYS
STORIES FROM THE PAST
I am blessed to say that my childhood was filled with love. Love that I couldn’t have imagined from a beautiful family. Even with this deep love I still have memories from my childhood of navigating anxiety. As an infant and toddler everyday I coped with the emotional and physical symptoms of severe eczema, chronic sinus congestion, and asthma. There were meltdowns in Walmart where my mother would hold me as I cried in pain. Expressing that I wanted to take a knife to cut my skin off because I was in such distress. Striking myself because I felt like this inner anxiety gremlin was taking over my body, my mind, my identity. With a voice so loud that it was screaming its reality and truth into my psyche.
Meet Penelope! My anxiety gremlin. She strives for a perfectionistic ideal. For she believes that when she is productive, poised and proper she will keep Mackenzie safe from harm. Penelope strives for flawless beauty as though through this ideal she will keep Mackenzie away from the hurt and the pain.
STORIES FROM TODAY
I felt a great amount of determination in the beginning months of the pandemic. My main purpose driven actions were supporting my team and the Find Your Voice Music Therapy community as we shifted to online music therapy services. Then a decline happened and I experienced a surprising shift in the anxiety that I’ve been quite successful coping with for years. The grief, sadness, loss, fear set in, just as many have felt through this time period. A new addition for me was the start of panic attacks. I began having panic attacks about 3-4 times a week. It was terrifying, exhausting and scary both at a personal and professional level.
A narrative began to scream from Perfect Penelope. My identity, both as a therapist and business owner, was compromised and not good enough for my company, my clients, my community, my home. It was challenging, vulnerable, raw. And some days it still is as I move forward in my healing journey. Balancing the truth of mental health challenges, with honouring myself and my relationships. Showing up as a business owner, health entrepreneur, therapist, business mentor in grace, hope, love, light and joy.
You can still be of loving service in your pain.
Trust that the joy, the light, the love will return.
LIGHT DAYS
Through the years I’ve seen countless medical and health experts, in both western and eastern traditions, to obtain physical relief and inner peace. I became very self aware, even as a young child on aspects of taking care of myself - from movement, to sleep, to dietary, to skin care practices, to mental health and mindfulness exercises. I have carried these self care routines with me through the years. A strength of mine has been defining my boundaries and having a strong awareness of what I need.
Today I naturally integrate grace moments throughout my day. Morning meditation, prayers and journaling, reading, podcasts and music, connecting with nature, personal therapy appointments, sweating it out at kickboxing, being with family and friends. There still are moments today where I am not okay. It feels cliche to say that one of the important things I have learned is to always choose self love. Loving self talk, loving actions, loving gestures. And patience because mental health isn’t a linear process.
I tell my story in the hope that it may be of service to someone else. To normalize mental health for those who are business owners, therapists, healers, creatives. This one's for you. We are still enough and of value.
I have felt alone many times through this mental health journey. Know that as you read this that you are not. As I am here weaving hope and light to a place of calm, ease and connection for us all. And if this story moves you please connect. There is space in this world to lift each other up.
