My relationship with my anxiety has changed. It’s like at some point in the past six months or so, I’ve created a new beginning for myself through my re-story-ation process. Rather than being a vibrating mass of fear and worry, now that I’m focusing on being an embodied person, I sense the changes in my body. My cheeks feel flush? My chest starts to feel tight? My heart begins to pound? I’m suddenly hot, like someone slid a heating element under my skin in one specific odd spot? On one hand, it could be perimenopause, but on the other, now that I recognize how my emotions feel in my body, I realize this is my anxiety. And in that moment of understanding, of recognition, I can create a new beginning.
I couldn’t do this as recently as eighteen months or so ago. I don’t think I could do this a year ago (but time has no meaning anymore). My therapist keeps praising me for being able to put space between this feeling in my body, putting a name to it, recognizing when it’s a story from my past, my inner child crying for help that never came, and then being able to take action. Quite often that action means reassuring younger me that I am very capable of taking care of us, that I have resources now I didn’t have, and giving younger me a hung and saying, “I got you. We’re going to be okay.” Younger me needs a lot of reassurance, and that’s okay. We’ve been through a lot together.
But there’s one thing I realized that has really allowed me the space to explore my anxiety, my constant worry, the cPTSD that developed for a great many reasons, and begin to take a moment, even just a heart beat or two, to pause, to reflect, to find the story, before moving forward.
Anti-capitalist work
It’s getting off the hamster wheel of capitalism that has us eat-work-sleep-try to pay the bills-eat-work-sleep. I mean, I still have to do those things, sometimes better than others, if you know what I mean (and I bet you do), but actually looking up and seeing that I’m on a hamster wheel — oh damn, that was eye opening.
What does it mean to step off the hamster wheel of capitalism?
- Realizing your worth isn’t tied to your bank account, whether you work or not (you have dignity and value regardless)
- Seeing the hamster wheel for what it is, a system to keep us busy enough so we don’t see what’s happening around us.
- Taking time each day, even if it’s five minutes while you’re stuck in traffic, to remind yourself that you are a human, having a human experience, and so is everyone else.
- Being willing to look at a lot of things that we’ve taken for granted or been told.
Like I said, most of us need to work to earn money to pay those bills and keep a roof over our heads. We do not live in a Star Trek style future where money has been abolished, nor will be anytime soon. We can, however, commit to doing the work within ourselves and within our communities. But it starts with us.
Engagement
Engaging with our bodies, with our thoughts, and with our stories is the first step. This is where we begin to slow the hamster wheel and even begin to put our foot on the ground to step off. It’s a process to take slow. Give yourself permission to rest. Give yourself permission to see yourself as deserving of having your needs met.
Spirituality cannot co-exist with capitalism in a completely harmonious way. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about, and where, if I’m being honest, I feel like a lot of western organized religion has gone wrong. (Let’s be honest, no church especially needs $265 billion dollars for a net worth.*) And we become disconnected from our spirituality when we are on the hamster wheel of capitalism, a wheel, I might add, which hurts so many marginalized people like the neurodivergent community to which I belong.
Engagement with our bodies, ourselves, our stories, our thoughts, and hopefully our community is the way to step off the wheel. As I explore this topic in more detail, I hope to bring you more information. But for now, on what is one of the biggest shopping days of the year, I encourage you to think about this. What do you need more, a new TV or some time to remember that you’re human, you have a body, and you deserve care?
*A quick web search came up with $265 billion as the 2023 net worth for the LDS church.