Right now at this time on a Monday morning which is usually the hardest time of the week on the anxiety front I feel positive. Its strange. If only I could keep a hold of that. If only moods were not everchanging. But they are. And anxiety is ever changing too. I got up earlier today and when it was time to wave my family goodbye I instead went with them. The plan was to go a little way as anything was a start. I didn't expect to go almost halfway but I did. I went as far as I have been struggling to go this year but all the better for doing it first thing in the morning at a time where I would usually still be waking up. That is what has me in a positive mood. I have been trying hard and I have to hold on to these little positives. Its the first time in 6 months I have managed an early walk. The last time I did for a few weeks then I got a chest infection and couldn't walk at all and after that just struggled to do it. So I am hoping this time I can maintain it but won't get carried away as its just one morning as it stands.
It was not as difficult as anticipated. That surprised me. This year though I have been approaching my walks differently in my attempt at graduated exposure. Its a two pronged attack in which I have managed only one prong so far so must work on the other. After looking at my walks for the 3 years previous I see a chart ful of spiky lines. What this says is that I push but cannot maintain and inevitably they start to ease off. This is eagerness. Eagerness to push and ignore the body so difficult to maintain. So this year I have been doing the walks slowly and building on that. Happy to maintain for however long it takes and then increasing slowly as the body allows. Now I am up at what my best walks of last year. The struggle now is to maintain but I hope because I have been building up gradually I will have a better chance of doing that.
The other side I have not mastered yet is mindfulness. I realise that on my walks I got out and push tensely on until I can go no furthe and then scurry back. Its all mindlessly done. This in the long term isn't going to go me a lot of good. I need to be more mindful walking and try to get into the habit of not concentrating on the actual A to B and back to A the whole time. Because that is how it is. I am thinking about getting to a destination, how I am going to get back and getting it over with as quickly as possible. This is not the way. Yesterday was good. A little breakthrough. Out for a walk and I saw an old man with shopping pass me and when I was coming back on myself he was walking in front of me. And I envisioned how far he had to go and started to question why I could not do the same and then I started to loosen and take everything in and try to feel in my environment and all of a sudden I felt "normal" again. I wanted to walk on. I did walk on a bit more and it was my biggest walk of the year as it turned out. I could even have walked more were it not for the returning self doubt of regardless of how well I felt walking I would feel shit after. But a moment. Its these moments I am looking for and the only way I will get them is my trying to be more mindful on my walks. When I start to walk further and stay out longer it won't be because of the distance I have covered previously but how I have covered that distance.
Its been a tiring week so far which has paved the way for a return of that horrible melancholic state. It seems to be a combination of tiredness and anxiety. Tiredness because after a two week Easter break the kids are back at school again and the body clock which has drifted into longer nights and later starts must suddenly try to adjust again with the new routine. Its not an anxiety thing, my wife feels tired the first week too and the kids also. But all that said it has been a good week. Anxiety fairly low and working hard on getting on top of it. I hope to continue that into this week. When I am getting out and about more I feel my mood lifts some as it gets me away from ruminating indoors. We may even start the car journeys again soon and that would give me the opportunity to take my new camera outdoors somewhere.
I've also been getting out more with the kids rather than on my own. My daughter had great fun on the photo above. They are resurfacing the roads around my way so roads are blocked off and my daughter loved the opportunity to go walking on the new surface where normally its busy with cars. I'm sure there is a metaphor in there somewhere, probably.
