Carrasco Psychological Health Services

One of the first steps is trying to stay grounded. You can use skills such as mindfulness meditation and paced breathing techniques. This will not remove anxiety or stress but will allow you to manage the emotions. Keep in mind that the things you describe would cause even the most “stable” person stress. Therefore, you are likely to experience some emotional pain and mindfulness will prevent you from going into suffering. Mindfulness meditation involves mindful acceptance toward life: watching the struggle without judging it, feeling the pain without drowning in it, and noticing the hurt without becoming it. It’s not a feeling or an attitude. The practice involves a willingness to experience one’s self and one’s life just as it is. Mindfulness will take practice just like most skills.

Some people may take this as “I should just accept all the bad that has happen and there is nothing I can do about it.” Thinking about acceptance in this way will likely make you stuck. Instead interpret acceptance as “to take what is offered.” You are choosing to be open up and be with whatever is happening anyway. For example, you may get stuck in your head about the divorce or stressors at work. You may begin to judge yourself for decisions made or not made. By staying in the present moment while using mindfulness, you can simply begin to acknowledge all the stressors and allow them to come and go from your mind.

So might this look like for you in your day? After the long work day, you come home exhausted. Acknowledge the discomfort and make room for it, allowing it to be, without doing anything about it and without trying to make it go away. This will give you enough room to move around and live your life. Practice a mindfulness meditation even if it’s for 10 minutes. Ultimately, you are taking some actions steps and even starting at 10 minutes a day can have some good effects. The result will be you will likely be ready to take steps on the things you can control. This may include paperwork you need to catch up on etc. The feelings and thoughts can always come back even after the meditation. The idea is not that you made feelings disappear through meditation. But the next time you are struggling with thoughts and feelings, you will be more ready to manage them in the moment.

Something else to keep in mind in your situation is that you are likely going to try your best but issues will still arise. During these moments keep in mind that trying to control the uncontrollable is the problem. Ask yourself “Am I willing to give up trying to control what I cannot control so I can move forward with my life?” You will likely be unable to control the people in your life giving you stress. You can control how to deal with that stress. I encourage you to recognize the anxiety and stress as they show up and deal with it through the mindfulness practice. You can imagine what your anxiety would look like if it was a person or give it name and it is showing uninvited into your home. You can decide how you react to emotion (keeping in mind that there is no way to make emotions just disappear). The idea here is to practice a more inviting and welcoming relationship with your anxiety. Do not treat it as an enemy, you can learn to treat it as a friend. You will not like everything about anxiety similar to how you do not like everything about all your friends and family. The takeaway is you are more free to choose how to respond and how to deal with emotional pain.

The majority of what I am suggesting is from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). It is show to be an effective approach to dealing with anxiety. I recommend to seek out therapy services from a therapist with some experience in using these skills. If you are alreadt in therapy, then I recommend asking your therapist for some more information on this approach.