anxiety

I didn’t see it coming. An accident that smashes into your frantic life, your hustle, your ‘get up and go’ survival mode – the thing that drives you day after day. Literally, I did not see this coming. In that split second, the moment before the vehicle smashed into us at full speed – the thought arrived: You are going to have an accident now and you may or may not live. Now hold on for your life.

Then everything went black.

Shortly after, I opened my eyes. The old vehicle was dusty – shaken to its core with the collective years of off-road memories now hanging in the air, followed by the realisation: We are alive.

Next up was the step by step process of dealing with an accident and documenting it, all in a hazy state of reality, of processing what had just happened, that there were no serious injuries and above all, no death.

More than not, a major incident such as this potentially comes with consequences, one way or the other. I accept that there is more I will go through. At this point, another wave of fear and thoughts of consequences come rolling in and the next potential reality crashes down, paralysing me with anxiety in its wake. In the meantime, business continues at full throttle. Our restaurant is fully booked for Father’s Day with record numbers. My right hand is fractured and there are plates to carry and drinks to pour. Our customers are blissfully unaware of the events of the weekend and are as supportive as usual of our journey forward. It’s hard but it’s comforting.

Come Sunday evening, frazzled and relieved that this weekend was finally over – I went to sleep and for a few sweet hours, all thoughts and fears vanished in the dark, dusting the black board clean of the weekend’s messy, frantic scribbles.

In the early hours of the morning, before the birds had any inkling of the sun rising and the stars shone bright, I woke. This is my time; in the stillness of the night, at peace and in quiet when my day has not yet started. No distractions, no interruptions – just clear, purposeful thinking. It’s at this time, I find my way forward.

I know this: from the experiences I’ve had in the last few years, I trust that ‘Life has my back.’ I trust that my journey; the good, the bad and the challenges that come our way are designed to grow us and shape us into better, stronger human beings and are for the ‘greater good’ even if I don’t see how at this point. I know this because this has happened over and over again, and often, it’s only far down the road that the picture becomes clear.

At the event of facing something challenging, I have a choice. I can either plug into my fears and the paralysing anxiety and bad, non-aligned decisions that come with it, or into ego and become stuck in my self-righteousness, unable to accept, see clearly, take responsibility or find a way forward. I have a choice to prioritise perspective and to trust that if I am aligned with my higher self, life has my back and that what I am facing is necessary. To ask myself the question, how is this challenging me? What is it about myself that I perhaps have not seen or paid attention to, that needs to heal or for me to get better at? What is this pushing me to do or to face?

Embrace “Amor Fati” – To embrace everything – the good, the bad, the painful as necessary parts of your story. It’s not just acceptance, it’s choosing to love what shaped you. Some things didn’t happen to break you. They happened to build you.

For me, my ‘Amor Fati scenario,’ is that this accident has simplified things. It’s taken away some of the big ‘choices and options’ I had and like it or not, very definitely, has given me one way forward. The choice of how I get there is no longer a decision. And for this, despite the difficult road it might be and whether I like it or not, I am very grateful to know the path I must take. It is a relief just to know and to be able to go forward with purpose, direction and balance.

It sharpens the tool kit and gives me clarity regarding what to prioritize and what to let rest. It forces me to look at how I have been blindly ploughing forward at a frantic pace, solely focusing on succeeding and on the business and in doing so, neglecting other important areas of my life. Those ‘other areas’ are what have caught up on me, demanding I pull out of the race and reassess how I get to the finish line. Life after all, is not a sprint – it’s a marathon and a balancing act that requires perspective and alignment.

I can only focus on the next step right now. I do not know exactly what the lessons to come are. But I trust that by the end of this next chapter, I will be in a better place, the business will be in a better place and I will be better.

Today I left my clothes on the floor, the bed unmade and I drank from the milk carton. I burnt supper too.

I’m learning that ‘starting,’ does not simply involve pressing the ‘green button’ and moving forward. Instead it’s a dance. A dance that I’m still learning; one with some rather complex maneuvers and a dance in which I am wearing a pair of heels for the first time. It’s a dance that I move back and forth, I sidestep, I fall, I nosedive without a hint of grace and I twist my ankle, I kick my big toe and fall to the dusty dance floor in a great heap of self-pity.

But this is the difference. In my mind, there is no choice. I don’t get to stay on the floor like I once did. I must get up and do it again, and dance some more.

It’s easier said than done. This month I have fallen many times. I’ve felt the paralyzing heaviness of frustration, doubt, anxiety and overwhelm weigh me down, my thoughts pinning me to the floor and locking me in a place that I don’t want to be. The music that usually brings life to my soul, that makes me not only want to be upright and dancing to a melody, is barely audible. All I can hear are the loud and disruptive voices I don’t want to hear and that keep me stuck and from progressing with the process of starting.

Starting something new is a process. Before I can dance, I must learn ‘how to’ first. I must accept that learning to dance is most likely going to be an inelegant, imperfect process of ‘stopping and starting’ and of course, because I’m wearing heels while doing it! It’s a constant ‘to and fro’ between falling back on old habits and mindfully embracing new ways. It’s about recognising when the old narrative is at play and getting better at stopping it sooner than later. It also involves sparing some space for the ‘fall,’ being ‘okay’ with a clumsy and imperfect start, being patient with myself, being kind and learning to dance in a new pair of shoes!

It’s been a tough month and I have been a wreck! I’m going through a divorce and with that comes adjusting to a new way of life and stepping into a world I know little about. This month has been particularly challenging, mostly because it’s the end of year tax month and it’s been a very steep learning curve! It’s a strange dance; dancing between grand business plans, feeling passionate and motivated about what will come and then in the midst of being positively pumped up about ‘kick starting’ my future plans, I receive an email that states ‘it’s time to pay SARS the moolah’….and I put my pen down. My question is this? How on earth do I get creative when I am feeling so anxious?

This is something that I want to learn more about. How to manage anxiety? I have been so damn anxious this month and it’s crippling. All I know is that I cannot stay here. I must get better at this. I must continue to ‘start.’

“The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.
You can turn over a new leaf every hour
if you choose.”
― **Arnold Bennett**

The journey of Rosie Goes is all about ‘learning and understanding our humanity and how it connects us,’ and right now I am at the very beginning of this journey. It’s ‘real’ and I know in my heart it is going to be one heck of a dance of ‘To and Fro.’ But in the build up to starting Rosie Goes, I have learned many things and I realise that part of my own personal challenge while on this journey, is to apply what I have learned to my life. And this I know will require mindfulness and discipline.

I have good days and bad days. I think it has been important for me to recognize ‘what’ pulls me out of a dark space. To give whatever that is my attention.

Sometimes the best thing for me to do is simply to have an early good night sleep and to put the day behind me, knowing that tomorrow is a blank page. It always seems to be better the next day. A break in the wave of anxiety, a deep breath…perspective again.

“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
― **Eckhart Tolle,** A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

Having support has been crucial for me while ‘starting.’ I have a group of people in my in my life who have pulled me up many times, and often unknowingly, simply because they are there. And with this support that I have had and belief in what I want to do, I have learned the most powerful and uplifting lesson I could hope for, to feel gratitude.

I am often filled with a deep sense of gratitude – for what I do have, for the unconditional love and support from friends and family and importantly how I believe with all my heart, ‘that life is on my side’ and that I can trust it. Focusing on all this ‘positivity’ in my life does 2 things; firstly it helps me regain my perspective when I have temporarily lost it and secondly I believe that when I focus on ‘appreciating,’ it gains momentum, attracting more of whatever I am feeling and thinking. The trick, I think, is to surrender to what I am feeling; accept it and name it. Then unpack that fear or deconstruct it and identify how it is holding me back. That way, it loses its power over me and again, helps me regain perspective and pulls me back on track.

Part of my Rosie Goes journey has involved a series of extraordinary synchronicities, hence me believing that life is on my side. I pay careful attention to these synchronicities and treat them as confirmation and also a ‘clue’ as what to do next.

A few days ago I was explaining to my neighbour over a cup of morning coffee over the fence how I am writing about ‘starting again,’ and that I wanted to use ‘a dance’ as a metaphor for ‘starting something new’ in the way of photography. And it turned out that her client, a dancer and teacher of a dance school, was coming for a pedicure at 9am! When Chelsea agreed to do the dance photography shoot, I knew that the timing couldn’t be more perfect, and I took it as a synchronicity, as something that I should pay attention to and follow up on.

I believe that ‘life’ is listening. That day I needed to play loud jazz music on the third storey of an old maize mill and immerse myself in a creative shoot that embraced energy, passion for what we love to do, creativity and of course a metaphor for starting again. It was also the day Chelsea came for a pedicure!

This is Chelsea, teacher and owner of ‘Chelsea’s school of dance.’

For me it is exactly what I needed to do to help me regain my perspective.

‘Starting’ is a dance of To and Fro. We’re probably going to fall at some point and it won’t be pretty! But the question is, how long do you stay on the floor boards before you get up again and dance some more?

*“the end came first, the beginning came next”*
― **Tori G Doyle,** *She Loves Me Not: self love poetry with & without words*

Photography shoot location: Kings Grant Country Retreat, Ixopo, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Dancer: Chelsea Hayter, Owner of Chelsea’s school of Dance

Rosie Goes

In pursuit of humanKIND

Amor Fati: Transforming Challenges into Growth

The Dance

Rosie Goes Photography©2022