Happy Monday, my friends. Doesn’t it feel like we just ended the longest January “year” of our lives? Between the news in our world and the cold (if you’re up in the tundra with us) it just felt like a deluge of cold temperatures and sadness and … ANXIETY. If you haven’t read it yet, cue up last week’s MMM about navigating the sadness of the news lately. It just felt awful there for a couple weeks living in the news cycle. I hope you found a way to make some changes to your consumption like I did. I watched less, read more… and honestly, played a lot of NYTs crosswords.
I was feeling pretty good all week. And then the weekend hit. Saturday was amazing, and then for some reason Sunday rolled around and the demons came out to play. I won’t lie to you. I sat down to write this one in the height of anxiety rearing her ugly head. She had been building in a slow “chugga chugga chugga” train going uphill. Every shrieking cry from my baby, every mundane task in the house that felt like it was taking too long, every overstimulating dog bark gave her momentum. The wheels just kept gaining ground every single time they turned over.
It felt like the combination of normal, everyday things were taking a curling iron to my nerves. Maybe it’s because it’s the dead of winter and we’re stuck mostly inside these days. Maybe it’s the pressure I’m putting on myself to “be productive” in this new phase of life at home. But when the normal, everyday things begin to feel big and out of control, that’s when I know I’m stuck in a pattern that’s as old as my birthday.
For those of you who also live next to and with anxiety, I just want you to know that I worked through this one in an effort to help us (and me) find some clarity within it. That’s the thing about anxiety — there’s never really a rhyme or reason. It’s worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. Feeling jittery about nothing. Bargaining with the monsters in the closet in your head. And if you’re like, “ugh, I came here for some Monday morning inspo…” I got you. I found it. But we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we have to trek through it first. (Can you tell I’m reading a lot of board books these days?")
So if you’re holding hands with your monster(s) too, read on.
I’ve been sitting here at my kitchen counter with my thoughts and a glass of wine for the better part of a while. For lack of a better phrase: I feel like I’m swirling. It’s that sense of knowing you have so much to say and so much to express, but lacking the ability to let it out. It feels stuck behind a wall inside my head. It’s beginning to manifest in tension in my body. There has been no truer statement in my life than “the body keeps the score.” When I hit that point, I know I’m stuck in an anxious pattern.
Part of it is that I don’t feel like I have anything prolific or beautiful or inspiring in me this week and honestly, that makes me feel aimless. It’s a reminder that I am just myself. Lately I’ve felt pretty bare. I’m stripped of a job, the ego that went with it and the title that felt important… and now I’m walking on the side of my own road. I’m just a person in a room. I’m a new Mom spending most of her time inside the house with a baby who doesn’t have words yet to tell me what he needs. I feel like I’m tackling a never-ending to-do list of household chores and caring for everyone else in a day and age when there’s not a whole lot of outward celebration for that role. Most days, I’m relishing that anonymity and that quiet. Deep down in my gut, I know it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be and that feels amazing. But today on a superficial level, it feels a little heavy.
My cuticles are bearing the brunt of it. I have one particular spot that I go to town on when I’m anxious. Fun fact: as a television reporter, I always had to have my nails done so I wouldn’t pick them apart in my most high-stress moments. If this is something you also struggle with, I encourage you to watch this segment that Dylan Dreyer did for the Today Show a few years back. She was a habitual nail picker/biter and a regular nail routine kicked the habit. I promise that if you feel like you’re embarrassed to still be doing this as an adult… there are more of us than you think.
I’m sitting here and reminding myself: Breathe. Four counts in. Hold. Eight counts out. Release your belly. It’s the breathing technique that I have found over the years helps me quell my fight or flight response. It always calms me down, but every so often it also triggers a memory. This time, it reminded me of the first time I had a panic attack on television.
But first, back up. Television was certainly not the root of my anxiety. The roots go way back. My parents will tell you — I liked everything to be “just so” as a kid. Think, OCD-laden bedtime routines flanked by other control-freak behavior. I won’t spell it out for you, but let’s just say there’s a photo of me sitting on the toilet as a young child with a lampshade over my head. Maybe one day we’ll bring that one onto the page as paid subscriber content.
I was in my first job in Binghamton, NY. For those of you who don’t know how the TV business works, you basically pack up once you graduate and take a job in small town America, where you bust your tush for peanuts. I’m talking barely-livable wages and less than ideal work conditions. You’re operating your own small camera, doing interviews, on-camera segments and maybe your own live shots (although LORD ALMIGHTY I hope small markets have started to do away with this practice because it is so dangerous) and then editing that piece to make air in a very short amount of time. As a young, straight-out-of-school journalist, this feels like an impossible task every single day.
My first job was in such a small market that I assumed several roles. I was the nightside producer/reporter/anchor of the 10 PM show. That’s right — I wrote and stacked the 10 PM show, went out and grabbed the stories we needed to add to the show, and then sat down and anchored that show. All of that while owning just 3 pairs of pants and 2 blazers (and of course, several $12.99 Burlington Coat Factory statement necklaces to make each outfit “pop”… it was 2016 y’all). Somehow I rotated all of those to create the most bare bones anchor wardrobe to ever exist. I was twenty- two years old and living a dream I had only just realized. My parents were helping me pay my rent.
I was probably 6 months into the job when the strangest thing happened to me on the air. I was solo anchoring the show and mid-reader when I had the sensation of being absolutely unable to catch my breath. The more I realized it was happening, the worse it got. I began gulping air. I was in the middle of the block, with no one to take over for me. The teleprompter was rolling and I couldn’t find a pause to take a breath. I tried to spit out the words as they rolled and had the sensation that I was going to pass out.
Doesn’t this sound like something out of a nightmare?
I somehow got through the block with the sensation of gripping terror and panic. I remember the singular floor director looking at me in bewilderment like, “what is wrong with this kid?” When we hit the commercial break, I made up some excuse about having a cold, feeling congested and not being able to breathe. Thankfully, weather and sports were next and I had some time to gather myself. I finished the show and went home that night telling myself it was just a fluke.
The next night, it happened again. And a week later, it happened again.
I began to dread the countdown into the show, knowing I had that first ten minute block ahead to read with no reprieve and no availability to dump out. And to give you a visual — this entire set was a cinderblock green screen. Just me, a small office chair and a glorified beer pong table with a green sheet. The director and audio operator were both stationed through another cinderblock wall. The only soul in the room with me was the floor director/teleprompter operator and I couldn’t see him over the overly bright, too close lights. This makeshift news operation began to feel so much bigger and so much scarier than it really was. I began to feel defeated at work.
I upped my hot yoga classes and started going three times a week. I went out and had fun with my friends. I spent time in warmer weather with my at-the-time boyfriend. I had no shortage of support and resources at my disposal. But I felt stuck in this pattern of anxiety and unable to push that boulder out of my own way.
Then one day, it began to happen again and I decided: I was so tired of this taking my power away.
I stopped mid sentence. I just stopped reading. It’s unlikely anyone even noticed. On TV, a 3-5 second pause feels like an eternity to you. But to the viewer, it may cause them to look up or snap back to attention, but it’s unlikely they’ll think anything is actually wrong.
I had started reading too fast again and felt the panic begin to rise. But I was so done with this pattern that I knew I had to try something new to break it. I just… stopped. Three to five seconds was all it took. When I started again, I read slowly. I focused on the articulation of my words. If I were to watch it back, I’m sure you could tell the lights were on but nobody was home, because I had no idea what the story was even about. I just focused on releasing my belly as the words flowed out. I slowed the f*** down.
This pattern (and the breaking of it) has found me over and over again in the past decade of my life. I’ll spend a period of time ramping myself up and hitting a peak of anxiety. Then, I say “enough.” I find new coping mechanisms or therapy or exercise and I go down the back side of the slope.
I hit the peak again right before I got pregnant. It was probably one of my worst ones — and it’s what took me back to therapy in the late months of 2023. But at that time it was so glaringly obvious to me. I was panicking at work, not myself at home, leaning on alcohol to release and unable to sleep. It led me to a sober month for the first time in my life. More on that another time.
And so, we meet again. Certainly nowhere close to that level, but enough for me to take notice. And this time — unlike times before — there are no external pressures. No seemingly obvious reasons to find myself back here again. It’s all inside my head. But wasn’t it always?
So I’m releasing the words in an effort to exorcise them. I’m envisioning myself throwing them and splattering them on the wall so I can see it all for what it is. I want to run my fingers through them. I imagine myself going color by color, spreading it all thin until it becomes a kaleidoscope of shades, turning my drab cinderblock wall into a beautiful, abstract mural of release.
All of that to say: it may feel like the ramping of the century as we go over our mountain while under anxiety. But it’s actually once we reach the top, that the way through it becomes so obvious. It just that sometimes it takes reaching the peak to say, “enough,” and find our “how.”
So thank you for witnessing my little bit of catharsis today. There’s no quick fix here and I’m sure I’ll work through this feeling for a couple days. But I know that on the other side of this beautiful release, there is rest. And to get there, I’m aiming to slow down. I want to rest my mind and my heart into the day I’m living this week. You know what time it is. Virgos, unite. Let’s make a list.
Here’s how I’m planning to (slowly) walk down the other side of my mountain this week:
We are walking every single day: (I now have a treadmill!) so if I can’t get outside to walk because of the snow, I’m walking on my treadmill. And while I’m walking on my treadmill, I’m reading something enjoyable. Fiction. Escaping to a different world.
Meditation + journaling: Every single day. I know this may seem like a mandate in a post where I’m trying to take the pressure off, but hear me out. What I’ve found in therapy and in my general life practice is that if I have a million thoughts swirling in my head, if I don’t sit down and let them out — onto paper, inside a meditation where I’m sitting with my thoughts, etc. — they just run wild in circles. I’m breaking the cycle. it’s not about quieting the thoughts entirely, but about allowing my thoughts to run the 40 yd dash straight to my journal vs. allowing them an endless track inside my head.
Time cut-offs: one of the most difficult parts of becoming the primary house—tender/parent/caretaker for me has been the lack of ability to STOP. One of the things I miss about having a workday is the hard stop. When my live shots/shows were done for the day, I was done. Around the house there’s always something to do. So mark my words: NO MORE vacuuming at 8 PM this week because the baby went down and I reclaimed my hands. Post-dinner is a hard stop.
The 3-5 second pause: this isn’t just reserved for the TV panic. This is a beautiful tool for when something begins to feel overstimulating, out of control or just plain HARD. I challenge you — and myself, of course — to take the pause. Count to 5. Does that give us space to get ahead of the thought and realize it isn’t as big a monster as we thought?
How does anxiety manifest for you? What does the top of your mountain look like? And how are you slowing down to move through it this week?
What a rambling journey we just took down memory lane. Thank you for staying with me through it and I hope you took a little something from it. I’m wishing you all a kaleidoscope of happiness and color this week… oh, and don’t forget: when you take a 5 second look at that monster, maybe give her a hug afterwards.
— SB