Worry - RELIEF is here and now

Loving a child who struggles with substance use causes WORRY.  Not just a little, a whole lot!  Right?!
 
Are they ok?
Are they alive?
They need treatment desperately, but not agreeing to it!
I can't stand it any more!
I'm losing them.
I'm losing my mind, my health, my own life. I'm losing me!

I don't have to tell you how difficult this path is loving a child through all the struggles of addiction.  There is pain, there is tons of worry.  We really, really need to know how to take care of it and ease the struggle.  Let's look at some doable things you can do so you don't lose your mind entirely, so you don't lose you. 
 
You need you.  Your child needs you.  No matter what, you are needed in your own life, you do have your own journey, and it will contribute to your own unique footprint in this world.  

Worry is about the future.  Let's talk about how to relieve the worry, and come back to the present.  The here and now is where you will find RELIEF.  
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• Breathe - at least 10 breaths, trying to slow down and deepen your breath until it starts to regulate itself - and it will. Breathe into now.
• Notice - are you in the future (probably) or reliving a scary past?  This is imagination and not real now.  Notice where your mind can take you, and breathe into now.  Notice the mind travel, allow it to come, and allow it to pass without attaching to it as your only truth. It will eventually pass.  The mind will get distracted with something else. 
• Touch something - the chair you sit in, a pen, an ice cube, a piece of fruit, anything. Examine it for how it feels, its texture, and breathe into now.
• Start from the top of your head and deliberately talk out loud to yourself relaxing each major body part as best you can.  And breathe into now.
• Step into a new environment and bring your focus to noticing what it looks like, smells like, look up, touch your heart, explore this new environment in detail.
• Write down all the scary thoughts and allow your thoughts to move from your mind to paper.  Burn the paper, throw it away, rip it up, make it a ceremonious release. 
• Question the very truth of your thoughts that cause your worry.  Again, are they true or imagination of what might be possible in the future, or what was in the past.  Can you for sure know whatever it is your imagining or thinking is absolutely true?  
• Take a bath or a shower.
• Get busy with something that demands your full attention:  home repair, cooking, cleaning, organizing your closet.  
• Smell something that reminds you of peace, kindness, calm (lavender, rose, chamomile, bergamot, geranium, sage)
• Ask the worry what it needs from you now?  Sometimes mine has said to get up and move, dance, get outside for a walk, hold myself in a hug, journal, ask for help; ask for a hug from someone who loves me.
• Call someone to vent and ask for their support, ask them to reflect and hold space for you (if you can trust their advice or guidance), and not to join you in this worry avalanche.
• Watch a video of babies or animals, something inspiring and uplifting.
• Pick up an inspiring book and read for at least 10 minutes.
• Write down specifics of at least 10 things for which you are grateful. 
• Notice how breathing can bring you back to the present.  It can calm your parasympathetic nervous system, lower your blood pressure, help you sleep, improve your immune system, and so much more.  It has a cumulative effect, it's free, it's powerful.
• And, when the worry and grief is so intense, fully allow yourself to drop to the floor, lay down, sit down, do whatever you need to do to let those tears flow, let those fears be vented, scream, release the accumulating fears.  Let yourself be held in this sacred grieving as long as it takes for the intensity to shift.  It will.  Honor it.  Honor you.  Love will find you and calm your breath again, bring you back to present. The ideas above, and all your inner reserves, resilience, and wisdom will be waiting for you there.

Let me know what else works for you and how some of the above works for you too.  Let's continue to care for our worry and care for ourselves. 

Our kids don't make it unless we do.  There's lots of tools, methods, and supports to make it, even if it is to just relieve the intense worry and grief until we can learn and practice more.  We'll make it together.  We can and so we will!

Love wins here!

For Peace and Possibilities,

Joanne

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