The name of the game yesterday was anxiety. And the “game” was actually quite annoying and not fun at all.
Starting yesterday at 9:00 a.m. I began running my biggest sale of the year. It’s my fall “get 25% off your entire order” sale. (Click here to take advantage.) *Sale plug over.*
The anxiety comes into play for several reasons-
1. Having any type of sale makes me nervous as a small business owner.
2. We’re leaving for a ten day trip tomorrow (great planning, Tay!)
And 3… now three is the real doozy… last year when I ran this sale I experienced one of the most difficult days I’ve had in business in my life. Long story short, my shop was temporarily shut down, products were pulled from social media, and within a few days (and after several calls with lawyers) I was forced to relinquish a trademark I owned. A trademark I created, built, and held onto quite dearly. So yeah, it was a pretty hard day back in 2017.
And yesterday without meaning to, I carried the fear and anxiety of one year ago with me all day long. I hate to dwell or focus on past negative things, but that’s exactly what I did.
And it weighed heavy on me. I had this deep hole of worry inside of me from the moment I woke up until I finally fell asleep (which didn’t come easy and that’s unusual for me.) The anxiety festered and grew and spread onto other things, because that’s the fun thing about anxiety, it knows no limits. Got real problems? Great, let’s make them bigger! Fake ones? Even better! Keep expanding! Let’s push this as far as we can go!
I went nuts with the WHAT-IFS and the THEN-WHATS.
I knew it was bad when I got a text message from a group chat of friends and practically shouted LEAVE ME ALONE while throwing my phone across the room. Every additional email, message, or text that came to me felt like an intrusion or just one more thing I had to do.
That’s weird, right? Well that’s what my anxiety looks like when I just can’t handle it. I don’t even know what “it” means exactly. Even as I type this it makes no sense to me.
Sometimes the way I envision it in my head is like I’m stacking a tower of round little rocks, one on top of the other, and each one added on top just makes the tower more wobbly and unsteady. How many more until it all comes crumbling to the ground? One? Two? Ten? ….. I have no idea. So I just keep stacking, (whilst constantly worrying about the downfall.)
But wait, there’s a bright spot to all this, I swear.
The bright spot is that I made it through yesterday. Just like I made it through last year. I consider myself lucky that my annoying days don’t last long. I know several people deal with this type of worry day in and day out and that would be so exhausting. If that’s you, I’m sorry and I feel for you. I hope you have something that makes you feel better. For me, that’s a long Harlow walk.
Yesterday when I’d had enough I put in my earbuds, grabbed Har, and we just started walking. I paid extra close attention to the way the city looked on this hot July summer day. The sounds around me. The signs on the buildings. The new wall art that had gone up in the alleys. And being really present like that started to pull me out of my worry cloud. Sure, it was still there, but at least now I could see it from a different angle.
And a big part of that angle was remembering that I’d been through shit before, and I definitely will again, but each time I’ve made it out on the other side. I have knowledge now that I didn’t have last year at this time. I have more experience. And more perspective.
I don’t know how to end this because I didn’t intend to go into this, but here we are.
So I guess I’ll end with a Abraham Hicks quote I’m trying to focus on right now, “Take your attention from that which is not in harmony with who you are, and your “now vibration” will adjust to who you really are- and then you can uplift others.”
I hope you found that “uplifting”… And now please feel free to buy 100 shirts from my fall sale 😉
Bye! Have a great Tuesday!!