Hi You,
How are we holding up?
I am quite happy today! But not to jinx it, Touchwood!
That brings me straight to the topic at hand!
I am very happy today, but I can feel the fear creep in…
Chest getting heavy, airflow blocked, suddenly I am aware of all the scary thoughts my brain has ever come up with. Suddenly happiness is nothing but a bad dream turn to life, and suddenly I can’t remember why I was happy.
Ever happened to you?
We are so happy and excited, and then out of nowhere comes our “Anxiety Monster” or “A Sad Lonely Creepy Monster” or “A Monster from under our childhood bed?”
This is what I like to call : OUR SAFETY PROTOCOL.
Let’s dive deeper into it together.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
If you have noticed that you tense up in those big moments, for which you have waited your entire life, or you get overly anxious for no reason every time you feel you are truly and genuinely happy or excited, then, my friend, you have a great MIND AND BODY (will explain why in a bit).
So, let’s take a step and say thank you for these physical and mental attributes, which helps you get through so much each day, without you even being conscious of it.
Secondly, to understand what you got going, try pausing. Take deep breaths and feel what’s happening. Is it happening in your body or only in the mind?
Is it never-ending thoughts on loop or a pain in your body somewhere? It could manifest as anything. For me, I get so anxious that I end up being totally scared. My throat closes, I can feel my heartbeat so loud, to a point where I feel I am paralyzed with the possibility of my worst fear coming true. I feel like something bad is going to happen in that moment. And its so real. So Real! I can feel it in my body. I feel like there’s going to be a jumpscare. And like most of us, I usually end up switching whatever I was doing that made me happy to something mundane, to calm down, ignoring the hell out of that feeling, till it finally lessens or in thankful cases subsides. Usually it resides in my body for 2 to 3 days.
Even if you got a percent of what I just explained, hang on, because I am about to share how to deal with it!
Like I was saying, pause! Whatever you were doing, for a minute, close your eyes or not; just find a silent place and think or feel what’s happening. I know it’s scary, and it’s exactly opposite of what your instincts tell you, but trust me, pause. I’ll tell you in the following paragraphs what this feeling is and why it happens (in most cases), but for now, PAUSE!
Once you realize you are aware of what’s happening and where, then I want you to either write answers to the following questions in a journal/notepad/phone or simply analyze in your mind.
Doesn’t matter if you haven’t calmed down. Even if you feel you can’t breathe, do this.
Only do this when you are truly aware of what’s happening.
Are your hands shaking? Is your chest heavy? Are there no physical symptoms? Are you feeling depressed all of a sudden? Are you feeling tired? Are you replaying the worst possible future scenarios in your head?
What’s happening?
SAFETY PROTOCOL
Before I jump into what you must answer, here’s what’s happening:
Either or all of these (not exhaustive list) could be happening right now:
You are acting on a long-held belief, mostly a limiting belief.
For example, whenever I got too happy, I subconsciously sent a signal to my brain that something terrible was going to happen that’s going to make me cry and feel hundred times worse. As this is what I experienced growing up, which solidified that belief. As I recall, I had heard it from one of my elders, and I took it quite seriously and subconsciously kept strengthening it, to a point it became automatic. And until I worked on it, it kept troubling me.
Your nervous system is confused.
It happens at times that we have not grown up with the knowledge to properly regulate our nervous system and control our emotions. This makes our body unable to understand the difference. In our head, we know we are happy, but our body starts preparing against that stimulus of excitement. It can’t differentiate between happy, scary, or sad excitements sometimes. It can’t differentiate if you are happily excited to move across countries, scared excited to watch a horror movie, or excited (fear or happiness to try a new experience) to give a speech in front of a crowd for the very first time. And it is that way, because we never learned how to differentiate these emotions in our bodies, as in every such scenario, the signal is the same: EXCITEMENT. And so, your body goes into its work to protect you, in case it’s the excitement or an impulse, in situations of flight or fight. Therefore, I said you’ve got a great mind and body that relentlessly protects and serves you!
To explain a bit more clearly : If we haven’t learned how to recognize and regulate our body’s responses to different emotions, it can struggle to interpret various types of excitement.This is because, at the physiological level, excitement, fear, and anxiety can trigger similar responses in the nervous system, such as increased heart rate and heightened alertness.
This “excited” state can prompt the body to activate its fight-or-flight response, preparing you to act in case of real danger—even if there is none. Our nervous system’s goal is to keep us safe, so without training to distinguish these emotions, it treats all strong arousal as a potential threat. This is why learning to recognize and regulate these feelings helps your mind and body work together for your well-being, acknowledging the complex, protective system that serves you every day.
There can be, in some cases, a disease that can result in the same.
- Depression gets triggered in a patient who is in recovery or has recently recovered due to a number of reasons. Or there can be diseases or nervous system issues in people, or it could be purely psychological. In such cases and others, do contact your therapist or doctors, or get in touch with one. If not affordable, contact a friend or a loved one, you trust. I know reaching out is tough in such cases, but take the first step and it gets easier, I promise.
JOURNAL PROMPTS AS THE SECOND STEP
Now that you are aware of what’s happening in your body, write down the answers to the following questions:
Question 1: What am I feeling and where?
Question 2: What was I doing, saying, or experiencing that led me here?
Question 3) Am I reacting to some old habits or beliefs that are not even mine or that I might have picked up growing up?
Question 4: What does my body need right now? Is it food, a hug, a nap, a shower? What can calm me down, and why? It could be meditation, journaling, a cold shower, a comfy movie, any song, any specific place, anything but drugs and alcohol.
Question 5? Why is this happening, and when has it happened before?
Probably, by the end of these, you will get clarity on what exactly triggered that response out of you. And sometimes, just asking ourselves these questions solves it for us. Most times you will be surprised with the answers you get. You might have never realized that you held those beliefs or thought in that manner. It would come as a surprise, but deep down it will feel like you always knew this.
THIRD AND FINAL STEP
Once you have realized this, do the things to calm yourself. And don’t force it.
At first, it might take days to wash off that feeling. Eventually it will get easier, as you encounter more triggers and still choose to go on about your day.
Once you have done whatever you could. Sit for another 5 minutes and feel the difference. Feel how your body feels at this moment. Give yourself the comfort you would give another person in these moments. Self-love and self-care show up here. Give yourself a big hug for dealing through something so scary, so bravely. For showing up mindfully.
Self-love doesn’t just mean pampering yourself and your body; it also, at times, means to parent yourself in the way you expected from others. It means to discipline yourself and to show yourself physical, mental, spiritual, and all kinds of love, be it hugging, dancing, indulging in chocolates, etc. Your inner child is scared and is reacting, and at most times, we deal with it probably like our own parents did. We often scold ourselves, put ourselves down, nag us, and become so critical that it just ends up getting worse. Know when to get critical and when to shower affection, even to yourself.
With that being said, in 9 out of 10 cases, when you pause, you will know what to do. And if you don’t, just try to soothe yourself and remind yourself that its just a feeling and it’s going to pass away. Embrace these experiences, as these are opportunities to get to know yourself better. To show up for your inner growth as a human being and even on a soul level.
The universe will never throw things, experiences, or situations at you that you can’t handle, so have faith you are going to figure it out.
It’s a process to handle and understand these things fully, so be patient and observe rather than reacting.
With all that, I truly encourage you to not go through such things alone; please seek help if it gets too overwhelming. Do not wait till things get out of hand. I wish you all the best on your journey to more healing!
If you are interested to know about me and how I came to understand my SAFETY PROTOCOL and became able to sit here and advise you on it, then please join me and continue reading further.
MY STORY
“Thank you, Universe, today was the best day ever!! Ahh, I can’t believe how lucky I am to have this life!”
This was the exact line in my mind, along with intense happy emotions, after what could feel like ages to have truly felt these lines, when I was hit with this:
“I felt my chest exploding, my heartbeat so loud and rapid, my hands shaking slightly. I was watching a Happy Vlog. I love watching, in the comfort of my softest and most loved blanket, with dark chocolate (my favorite thing ever) in my hands, enjoying my Me Time when it happened.”
And like all other times, I just wanted to ignore it and somehow calm my heartbeat. I hate that rapid pulse; it makes me feel like I am going to collapse. So, I wanted to go watch a movie, take a shower, or eat all the food in the world possible. But something different happened that day. That day, I wanted to journal; it was this deep, subtle knowing that I needed this. Nothing feels worse than journaling when you feel that if you take a step further, you will collapse or you are going to face the worst shit possible in the world. I didn’t even know what to journal. I was too scared and anxious to do anything, let alone journal. So, I started writing about what’s happening, and in no time I was calm and writing about the three reasons that could have possibly caused this. I didn’t know how I knew this, but it felt like I knew it very well.
And post-writing, I had a smile on my face, finally being able to show up for myself and embrace myself in the way I or my inner child needed.
This incident was followed by many more, where at times I didn’t ever need journaling. I explored many practices depending on what felt right in those moments; sometimes just reminding myself through affirmations was enough, whereas sometimes I needed to do something more active and engaging like yoga or going out for a ride.
With all the knowledge of what triggers this response and how to deal with it, these episodes got fewer and fewer in frequency.
What helped most was finding the root of it—the limiting belief that I had been carrying since my childhood. Many memories came to the surface, and it provided the clarity I needed to finally start working on it. (Shadow work, meditation, journaling, and recalling are few methods that help achieve the same.) Understanding yourself and your inner work works wonders.
The more you push it down, the more severe it becomes. My instant response earlier used to be “stop being too happy or you will jinx it,” but this way I was giving control of my emotions, reactions, and overall wellbeing at the hands of a feeling I didn’t even recognize, and I guess if you have read this blog or experienced this, somewhere at some point you have done the same, and I hope you come out of it, just as I did, fully healed, recovered, and embracing life without any fear.
I hope you resonated with this blog. Thank you for reading.
Catch you in another one…