A conversation with a visitor in the shop the other day got me thinking about how anxiety creates invisible victories'. Victories that are only visible to you, if you are one of the many people who has anxiety in their lives, or maybe the few people who understand you well enough to see them and know what they mean.
If you run into a road to save someone from getting run over, run a marathon, deliver an excellent speech, or climb a tree to bring down a lost kitten, people will congratulate you and rightly so. It is plain to see that you’ve done something wonderful.
The thing with anxiety is that if you cross a very busy road, get out of the house on a difficult day, answer the phone or make a phone call you’ve been dreading, respond to an invitation with a definite yes or no, smile and talk to people, no one will congratulate you because they simply won’t notice what it is that you’ve achieved.
That may not be quite right of course, there may be people who know you well enough to notice. There may be people you can tell, and who’ll appreciate what you’ve managed to do. And there’s you. You know. And there’s me. I know how many unseen, unsung triumphs take place every single day, and I congratulate every single one of you for every single one of those triumphs, however small or insignificant they may seem to anyone else. I say to you, from the bottom of my heart: “Well done, you are tremendous.”
And there are others too. I would love for every one of us to hear in the centre of our being the chorus of support there is in this world for every effort made, every step taken, every word spoken that anxiety has threatened to prevent. Maybe, if we open our hearts and minds and listen well, we might just be able to.