Thank you for your kindness, for your care with my story, or whatever it is I’m doing here. I couldn’t tell it if I didn’t feel safe in your eyes.

I used to think of myself as typical. “This is how I am. This is how people are.”

But maybe not. Maybe not so much.

Maybe not everyone leaves their bed in the morning already underway with their worries for the day. Maybe not everyone is always on alert, waiting for a second shoe to drop and the bowling ball that is sure to follow.

Thanks to Shirzad Chamine’s positive intelligence quiz, I knew I was “Hyper-Vigilant.” I could accept that label. It sounded resourceful, capable. Ready.

But there’s another word for it I didn’t want to accept:

Anxious.

Am I anxious?

I didn’t feel anxious. There was just almost always this tightness in my chest, a stiffness in my neck, and a lead weight—round and rolling—in my stomach.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling uncomfortable, I go outside. Sometimes, I go to a library or a bookstore.

At the Joseph-Beth bookstore, a bright pink and sky-blue book by Martha Beck beckoned me from the large wood round table at the entrance, the table that features popular new releases.

Beyond Anxiety* came home with me. The first part of the book was about our culture of pyramids (get me to the top!) and how it makes us anxious.

Okay. I’m anxious.

But then, in Chapter 4, Beck talks about Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz in the 1980s. The concept is that we all contain different parts—hurt parts and other parts that try to protect the hurt parts.

It made sense.

I wanted to do this IFS therapy on myself. (My first husband accused me of self-surgery. He wasn’t wrong.)

Beck has an IFS exercise in her book, which I did, but I wanted more because I had also been exploring another topic: Inherited Family Trauma (IFT).

I needed the IFS to help with the IFT.

We’ll go there next. First IFT, then IFS.

(I’m writing in acronyms because it’s more comfortable than words. The words don’t feel good.**)

*Note about links: I make zero money from any link, unless it goes to something I’ve written. Links are for your convenience.

**Don’t despair! I’m feeling better now. I have tools that help me, and I think you might like to know more about them.

 Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for the opportunity to keep learning.