Anxiety is powerful.  It exceeds what we are programmed for as human nature suggests.  It’s the tense, flailing conductor standing at the front of the orchestra- a timid of  circle strangers playing off of each other because they can’t read the notes in front of them.

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People experience worry so differently and for an unbelievably vast array of reasons.  It can be anything from the effects of reading too many current headlines to the uncertainty of any loss big or small.

During a particularly dark time, there is an unending thought in my mind that seems to carry me to the next day when everything else swirls: Where do we find the power in anxiety instead and how do we use it?

I am an empath right down to my very core.  I probably should have been born with a disclaimer.  I experience things both on my own and by way of understanding how others do.  I will put your proverbial shoes on if you let me.  This is a gift I find equally as torturous as a curse.  Bonus-  I wonder how my own attempts to understand might become intrusive to someone else as I over-ask, over-explain, and under-chill.  In the same existence, I get to see how people operate so eclectically.  That intrigue can be overpowering in the best way:  It lets me see their intent no matter what.

I get to have joy in getting to feel when others have it and there is grief in finding they don’t.  There is relief in knowing they feel understood and worry in the abyss of not.  It can be debilitating at times because empaths, by nature, cannot let ourselves out of our own heads.  Why? Because we’re often so wrapped up in how yours is.  We sway with the wind of whatever storm is in your world.  We do it willingly because that is exactly why we’re here.  It never goes unbalanced, though.  We get to take that same little breath of happiness when you get to feel something ridiculously exciting.  Selfish bit of a payoff for us?  Perhaps.

We are the people tapping on the conductor’s shoulder to see why he’s so tense and if there’s anything we can alleviate for him.  Often times, it backfires and he’s just wondering why we’ve interrupted the show before we even realize we have.  At some point, we’re not letting the maestro lead his own symphony.  The code I’m quickly figuring out is that there’s a way to do that without inadvertently using his own stress against him to stop the music:

We trust the maestro, his reasons, and his perspective.  We learn to trust that we still get to help by doing that very thing.  What seems like a mess of out of tune strings may be exactly what his entire overture calls for.

I am finding that line between the power in experiencing that and how to step aside and simply exist with understanding for whenever it’s needed.  That, to me, is using any anxiety I feel to fully see both why it exists for someone and how to trust that it will transform into something worthy of a standing ovation.