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Cucumbers and Toilet Paper in an Age of Anxiety

Cucumbers and Toilet Paper in an Age of Anxiety

by | Mar 20, 2020 | Applied Principles, Personal Growth

I think most of us are familiar with the sensation of panic: Whether it’s a brief moment of panic like when you realize you forgot an important date – like your anniversary or your mother’s birthday or a critical deadline at work; or a sudden, heightened moment of panic when you fear something horrible is about to happen, or when something frightening is indeed happening.

I remember back to a time in my early 20s when I was in charge of a produce department at a small collectively owned food coop in San Francisco. I was charged with buying the produce which meant I started work at 4am each day by driving the store’s ancient pick up truck to the produce warehouse district in San Francisco to pick up enough food to get us through each day or the weekend, tops. As anyone familiar with San Francisco can imagine, we didn’t have a whole lot of space in our little store. Certainly not enough space to store weeks or even days worth of inventory. I confidently accepted the position based on my qualifications of having worked on an organic farm. I knew how to plant and harvest vegetables – how hard could it be to buy and sell them?

I will never forget one day during my first week as a produce buyer. I returned to the store after my trip to the wholesale market that morning only to be met with the incredulous look of my produce-buying predecessor, who inquired with raised brows, “you bought how many cases of cucumbers?? And you bought zero cases of….????” Fill in the blank with any essential produce item besides cucumbers and it’s likely I didn’t buy it that day.

In this scenario the sense of panic I experienced occurred after the fact and was tied with the realization that, 1) I messed up and, 2) that I didn’t, actually, have a clue as to how much of anything I needed to buy each day. I had no experience upon which to base this knowledge. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and once I knew what I didn’t know, this caused some minor panic and anxiety. Would I even be able to do this job well?? Not knowing how many cucumbers we actually needed to get through the day, my rather blind decision to purchase way too much was also based on fear – the fear of running out. Of course, there is no greater teacher than the humility of recognizing how little we actually know, so I actually went on to enjoy a long and reasonably successful first career in the produce industry.

For our species, all variations of panic and anxiety have one thing in common – they are a byproduct of the evolved human brain. In a recent NY Times article entitled, “A Brain Hack to Break the Coronavirus Anxiety Cycle,”author and psychiatrist, Justin Brewer, MD, gives a wonderfully parsimonious description of the difference between fear and anxiety (together with its close relative, panic). Fear helps us survive. It is a conditioned response in which we learn to avoid life-threatening situations. The more primitive areas of the brain allow us to experience fear and thus survive as a species. Fear is tied intimately with the flight or fight response we share in common with other mammals. The wonderful thing about fear is its immediacy. It is triggered and we react. The reason fear has helped us survive is that it bypasses the thinking part of our brain. If we stopped to think about what we are afraid of, our reactions may come too late. It has to be immediate, and once the danger has passed, the fear subsides as well.

Anxiety (and panic) on the other hand, is a product of our prefrontal cortex – the most recently evolved layer of the human brain responsible for abstract reasoning, creativity, and planning. While our bodies are responding appropriately to a fear response, our prefrontal cortexes are busy cataloguing the experience in our memory banks and assigning meaning to it. The prefrontal cortex is like an executive director (literally responsible for executive functioning). It processes various sources of information made available by other regions of the brain, searches the memory banks, and it makes predictions about what will happen in the future. Importantly, as Brewer states, “If information is lacking, our prefrontal cortex lays out different scenarios about what might happen, and guesses which will be most likely. It does this by running simulations based on previous events that are most similar. Enter anxiety. Defined as ‘a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome,’ anxiety comes up when our prefrontal cortexes don’t have enough information to accurately predict the future. Without accurate information, it is easy for our brains to spin stories of fear and dread.”

I’d like to pause for a minute to draw our attention to these two distinct experiences of fear: 1) there is fear that is cued by something in the environment – something we’ve learned to avoid – like touching a hot burner; and 2) there is fear that is cued by our very own thought processes, which spin stories of fear and dread when there is not enough reliable information with which to make predictions. Both types of fear are experienced in our bodies as different felt sensations. The first type of fear may cause a rush of adrenaline with increased heart rate and respiration as our bodies naturally and immediately prepare for fight or flight. The second type of fear – that associated with anxiety – causes an increase in cortisol and a more general and pervasive sense of nervousness and unease.

In the state of anxiety, our rational mind is stuck, like the little spinning wheel on our computer screens, overwhelmed by processing demands and not able to respond appropriately or function.

To make matters worse, anxiety is contagious. Brewer goes on to say, “our own anxiety can be cued or triggered simply by talking to someone else who is anxious.” Our unease triggers another’s unease. This is also evolutionary. We are social animals, after all, who take our cues for safety and for danger from other members of our species.

So what can we do right now in the midst of this global pandemic and economic paralysis to ease our anxieties, and those of others? There are several things we can do, actually. But first, let’s start with the things that won’t work:

  1. When we are in a heightened state of anxiety, it will not work to try and reason our way out of it. Why? Because the very part of our brain that is able to reason is offline, or if you prefer a different computer metaphor, frozen like a spinning wheel. We need to reboot, which is something we’ll address shortly.
  2. Compulsively seeking out new information on social media will not work to ease our anxiety. Why? Because sorting out “real” or “relevant” information from noise and the echoes of a panic-stricken populace all require critical thinking and a well functioning prefrontal cortex. See #1. Further, the more we consume social media, the more vulnerable we are to social contagion. And finally, the way our anxious brains work is to take any new source of information and find within it the one iota of information that appears to confirm our worse fears. It’s so hard, I know, but please ask yourself how much constantly refreshing your Facebook and Twitter feeds are helping you sleep and think clearly right now.
  3. Stockpiling toilet paper and other goods will not put your mind at ease – although it will probably clutter up your house, considerably. Why? It will never be enough. We don’t know enough to know what is enough so we’ll never be able to experience the sense of safety and security that accompanies certainty. Our brain’s response to uncertainty is the problem, not a shortage of toilet paper. And there’s another reason – as we fill up our shopping carts with toilet paper, we are sending a signal to all the other shoppers around us that there is something to panic about, and they will start filling up theirs, too. See #2. Social contagion will continue to infect us and everyone around us until the dreaded toilet paper shortage is a self-fulfilling prophecy. On another note, I truly wish I owned stock in toilet paper companies right now.

What, then, are some ways to cope with this truly novel, ambiguous, confusing situation and the anxiety it produces, right now?

  1. Notice it. The first step is awareness. Awareness creates some wiggle room between stimulus and response. It disrupts the vicious cycle of uncertainty leading to fear -> seeking confirmation of fears -> picking up on social cues of others who are also experiencing fears -> acting irrationally based on fears -> cueing others to act irrationally based on fears -> which then heighten my own sense of fear. Repeat. We need to hit the pause button. Awareness allows you to see that button and gives you the opportunity to hit it. Each of us has some level of awareness but how we are able to access it at will and especially under duress is a function of practice. Mindfulness and meditation practices abound. If it works for you, it works. Just pick one and practice. Consider your trips to Walmart an opportunity to practice awareness of your own impulses. Notice. And when you notice, hit pause.
  2. Welcome it. Say what?!? Allow me to clarify. Welcome the feeling – the anxiety – not the situation. Why welcome something that we experience as so uncomfortable and unsettling? Two reasons. First, noticing – mindfulness – requires that we get in touch with the sensations in our body. If we’re always trying to escape those feelings, or we are simply being driven by them, we will be unable to be aware and to notice them enough to hit the pause button. Secondly, just the very intention and practice of bringing awareness and acceptance to the shifting landscape of felt sensations in our bodies involves neural activity that integrates the brain, building our resilience and our ability to calm ourselves when we are experiencing stress and anxiety.
  3. Connect with others. As human beings, we are social beings. While it is true that we take our cues for danger based on those around us, it is also true that we derive our sense of felt safety, security and belonging from others. How we connect matters. When I say how we connect, I’m not talking about whether we connect on Facebook or Instagram, I’m talking about how we attune ourselves to our needs and to others’ needs simultaneously. How we meet others’ needs and ask for our own needs to be met. When relationships are trustworthy, attuned and mutually rewarding, they give us incredible strength and resilience. They grant us the ability to feel safe and secure even while the world tumbles all around us. And the cool thing is, relationships not only CAN be built with social distancing – to some extent they actually MUST be built with social distancing.

At the Natural Lifemanship Institute, we teach people principles for building what we call “connected attachment” and “connected detachment” with a horse. These principles derive from human attachment theory and are equally pertinent to relationships with humans, which is why they are part of the Natural Lifemanship process. Attachment theory is based on observation of child-caregiver dyads, and how the child responds when the caregiver is with the child, then leaves temporarily, and then re-enters the room. After observing a number of these strange situations, attachment researchers categorized responses into “secure” and various “insecure” types of attachment patterns. Since these are formed when we are very young, they typically become our patterns of relating in general throughout our lives. This is too big a topic for this blog, but the point is that secure attachment – the desirable kind that leads to all kinds of good outcomes – requires a connection that endures physical distance and separation as much as it benefits from physical closeness. There is no secure attachment without connected attachment AND connected detachment. I’ve seen some memes circulating recently that advise “social distancing, emotional closeness.” Same idea.

To sum up, these are indeed strange times. The experience of anxiety during these times is completely normal and biological. Our brains are simply doing what they are built to do – help us survive in the moment while also helping us predict and avoid future threats to our safety and well being. Our brains are taking in information from all around us, and especially from our social sphere, where we naturally look for cues of danger or safety. This is not a time where we can reasonably assess how many cases of cucumbers, or toilet paper, are needed. This is a time where we are invited to connect with ourselves and connect – perhaps differently – with others.

To connect with ourselves, we must practice awareness, get in touch with our bodies – including the sensations of anxiety – and practice ‘the pause’ before reacting or being overwhelmed by the torrents of spinning thoughts. To connect with others – we are being asked to exercise “social distancing”. What a perfect opportunity to practice connected detachment. Hold your loved ones inside your heart with intention each day. Send them loving kindness. Take the time to chat, talk on the phone, video chat and connect in new ways. Take a hike in open spaces with loved ones and practice the art of being connected while allowing at least several feet of physical space between our bodies. It builds an incredible sense of freedom and autonomy supported by a sense of closeness, shared experience and belonging. This is the very meaning of secure attachment.

Interested in learning more about what is meant by connected attached and connected detachment? Check out these blogs.

Is Life Great?  This Too Shall Pass.

Building Connected Relationships

But I Miss the Caterpillar:  My story of transformation and loss

Spiritual Intimacy Grows with Connection through Detachment

Attachment and Detachment – How Does this Really Look in Session?

But I Miss The Caterpillar: My story of transformation and loss

But I Miss The Caterpillar: My story of transformation and loss

by | Feb 1, 2018 | Applied Principles, Personal Growth

Secure attachment to this moment is about finding safety, security, and perfect acceptance of what is, while still being free to miss what was, and long for what will be.

In 2017 I was given the opportunity to practice one of the more difficult principles we teach in Natural Lifemanship – Secure attachment is only found when we are able to feel an internal sense of connection during attachment with AND during detachment from important relationships.  The possibility that we can experience a deep sense of connection to others when we are physically alone is, oftentimes, difficult in theory and in practice.  I will share my personal story of growth, change, transformation, grief. . . and loss…extreme loss, and how our child helped me better understand that secure attachment extends beyond the relationship with self and others. We can also seek to find a secure attachment to this life and this moment, in general.  We can be “securely attached” to a thing, an idea, a moment, a belief. . . Secure attachment extends to “what is”, and that requires the ability to be connected to not only what is right here with us, but also what is gone, or not even here yet.

In Natural Lifemanship (NL) the way we conceptualize secure attachment, connection, attachment, and detachment are important.  Specific language and concepts help people effectively transfer learning organically and seamlessly between species and space.  This language also provides the space for abstract human concepts to become more concrete and physical, oftentimes making them easier to internalize.  Many times in NL physical concepts have an emotional counterpart and vice versa.  Attachment can be equated to the sharing of physical space.  Detachment can be thought of as exploring physical distance.  Both attachment and detachment can exist when there is a concrete felt a sense of connection, as well as an internal sense of connection. Alternatively, a sense of aloneness can prevail regardless of proximity.  Children and adults with a secure attachment pattern are able to feel connected and secure in their intimate relationships, while still allowing themselves and their partner to move freely (detachment).  It is this kind of relationship that we help people find with a horse – this is part of the reparative experience for our clients. . . and, I would say, for many of us as well.

More about attachment and detachment in therapy sessions can be found in this blog by Kate Naylor. More about how spiritual intimacy grows through connection with detachment can be found in this blog by Laura McFarland. When you sign up for Basic Membership you gain access to more than 5 hours of video demonstrating how attachment, detachment, and connection play out in a relationship that is built between horse and human + more online learning and many other benefits. View all of our membership content here.

But I Miss The Caterpillar…

A year ago, I was reading our two-year-old (almost three-year-old) a book called “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”  On the last page when the caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly, our child said, “But where is the caterpillar?”  I reviewed the process the caterpillar had gone through in this sweet little book we’d read many times, and he said, “But I miss the caterpillar.”  We had a wonderful conversation about change and transformation. . . and loss.  You see, this conversation happened about two weeks after our nanny, Carolyn – “Kiki” to Cooper – died a sudden, tragic, unexpected, and untimely death.  Carolyn had been our full-time nanny, traveling with us as Natural Lifemanship was growing, since Cooper was 3 months old.  She was a member of our family, and like a second mother to me in every way.  She drove me crazy and I loved her dearly.  She made it possible for us to work in a field about which Tim and I are deeply passionate, while still spending as much time as possible with Cooper. . . something about which we’re even more passionate.  She helped us raise our child.  I think I’ll just repeat that again for emphasis.  She helped us raise our child.  She helped me, in very practical ways, navigate this whole working mom thing.  She loved Cooper and he loved his Kiki.  This was a major loss for our family – couched between and among more loss.  In the latter part of 2016 and throughout 2017 our family tragically, suddenly, and unexpectedly lost three more significant relationships.  We lost two more the “normal” way – it was expected and it was time, and still painful.  After my son and I talked about how change and transformation are often accompanied by grief and loss – in two-year-old language, of course – my little boy said, “I miss Kiki too.  AND I don’t wike (like) butterflies.”  At that moment, stories of Kiki walking the streets of gold, pain-free, with her mother and with her Jesus, did very little to offer me comfort. . . I must admit I agreed with my little philosopher.  I do believe death is the ultimate transformation, and I wasn’t particularly fond of butterflies at that moment either!

Death is also the ultimate detachment from the ones we love, and can result in disconnection. . . or not.   It takes many of us years to learn how to deeply connect with those we can see, hear, feel, and touch (attachment).  It is often much harder to find that connection when we are physically separated (detachment).  Connection with distance takes practice and intentionality and a willingness to sit in the pain of disconnection, for moments, instead of avoiding it.  It is a secure attachment that helps us navigate detachment and loss.   Typically death is much more painful when it results in disconnection.  I say typically because I do realize that sometimes death and disconnection are needed for healing and closure to occur.  Sometimes death makes it better.  There were moments this last year that I felt this disconnection. . . those are the moments when people describe agony worse than losing a limb. . . slowly. . . without any form of anesthesia.  I felt that kind of pain over the last year, many times.  I felt it in the moments that I could no longer remember someone’s hands. . . or hear their voice. . . or recall their smell.   Our child felt it the night he told me, “I don’t remember Kiki” and wept in my arms.  At the core of much developmental and attachment trauma, is an inability to find an internal sense of connection to others when together. . . through shared space and experience, eye contact, touch. . . this transfers to an inability to feel an internal sense of connection when there is distance.  Of course.  I continue to muddle through the agonizing moments of detachment and disconnection.  The freedom to “miss the caterpillar” guides me back to an internal sense of connection with relationships that meant so much to me, and mean so much to me. . . still.  Feeling “allowed” to miss what is gone helps us stay connected, even when detached.  Our freedom to grieve what once was and what will not be in the future opens us up to a connection in detachment.

However, 2017 definitely hasn’t been all about, what most would deem. . . loss.  It has been an amazing year for Natural Lifemanship.  We have grown, we have changed, and, I would argue, that we are in the midst of a massive transformation.  I’m experiencing how these concepts of attachment can be practiced in not only relationships, but also with ideas, businesses, and moments of our lives. I have always loved butterflies.  However, butterflies are sort of the end product, and they don’t really live all that long.  A close friend of mine recently pointed out that butterflies get all the credit, but that the caterpillar does all the work.  For Pete’s sake, The Very Hungry Caterpillar worked his little tail off to grow, and then he had to sit in a dark cocoon for two stinkin’ weeks!  Time in the cacoon isn’t just a long nap, by the way.  He worked hard!  The butterfly’s journey is really that of the caterpillar.  The growing pains of this year are no joke!  Sometimes I miss the simplicity of 8 years ago when it all began.  I miss the caterpillar, but I still long for the butterfly.  Transformation is always predicated on the death of something. . .which means that detachment is a vital part of life and growth. If we want to be securely attached – to a person, an idea, or a moment in time – we must have an internal sense of connection when we are attached and when we are detached.

To be securely attached to the present and the future we have to maintain a healthy connection to the present, and future, AND to the past – connection to what is and what was and what could be.  They all matter – that which I am attached to today and that which I have detached from – I need to be connected to both.  Secure attachment to this moment is about finding safety, security, and perfect acceptance of what is, while still being free to miss what was, and long for what will be (detachment).  This is at the crux of what we teach in NL.  We learn to find this through the relationship with our equine partner and then transfer this way of being in the world to every part of our lives.

Our business has changed.  Absolutely. We have grown up, matured, and deepened.  Transformation, indeed.    When Tim and I started this business almost eight years ago, we only dreamed about where we are today, but I still miss the caterpillar.  Doesn’t mean that I don’t fully love and accept where we are now.  Doesn’t mean I don’t long for the butterfly, but the caterpillar did a lot of work. (And still is!)

October 2017, in the midst of all this loss, Tim and I found out that we are going to have another baby!  It really is a miracle of grand proportions, a welcomed gift, and. . . a surprise.  We also found out just two days before our first ever conference, and before the busiest fall training schedule, we’ve ever had.  Can good news come at a bad time?  Well?  It did for me!  I am well aware of the transformative process every part of me is undergoing and will be undergoing as a result of this new life inside of me.  I am also very aware of the loss.  I kinda miss the naïve bliss of my first pregnancy.  I long for the butterfly.  I grieve the loss of the caterpillar, and I strive, each and every day to deeply revel in this beautiful moment.

This year has been all about transformation.  Our three year old has recently decided that butterflies are okay.  In fact, a few weeks ago he pointed to the body of a butterfly in our living room and said, “The caterpillar is still there.  It’s just different.”  After a long pause and a deep breath, he said, “But I still miss the caterpillar.”  This past year I thought we would have to teach Cooper about grief and loss – hopefully, we did guide him through this process a bit – but he taught me about transformation and true connection.  What a gift it has been to grieve with my child.  Secure attachment is about looking forward and looking back while maintaining a felt sense of connection now – Just like a child builds a secure attachment through this dance of looking forward and looking back, moving toward and moving away, all while feeling the satisfaction of safety and connection to self and others. . . at this moment.  I long for the butterfly and this lifelong transformative process, but I miss the caterpillar.  Secure attachment in our relationships can’t exist if we feel chronic disconnection when there is distance.  Likewise, a secure attachment to what is and to our future only exists when we find a healthy connection with the past.  I so look forward to 2018 – the growth, the change, the transformation . . . and the inevitable loss. . . and the beautiful connection that comes in the midst of it all.  I miss the caterpillar, and that is okay, because, really. . . I should.  Plus, our three-year-old says it’s okay!

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