Spider Sense

I'm sitting in my therapist's waiting room, trying to feel like an arachnid.

While walking from the sidewalk to the door, I passed a large spider web. Its owner was perched in the middle, a folded-up package of eight exoskeletal legs. The web stood out against the damp green of the garden; sunlight was teasing at the silk. The threads were very thin and silvery. Wind blew through them, and the fibers trembled. But the spider seemed unperturbed by being shaken.

I thought to myself, "I'm like that spider. I've put myself in a certain position, one I want to stay in, and I'm held there by a myriad of those proverbial 'gossamer wires'. They're fragile and I'm precarious. So I worry all the time that the wind will rip them, or someone will blunder through them, or I'll get too heavy to hold. The difference between me and the spider is that the spider seems calm. The spider isn't scared."

Now I am trying to feel like the spider looked. I'm perched in the center of my web, and there's not much I can do to ensure the safety of my threads. I have to let go of the anxiety. I have to not panic about how easily everything could be destroyed.

It's hard to just tell myself, "Stop it. Panicking does no good." My brain wants to stay on the brink of being seized up with stress, searching for some kind of solution. When that happens, I gotta breathe. Break out somehow. My therapist gave me this simple breathing exercise: Inhale for a count of four, then exhale for a count of five. It's good because I have to concentrate on doing it, which helps me calm down.