Here’s what was scribbled in my notebook for Saturday.

10 p.m. I have just spent 6 hours writing! It feels so good. I thought I wouldn’t do well with him working nights but I am really enjoying my evening routine. Very focused time to do my reading, writing, meditating – all the evening practices, with the Moana soundtrack why not.

2. 56 a.m. Not enjoying the fluttery heart dizzy thing I’ve got right now. Woke up at 1:30 suddenly anxious like you do after a nightmare, with heart pounding. But it still hasn’t gone. Pins and needles in left arm. Light-headed. It’s not terrible it’s just not great because I’m on my own and it’s 2 hours till daylight. Thank you that it’s 10am in Korea so I’m listening to my brother’s radio show, and then dipping out every now and then to look at the global peace conference that the moonies are doing at the same time. The waffly monotonous meaningless speeches should be making me sleepy but it’s not.

3 a.m. I took pill as I guess this is random anxiety, and I would really like my crazy heart to calm down now please. Thank you that I sorted the medicine box out recently so I knew where my anxiety pills were. I was feeling so good at bedtime, I fell asleep so happy and now I’m trying to work out what my body is doing with this fluttery heart thing? What are you trying to tell me? Is this some fear of something from a previous time? Am I triggered by my researching radical forgiveness earlier? Radical forgiveness says that I asked for this. Why did you ask for this? What benefit is this middle of the night thing and what triggered it? Worry about my colleagues? Worry about my friends? Worry about criticism? Worry about Corona? That would be very random if it was. It’s nice to listen to my brother’s voice as he talks about the influences of Irish music right now while annoying rushes of adrenaline slide down my back and legs.

3. 13. Tired now but still tingly. Maybe I need to listen to something healing instead. Is the anxiety because of this great big Moonie thing tonight? I know it’s all bullshit and I’m watching out of curiosity, but is that what’s making me anxious? Oh my friend is awake. Chat chat. And the rush is a little cooler now like the pins and needles are leaving my legs. Thank you. Sleep please.

3. 37 been to the toilet again. Did not know I had so much inside me. I was lying here feeling mildly better then rushes of hot flush down my face and arms and then sudden need for the loo again. Thank you that I’m so close to the bathroom.

3. 57 having evacuated my entire being, grateful to not be throwing up, I reckon I should eat something and I looked at the apples which felt like too much work then found one of my baby foods from February, last time I had panic attacks. Apple and banana. Thank you.

4. 01 so anxiety what are you here for please? What do you need to tell me at 4 a.m? Are you only surfacing now because my love is away and you don’t want to bother him? Very likely. He doesn’t like it when I’m anxious does he. He won’t be happy to see the baby food tub by the side of the bed. Well weird heart fluttery thing, you’ve got my attention, my undivided undistracted full attention. What do you want?

What followed was four pages of furiously scrawled left handed writing. It’s a technique I turn to when I’m overwhelmed with emotion, where I write questions with my dominant right hand, and see what gets expressed through my scrawly left. It is based on the concept that we carry underlying emotions and beliefs incredibly deep in our body and we need to understand what those beliefs are in order to see how they are affecting us. Usually the words are very childish, formed as a response to something when we were very young, and is part of a whole nother article on inner child work which I haven’t written yet, but will get too soon.

It’s a bit wierd, and might freak you out, but I’ve found that the simple act of getting whatever it is expressed is usually enough to shut it up – as it finally feels heard – and the nasty feelings subside. In this case, the subconscious messages my body was holding on to were along the lines of STOP IT! STOP TALKING! BE QUIET. IT’S NOT SAFE TO SAY THE THINGS. THEY LOVE YOU WHEN YOU’RE QUIET. BE QUIET.

So, I listened to this crazy voice, the pen nearly ripped the pages, it didn’t make a lot of sense but it came from a place of very real fear, manifested as angry warnings against saying anything.

The point of hearing the voices is not to listen to it, it’s to understand that that is what you’re dealing with, so that every time you make an attempt to go against it, the unspoken very strong voice inside you might actually physically stop you via the medium of fear, sadness, numbness or my recurring pattern of exhaustion and anxiety.

I know I have a fear of being seen and heard. I did not realise how immensely powerful the message keeping me afraid was. It is relevant this week for three reasons so I guess that’s enough to trigger anxiety and might also be the cause of this suffocating exhaustion. It’s Monday afternoon and my neck feels like it’s being gently strangled still. Just a constant pressure on my neck and chest, which is exactly what I had a few weeks ago after an ‘Untether My Voice’ class.

So having identified this incredible fear of speaking, I tried to reason with it, the furious writing calmed to a weak little wisps, and I suddenly became incredibly tired.

And that was Saturday night.