This fall has been a particularly tough time for my family.  It has been one of those seasons for which the saying “when it rains it pours” was created.  Stressful situations just seem to roll into additional challenges, creating a compounded cycle of worry.  Recently, I exhaustedly declared to my husband that it feels like my only current hobby is worrying.  And, I know all too well excessive worrying is not the best habit. 

Despite being very familiar with worry, blogging about feeling worried is outside of my comfort zone.  I prefer to have all of the answers and be able to wrap up life experiences with a positive spin.  But, the goal of this blog is authenticity and in the spirit of sharing “stories of everyday life,” I wanted to write about what I’ve been navigating recently.   

Mostly, my worry has been centered around my kids and their well-being.  Elizabeth Stone, a teacher and author, wrote, “Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  And, in the moments of worry, especially when situations are outside of my control, this feels especially true.  In the course of the past three weeks, my family was in the emergency room and urgent care clinic on three different occasions.  We navigated our first x-ray, broken bone, and cast with one of our kids! The x-ray was excruciating due to the intense pain and the subsequent light-headness, as a parent it was hard to watch.  Just a couple of weeks later, we had another broken bone in our household after a bike accident. This was followed almost immediately by a different medical emergency that involved a middle of the night MRI and IV for our youngest.  Thankfully, everyone is finally doing better and now on the path toward healing.  Unfortunately, these medical crises exacerbated existing stress as we continued to deal with complicated and uncertain work situations, navigating the transition into a new school year, and experiencing the death of a family member and other big changes within our extended families.  This has all compounded into a season of excessive worry for me. 

The problem with excessive worry and the accompanying feelings of helplessness  is that I instantly revert to unhealthy habits.  All the healthy habits I typically lean on to keep my anxieties in check and my mood stable, fly out the window.  I eat more sugar and watch more TV.  I stop exercising and lose interest in books.  I find myself missing writing deadlines and losing control of keeping the house clean.  Then frustration begins to set in, creating a messy combination with worry.  Everything spirals.  

Unfortunately, this is such a common experience for me that I have written about it before.  Back in 2020, during a different season of stress, I wrote the post The First Thing To Go, describing how “layers of stress caused me to reflect on self-care, specifically the difference between productive self-care and the habits I tend to fall on when things are, clearly, not fine.” As I re-read the post recently, I thought, well, I haven’t changed at all.  

As I was feeling particularly frustrated by this fact that I know better, I came across a quote from musician and author Carrie Newcomer.  During a conversation on The Next Right Thing podcast, she said, “I know that taking time to reflect, taking time to listen, taking time to be in connection with my own spirit and a wider spirit changes the course of my day. Sometimes I get busy and I get out of practice.  I love the word practice because practice does not imply perfection.  Practice implies intention, and my intention is to practice going to the well [taking time to reflect, listen, and be in connection].”  I found this perspective immensely comforting.  Specifically, that someone who appears to be a successful, healthy adult admits that it is easy to “get out of practice,” and then acknowledges the need to allow for imperfection.  I needed this simple reminder, to practice my intention to get back into my healthy hobbies and habits, rather than getting stuck in the worry.  And, maybe, at this time, that intention, to practice, is enough.  

At this point I don’t have any answers.  I mostly just wanted to share this post for all the mamas that are also drowning in worry.  A soft landing spot on the internet for the middle-of-the-night “Am I worrying too much?” or “Will my anxieties ruin my kids?” searches. You’re not alone. Instead of getting lost in the medical blogs and anxiety-inducing internet rabbit holes, let’s read posts like this, where we can be honest about our worries and remind ourselves that we are not alone.  Life can be hard.  Worry and anxiety can be all-consuming.  Maintaining healthy habits throughout it all can feel like an impossibility.  I’ll conclude with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Shauna Niequist, in her book I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet, that seems to speak directly to my experience: “the research supports kids are mostly okay and parents are constantly worried.”  This is my life right now, so I find myself latching onto that comforting thought, that even though I’m worried, my “kids are mostly okay.”  And, I’ll continue to hold on to that as I practice daily to dig my way out of this worry spiral.

Jessica is a wife, mom, social worker, and writer.  She is co-author of the blog The Unexpected Ever Afters.

Photo credit: personal photo