Is anxiety contageous?


Reader do you ever get that sinking, heavy, fluttery feeling in your stomach?

It's July 13th, my oldest daughter's 16th birthday. She just passed her written drivers test and now we are headed to Florida with her former gymnastics coach and my good friend, Rebecca.

Tomorrow morning we must be at the New College in Sarasota by 1PM to drop my daughter at her two week Duke Tip marine biology program.

We stop in Atlanta for some fun, then continue to the Georgia/Florida border to spend the night. All is great.

We rise early, knowing traffic will be awful for the final 5 hours.

Having driven the prior day, I am trashed and grateful that Rebecca is awake and alert.

With each passing hour, the tension in the car grows.

In Tampa we stop at a favorite tacqueria from a couple of years prior when we all traveled there for a gymnastics meet.

As Rebecca and I stand in line to order the food she says, "I'm so happy to be out of the car. Her anxiety is contagious. I don't know how much more I can handle."

I think to myself, "Wow. Is that what is making me so tired and stressed?"

Fast forward to the present. This Sunday we move our youngest daughter into her Freshman dorm room.

For the past three weeks Amazon has been at our house daily and the basement is filling with a wide array of items she has hand selected to make her first residence outside our home her own.

The retail therapy seems to help to alleviate her high anxiety about this big life event.

As I sent her off to work today with a grilled cheese on sourdough and a clam shell of raspberries, I felt that punch in the gut.

I am ready for my last chick-a-dee to soar, and yet the knowledge that these small moments are fleeting makes me sad.

Reader the truth is transitions don't have to be bad to be hard.

Glennon Doyle, one of my favorite authors, wrote that grief is the receipt for love.

And it is the grief that makes transitions hard.

The anxiety of watching the end of the caterpillar before we get to see the extraordinary butterfly emerge.

So this reminder is for both of us Reader.

The butterfly is coming. But first, we have to let go of the old and embrace the transition.

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Episode 1 with Karen Laos: Are You Enough? Finding your inner power

Episode 2 with Gail Kraft: Is Your Fear of Abandonment Running the Show?

Episode 3 with Sandra Adeyeye Bello: Am I Worth It? A question too many are afraid to answer

Episode 4 with Leslie Minchin: Are You Busy or Just Avoiding Your Life?

Episode 5 with Srivatsan Aravamudan: Broken, Dirty, Not Enough? The journey to self-acceptance

Episode 6 with Vivian Blade: How Do I Say "I Lost My Job?"

Episode 7 with Angie Redmon: Who Am I Letting Down? The hidden cost

Episode 8 with Debbie Potts: I Refuse to Settle: Rewriting my story after a life-changing diagnosis

Episode 9 with Tandra Price: Can I Do That? Unleashing your inner power

Episode 10 with Ronda Berns: Am I the Prey? Overcoming fear and mastering sales

Episode 11 with Carmen Alvarez: Can Joy and Grief Really Co-exist?

Episode 12 with Melissa Robinson Hussain: Who Do You Want to Be? Coaching Yourself to Radical Transformation

Episode 13 with Tiersa Hall: Is This Risk Too Big—Or Just the One You Need to Take?

Episode 14 with Gary Spencer: Why You Should Pause Before Your Next Big Move (A Million-Dollar Lesson)

Episode 15 with Susan LePLae Miller: Did I Abandon Myself Again?

Episode 16 with Sharon Summerfield: I'm being undermined, now what?

Episode 17 with Misah Safran: Am I Just a Wilting Flower?

Episode 18 with Elisa Juarez: If Not Me, Who?

Episode 19 with Leanne Elliott: What's Really Stopping You From Asking For Help?

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Rita Ernst, Positivity Influencer

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