Toke + Tell Episode 4 - Cannabis Helped me Get Quiet

I find myself in a position sitting on the couch, fresh off two hits from my dab pen. Taking notice of how tired my body feels, along with weakness and nausea. I felt great prior to smoking. Was it the cannabis that threw me off? I take a few deep breaths before I am met with the thought "this is just my anxiety creeping up on me". Ever since I had my second child, I have been experiencing ridiculous amounts of anxiety, and it is getting to a point where it is preventing me from fully showing up for myself and those around me.

I find myself asking the question for the second time today, "Where is all this anxiety coming from?" Instead of sitting in it and dwelling on the feeling as I have been, I determine it is time to start digging and get to the root of it all. There's no hiding it, or trying to deny it any longer; this feeling is growing stronger and stronger by the day. Perhaps if I can determine the root, I can then release it, so maybe I can finally allow myself to be fully aware and happy within the present moment.

After a few moments, the background noise dissipates, and there is nothing but pure silence. "Ahh, this is peaceful", I think to myself, and it's not long before my brain gets hit with some knowledge. This message is so loud that it's almost impossible to ignore. "Your anxiety all stems from being scared of the unknown and the fear of allowing yourself to be happy" are the words that somehow managed to make their way to me. This makes a lot of sense, anxiety does stem from some sort of fear, and my prior life experiences prove that I let anxiety run the show.

My mind just casually telling me to abort missions

Along with the anxiety comes your basic fight or flight mode, finding myself very often fleeing from situations when it becomes too much to handle. In my head, I can literally hear the words "abort mission, abort mission", and that's exactly what I do, I run and abort this mission, allowing anxiety to yet again dictate my actions.

Today was a perfect scenario of this situation, in real time. Earlier, I attempted to go to Target after dropping my daughter off at school, and as we were pulled into the parking lot, my baby started to wake up and cry in his car seat. I parked and took him out of the car and attempted to soothe him, but this was a complete failure. I suddenly hear those all too familiar words"abort mission" and then I continue to say "fuck this shit" as I am putting him back in the car and start to make my way back home.

I called my husband to discuss what was happening, and he replied with things I did not necessarily want to hear, but needed to hear. I am thankful for those words, because they made me put my big girl pants and turn around to go back to the store. The baby's fussiness did not stop here, but I did what needed to be done to make it in and out with a bonus treat run to Starbucks. How did I make this work? By looking like a crazy woman carrying a car seat around one arm and pushing the stroller in the other. Anytime I would attempt to attach the seat to the stroller, the baby would begin to cry, so I had no choice but to hold and push while moving quickly. I am in and out of the store faster than my motivation on a Monday morning.

I ended up drinking my entire Matcha Latte on the way home; it was the perfect pick-me-up that I needed. Surprisingly, the feelings of being frazzled diminished, and I was able to keep my cool even though I still had a baby crying from the backseat. I knew I just needed to get home and would address all his needs, along with tons of cuddles to soothe his nervous system.

Later on, I communicated with my husband that I did something hard, I stated, "I turned back around because you made me realize I am tired of being a little bitch, and nothing is ever going to change if I don't step up and start doing things to make changes". He replied, "I am proud of you". I am also very proud of myself. There's just something about motherhood that adds an extra layer of anxiety for me - perhaps it's the lack of sleep or the frayed nervous system from being pulled in so many directions.

*insert my face here* and then a big middle finger to my anxiety.

So now all I have to say is anxiety, you can kiss my ass because I’m going to keep putting on my big girl pants and pushing myself to keep doing the hard things.

Today, cannabis helped me get quiet, it cleared all the background noise so I could connect with myself on a deeper level and learn some vital info that my body was trying to tell me - big shout out to you, cannabis (no surprise here lol).

Until the next session my friends,

xoxo,

Brandy