Making Friends with Anxiety: A warm, supportive little book to ease worry and panic by Sarah Rayner

Author:Sarah Rayner [Rayner, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Creative Pumpkin Ltd
Published: 2014-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Each family member reacted to the news that Christmas 2013 was to be our last in the ancient farmhouse differently. One niece, (then 10), burst into tears at once, while her cousin, (aged 9), told me she’d lain awake ‘for hours and hours all sad’ about it. It’s no wonder they were upset: the place has been a large part of all our life stories. The elder one made her first cake standing on a chair to reach the work surface; the younger has spent hours sitting at the kitchen table writing and drawing.

I too was shaken by the change and, on my first night in the house over the holidays, I was too anxious to sleep. And as I lay there, I reflected on how I’ve dealt with endings in the past, and remembered that I usually shy away from them. It was then I decided to try something different, and to mark this ending. So the following morning – which was Christmas Eve – I went down to the kitchen where I found my nephew and nieces already up and writing and drawing at the table. My mother was still in bed, which made it the perfect moment.

‘Hey kids,’ I said. ‘This is our last Christmas here in this house, so how about you each write something about your memories of it so we have a keepsake for your grandma?’

‘What a great idea!’ said my oldest niece. (How I love children for their enthusiasm!)

‘What sort of thing?’ asked the younger.

‘Anything you like,’ I said, not wanting to limit their imaginations. ‘Perhaps we could put them all together and make Grandma a big card.’

Hours of poem-writing and storytelling, drawing and printing out photos from the computer ensued. We ended up filling not just a card, but an entire scrapbook.

On Christmas Day the children presented my mother with her gift. It was packed full of memories, just like the house, and it finished with a double page spread full of optimistic messages about her move and their excitement about her new home. Best of all, unlike the house, she can take the book with her.

But perhaps it was me more than anyone who learned a valuable lesson that day: I don’t need to run from endings. They can be acknowledged, even celebrated. Spookily, as we focused on the book, I felt my own anxiety evaporate. And, like mist clearing from a valley, it revealed a clearer view of the changes ahead. The prospect of waving goodbye to the house became less overwhelming as a result.

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