I am sitting in my office, which this week is my Airstream outside my home in New Mexico as work to get the remodel done and set up for renting. This morning I am full of anticipation even with a very long to-do list. But that was not the case at the beginning of the week. When I arrived here I was in overwhelm! The house was not near as finished as I thought it would be when I bought it. One of my client companies is needing a lot of work right now, and the house was full of 300+ boxes, we had no appliances and no drinkable water. I was very anxious about how I would get it all done. So what is the difference between anxiety and anticipation?
The presence of fear vs joy. When I woke up this morning, I still had a very long to-do list, and I was excited about tackling it. When I checked in with myself, I was feeling nervous, but with joy not fear. Both anxiety and anticipation can show up as nervousness, but the presence of joy is what makes it into anticipation or excitement and the presence of fear make it anxiety. I have lived in low level anxiety most of my life thinking I had to have things go a certain way in order to be ok, even many things that I didn’t control. (See the last two weeks of Friday Reflections.) It was very refreshing to experience anticipation instead this morning, to have the same amount to do, but to feel joy in the process, in the doing, not not fear of not having the right outcome. I had a great day connecting with family and working hard. We had our first extended family meal in the new home and I went to bed very tired with a big smile on my face and a heart filled with gratitude.
How do you notice the difference between anxiety and anticipation? What can you do to tip your nervousness to joy?
Have a great weekend!
Art
PS: (Added Saturday morning, October 1st.) As I learned growing up outside Philadelphia, Rabbits! Rabbits!
