A reminder to the anxious, you deserve goodness even in the midst of chaos

With all that is going around in the world, I find myself in a calm state. I am comfortable in chaos. Experiencing instability, poverty, and trauma in my childhood and growing up has made me comfortable living in anxiety. It took years of therapy to work through and accept that I deserve better. Now I find myself, in a strange calmness and realize it’s my defense that I find comfort in the chaos cause I go into survival mode.

Yet, right now survival mode is needed as the world is experiencing a pandemic and in the United States, we don’t have the capacity. My family is from Guatemala, I spent my youth traveling through regions that had experienced genocide and were in reconstruction following conflict. I know it won’t be easy, we will survive, but I worry reverting back into my trauma responses after this — waiting for the next shoe to drop.

So I dug up something I had written in an old blog post of mine in 2018 as I was going through therapy when I had risen to manage an international team of 15 and had a stable paycheck. Yes, we can lose it all, but we rise up stronger — I know we will come out of this stronger. So just in case, you need a reminder to tell yourself the message is below.

To my fellow anxious folks that are calm, remember that we still deserve all the goodness that comes our way long after the chaos.

Often I find myself in crippling fear. I know I deserved so much, I’ve been working incredibly hard to be where I am at. I have made sure that I can be in the right place and time and connected with the right people to be in the spaces that I’m in presently.

Yet when for so long it seems futile one starts to feel like it isn’t worth it. And when the fruits of your labor start blossom, when you start to see it, you can’t help but think is this really happening? Am I even deserving?

I still stand in awe every time my feet are in the water looking at beautiful crystal clear beaches. I stand in awe of places I’ve been and take it all in.

No matter how many places I go, I can’t help but to look around and think wow, this is only what I dreamed of as a child growing up struggling only imagining that I could be in these places.

I dreamed of one day being a #bossbitch, yes little girls dream of weddings and such, but I a girl from queens would look at the skyline and envision myself in these New York buildings.

One day calling the shots. I envisioned myself with a seat at the table. I knew there weren’t people that looked like me, and I had thought as a child well I guess I’m gonna be the first. I’ll make Guatemalans proud, I’ll make my family proud. I’ll make sure that everything they risked and left behind is worth it. And one day I’ll be able to pay them back for the sacrifices they made for me to be able to live out my dreams.

And here I am in these spaces, living my dream and dare I say it on my way to having it all.

But I can’t help but feel …. like this can’t be real. That maybe this is just some trick.

You see, I’ve grown up in chaos, I’ve grown up struggling. There were times we would scrounge up money to see if we could maybe order something off the dollar menu. I’m always just ready, I’m ready for everything to go down, I’m ready for everything to just go wrong.

I’m always ready and prepared, and as an adult, this has led to me having crippling anxiety. Believing that little voice that comes around telling you “no but something might go wrong”, “you don’t deserve this”. Even to the point that I start to self-sabotage.

Now, I’m a STEM-based person and listen to reason and fact. So in the midst of the success of seeing a potential spiral, potential self-sabotage on the horizon, I look and I take a minute to think hey girl, you do deserve this and more.

This is only the start. So I made up this list of why I DO DESERVE IT, I hope it will help you but mainly it to remind myself.

1. You have worked incredibly hard to be where you are at.
2. If someone else saw that you were worth it, believe that you are. Someone saw the capacity in you and gave you the chance.
3. When an opportunity comes pouring in, take it or because it only comes every now and then but because you have guided it to you.
4. You are deserving of opportunity and don’t go knocking on everyone’s door. It comes to those who have been calling for it, those who have been seeking it out.
5. You deserve it because you have made it this far.
6. You have made it to this point that there is no turning back, there is only forward.
7. You deserve this because you are worthy of good.