Phone booths

When my anxiety is at it’s worst, I feel like I am trapped in a phone booth. I feel closed in, stuck, I can’t breathe…as if I am running out of air. Sometimes I start crying because I feel like I can’t escape.

This is when I have to talk myself out of the phone booth…I tell myself, out loud, that I am okay. I concentrate on my breath…I say out loud, breathe in / breathe out…I try to get to fresh air. I hold my stomach as I take my breaths in and out. Filling my stomach with as much air as I can - while feeling my stomach inflate fully. Then I pull my stomach in as much as possible as I breathe out.

Sometimes I am in the phone booth for minutes, sometimes for hours. But I always come out. Stronger.