Dancing in the headlights

My body’s feeling fight or flight. It’s such a weird and nervous sight, as I am dancing in the headlights.

It feels as if a million tiny ants are crawling across my chest and down my arms and legs. A sudden rush of cold emanates from my rib cage. The feeling is almost unbearable but I ignore it. I try to push past it. 

The tingling anticipation of fight or flight: anxiety. My body’s reaction to what it perceives to be a dangerous, life-threatening act – the act of singing and dancing in the car on my evening commute home from work. 

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Retraining my brain

I began to confront my anxiety in small ways over 10 years ago when I started going to therapy. I learned ways to retrain my brain when my body would go into survival mode despite not being in any immediate danger. It seems silly now but there was a time when receiving an email would evoke a feeling of impending doom:

Sitting at my desk focused on a language translation project, an email came in from a client. The subject line read: Issue with translation. My heart started pounding. There was a problem with the work I sent to them. The ants started to crawl. Chills ran down my body. It took a few moments for my brain to catch up to my body and realize that I wasn’t actually in any danger. I remembered a retraining technique from my therapist and decided to try it out.

I jumped up from my desk and headed straight for the nearest stairwell and started running up and down three flights of stairs. 

The idea behind this was that when my body automatically panics in response to something that isn’t a real threat, like an email, I could put the adrenaline pumping through my veins to better use, like exercise. 

Slowly over time, it worked. Running up and down an office stairwell like a crazy woman in business casual attire calmed my body. The exercise gave my body something real to react to so that when those anxiety-inducing emails inundated my inbox, my body remained calm.

Dancing it out

Not long after the anxiety email episode, I was driving in my car when I Wanna Dance with Somebody came on, instinctually I started dancing and singing because, who are we kidding, no one can resist the harmonious hymn of Whitney Houston. Then the ants started to crawl and chills washed over me. My brain raced with the thought of other drivers casually glancing over and seeing me belting out I Wanna Dance with Somebody. I shut up and sat still. The uncontrollable joy that bubbled up inside me as the first few beats came through my car speakers evaporated in a split second. 

I recognized my anxiety and remembered my retraining tactics. This was the perfect opportunity to challenge myself again - to push through. I took a deep breath and belted, “With somebody who loves meeeee” while bouncing to the beat. 

With my heart racing, unfortunately not to the beat of the song, I held my gaze forward, avoiding looking anywhere but straight ahead, hoping to escape bewildered looks from fellow commuters. I forced myself to dance through the ants and sing through the chills. The song ended and I still felt anxious. So I sang the next song and the next until the ants stopped crawling and the chills went away. Then a different sensation appeared: happiness. And then other: relief. 

I was proud of pushing past my anxiety and insecurities to make space for a few minutes of fun. Just like with the emails, I saw again that I could work through my anxiety by first noticing it and then challenging it head-on in small ways – running up and down stairs or dancing and singing in the car.  

Ten years later, I still continue my karaoke commute and despite my best efforts, my anxiety is still there but not as strong. Now it’s become my backup dancer, my hype woman, and my motivation to keep dancing as I groove to Dancing in the Moonlight by King Harvest on my nightly commute home from work.

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And my gratitude goes to

Diana Demco

,

Miche Priest

, and

Emma Dorge

for giving great feedback on this. Thank you!