When life gives you nasty vampires, make them hula vampires.

As a stage performer, musician, dancer, and a public speaker, you can probably guess how many times I've heard the "just visualize the audience in their underwear" tidbit. Because imagining people in their boxers and granny panties is supposed to be so hilarious that you'll somehow forget that you're on stage and need to remember a whole shit ton of lines and musical notes. 

Yeah, never quite worked for me. 

But now that I have two anxious children, and a therapist on retainer (or so it seems), I've been learning all sorts of strategies to deal with anxiety that I'd never heard before, probably because I've never actually seen a therapist for anxiety.

Just crazy parents. 

I'm aware that humor works as a coping mechanism because as I say to myself on an almost regular basis, as I wipe marker off the walls and listen to yet another round of berating comments from my 2-year old for providing her with necessities to keep her alive, if I wasn't able to laugh about it, I'd cry. 

Truth be told, sometimes, er, a lot of times I do cry, but mostly, or especially when I talk to my dear friend who can make even my dad dying hilarious, well I laugh. And it's not so bad anymore. And yes, I realize sounds like a Julie Andrews song, but whatever it works. 

It's helped my son deal with his fear of tornadoes and bad dreams, in which I turned a killer bee into a silly goofball bee who got his butt stuck in one of our kitchen chairs and buzzed his way right out the door vowing never to return. 

{Shut-up, it was the best I could do at 2am} 

And it's a technique that my daughter is using too, for now to deal with the admittedly spooky Jane and Aro from Twilight by turning them into... Hula Dancers.

{Yes, I'm allowing her to read Twilight}

I'm not quite sure I can turn my own demons, who aren't as concrete as Jane, Aro, or that stupid-ass bee, into cartoon characters or straw-skirt wearing butt shakers, but I can certainly try.

Visualizing them as who rather than what:

My physical insecurity as an ugly bitch with frizzy hair and a flat ass who's just jealous;

My fear of failure as an old man with yellow teeth, knobbly knees, and long overgrown toenails who's projecting his own regret onto me; 

My belief that I'm not good enough as a grumpy old troll who's a reflection of every person who's made me feel that way;

All dressed in hula skirts shaking their ass on stage while a half-naked muscular Asian man plays the ukelele. 

It's a lot easier to see their utter ridiculousness. And to tell them to shut-the-fuck-up. 

Comments

[Jessica (the celt)]

This reminds me of Harry Potter and the boggarts that you get rid of (or make them lose their power) by imagining them as something that you can laugh at. The spell is "riddikulus" even.

I need to do this more, though. I don't see the amusing aspects of things that I worry about enough.

[Susie]

Butt shaking skirt wearers. I'm gonna have to borrow that. Thanks, lady!

[Julie Marsh]

This is so ingenious. While it doesn't fit with my own coping strategies (I'm just not as visually creative as you are), I can see it coming in handy with my middle one. I think it would resonate well with her.

My oldest is so much like me that I simply think of what I wish someone had said to/done for me at her age, and it's shocking how easily I can calm her (which in turn helps neutralize my own demons).

[Amanda]

Who rather than what...that is pretty powerful. I find a lot of times that in order to deal with a what, I have to trace back to the who. Then I tell that who to fuck off.

Kinda don't know what the fuck I'm talking about but I do know this—99% of what you write feels like it was lifted from my never spoken out loud hurts and fears.

xo