Tag: wisdom
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4 Ways to Get Your Mind Off Yourself and Replace Worry with Joy
“The only way to be truly happy is to get your mind off yourself and help somebody else.” ~Joyce Meyer
A couple of years ago, I was dealing with two major life changes at the same time.
The first change was that my husband and I moved from Maryland to Delaware after our son finished high school. And though the distance wasn’t far (about a three-hour drive from my parents’ house in Washington, D.C.), I had grown up in D.C. and this marked the first time I had ever moved away from that area.
The second change was that our son was heading off to college and I would have to learn to navigate life without him being physically with me.
I remember a time when he was in first grade and I was so busy dealing with work that I forgot to pack his lunch. When I picked him up from school, he climbed into the backseat and said, “You forgot to send my lunch today.” And while other kids who had paid for lunch got hot dogs, my son told me he didn’t get one.
I immediately burst into tears from guilt and the thought of him being hungry all day. He said, “Mom! It’s okay. There will be other hot dogs!” And he was right. It certainly wasn’t the end of the world, but I sometimes think of that incident because it sums up how much I want to protect him from everything that could go wrong.
In the midst of these life changes, my anxiety levels were at an all-time high. Every morning I woke up with a racing heart and an overwhelming sense of losing control. I was getting used to living in a small town, faced with making new friends, and missing our son all at the same time.
Then one day, I heard Joyce Meyer say something that helped me put things in perspective and propelled me to take charge of my life in a way that I had never done before. The simple advice: Get your mind off yourself and start focusing on others, and see how that makes you feel.
I was willing to try it. And sure enough, it didn’t take long before I began waking up feeling calm and refreshed.
The heart palpitations subsided, and I embarked on a path of acceptance—acceptance that change is a natural part of life, that we raise kids to be independent and go off on their own, which meant it was okay that I had moved away from my hometown and it was also okay that my son was leaving for college.
I also accepted the fact that I’m not supposed to be in control of everything in the universe anyway. What a relief!
Here are four tips that worked for me.
Tip #1: Spend time with children.
One of the first things I did was sign up to help kids with reading and other homework at the Boys & Girls Club in our area—one afternoon a week after I finished work.
I looked forward to it because it was energizing to see the kids make progress with their reading skills over time. Kids also are masters at living in the present moment. One minute, kids argue and the next minute they share cookies. Adults need more of that forgiving spirit.
And the laughter—kids laugh and laugh with wild abandon. Their antics always brought me joy, and I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. I admired their ability to play, let loose, and have fun.
Tip #2: Accept a new challenge.
When a friend invited me to join her in leading the kids at church in song and dance for Vacation Bible School, I wasn’t so sure at first. Could my brain even learn the material? But I decided to take on the challenge and worked hard at learning the words, hand motions, and dance moves for five songs.
We were charged with demonstrating the songs during the week of Vacation Bible School so that the kids could follow along. This meant lots or preparation beforehand—watching videos and practicing dance steps over and over.
If I slid into worrying about my son or other negative thoughts, I could pull up a video, practice a song, and fill my brain with inspirational messages. And I surprised myself because I did learn. Then when Vacation Bible School rolled around, it was so inspiring to see all the kids’ excitement at learning all the songs and dance moves.
Tip #3: Volunteer for a cause that’s close to your heart.
One day I came across a newspaper article about a beach home in my area that serves as a place where families dealing with cancer can have a place of respite and enjoy family fun time. It’s meant to be a place of joy and peace at the beach, and it truly is.
I think it especially caught my attention because the family that launched the beach home did so in honor of their son, who died of a brain tumor while he was in college. During his illness, he had been happy to have the beach as an escape, and his family wanted to pass on that feeling to others.
There is a great group of volunteers who take turns greeting the families when they come to stay at the beach for a week. I was immediately drawn in to this wonderful cause and joined the effort.
Tip #4: Join a group class.
I have always loved ballet and took classes as a child. So when I signed up for an adult ballet class near my home, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I found was pure joy as I met each week in the studio with other women and danced all my worries away as we moved along to fabulous music.
Nobody cared how high you could lift your leg. It was all about moving and having fun. There’s something about a group class that heightens your awareness of others around you. We all had the same goals and tried to stay in step with the music. We even had recitals where we performed in small groups for an audience. We all worked together so that the group could succeed. And for an added bonus, I met some of my best friends in that class.
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I’ve learned that getting my mind off myself frees me to not only pay more attention to the needs of others, but also to take action to connect with them and help them. Less time dwelling on my fears means more time practicing compassion and making a difference. I believe that’s what a positive, meaningful life is all about.
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How to Stop Dwelling: A Simple Practice to Let Go of Anxious Thoughts
“Change your thoughts and you change the world.” ~Norman Vincent Peale
We all encounter times in life when someone says or does something that offends us. After the fact, no matter how hard we try to let go of feelings of hurt or resentment, we might find it hard to move on.
I know, I’ve been there before myself, mostly when I wished I’d told people how I really felt in certain encounters, or when I doubted what I’d said or done and then replayed past events over again in my mind.
I am a reformed people pleaser, and as a result, I haven’t always expressed my honest feelings to others.
More times that I can count, I felt self-conscious and anxious while approaching certain people and situations in life.
Was I funny enough? Did I seem unintelligent? Did I unknowingly offend someone? These kinds of questions would creep into my mind and take over my mood on a daily basis.
My self-doubt and fear of confrontation not only affected how I represented myself in social settings, it also caused a lot of unnecessary worry and tension in my relationships.
There was a turning point when I was fed up with avoiding conflict and tired of feeling hurt. I realized that in order to change how I felt, I needed to perceive the world through a different lens.
“You will be free the moment you stop worrying about what other people think of you.” ~Unknown
In college, I remember one of my professors asking each person in the classroom what they wanted to accomplish at the end of their academic career. The first thing that came to mind was “I don’t want to take things personally any longer.”
I didn’t realize it at the time, but at that very moment my journey had begun.
While completing my degree, I worked closely with people who had been abused and neglected. They had been completely and utterly unseen by the people they trusted most. Not only did my heart ache for what they had lived through, my eyes slowly started to open. These amazing individuals were enough, even if no one ever led them to believe that they were.
And I was enough. I didn’t have to second-guess the things that I did, or allow self-doubt to get in the way of my happiness.
I could simply exist in the world without my anxiety defining me.
Shortly after this discovery I met a kind Buddhist mentor, and through deep daily mindfulness practices, I learned how to tame the anxious, unproductive thoughts that came into my mind and not get swept away by them.
As I continued my inner work, I was kinder and more patient with others and myself.
In time, I realized that struggle is universal, and that we all share these encounters in some form at some point in our lives.
How we relate to our pain is what shapes the outcome.
We can either crumble under life’s pressures or embrace them and become more evolved versions of ourselves. Our true nature is who we are underneath our struggles and stories, and accessing that nature is the key to feeling at peace.
Our disposition and family of origin greatly affect how we observe and react to the world around us. But we are not powerless; we can change how we respond to life’s difficulties.
Have you ever admired someone who came out of the other end of adversity stronger, wiser, and better equipped for the road ahead? You do not have to admire that person; you can be them.
Take a brief moment and think back to a time when someone said or did something that troubled you. Did negative thoughts take over your mind? Was your heart pounding? Did you find it hard to concentrate? Did this moment feel like it would never end?
I know from personal experience that stress can sometimes feel like an out-of-body experience. Our thoughts can quickly take over and we can get caught up in our heads. Over time we can start relying on that comfortable place of simply reacting without thinking, or we can push our feelings away and disconnect from situations completely, like I did.
For this reason, I have adapted my own go-to mindfulness exercise, inspired by Tara Brach’s RAIN practice, that I have used time and time again and referred to others. This method can help you to develop deep awareness of your thoughts, as you’re facing difficult moments or shortly after, while offering yourself words of compassion and kindness.
One of the first times I put this technique into practice, it helped me move into a more accepting, healing place.
A few years back I was at a meet for new mothers. It was my first time there, and all the conversations made it difficult to hear.
I had asked someone in the crowd to repeat their child’s name, which was, “Wren,” a pretty name, like the bird. Another mother overheard me and loudly mentioned to another person that people from the city weren’t worldly and had little knowledge of nature.
I wondered what I possibly could have done to offend this woman. My thoughts spread like a wildfire.
I felt deeply angered by her comment. I proceeded to doubt myself, questioning if there was something I had said to the group that day which seemed silly or unintelligent. My next course of action was to start thinking of things to say to counteract her verbal attack, a way of proving my knowledge.
While all of these ideas bubbled up in my mind, I was completely silent. I felt a burning sensation brewing in my stomach and chest.
I tried to make the best of the meet after that, but couldn’t help but feel irritated. I gave this person the cold shoulder the rest of the day and was upset with her. I was also angry with myself for not rising above the pettiness by choosing to snub her.
Later that evening, I kept thinking about what she had said and why she chose me as her target.
Once again I had fallen into the trap of avoiding conflict at the expense of my well-being.
I proceeded to break down what I was feeling and what needed my attention most, and this brought me much needed internal comfort.
O P E N to Your True Nature
The next time you find yourself over-thinking past situations or feeling overwhelmed by life’s stresses, try this exercise to offer yourself some compassion and bring yourself back into the present moment.
Observe
Close your eyes and take a breath. Notice how your body feels—tension in the stomach or heaviness in the shoulders, for example. Then notice the thoughts you’re thinking in the moment or are dwelling on from the past, and name them, such as, worrying, fearing, replaying, or planning.
When you observe your thoughts, you’re able to choose which to believe and which to let pass. You can choose not to believe that someone else meant to hurt you, that you did something wrong, or you deserve to be judged. You can see these thoughts as nothing more than knee-jerk reactions to a perceived offense, and not reflections of reality or ideas you need to let influence your state of mind.
Peace
When you are ready, bring peace to your mind and body by saying, “I am deeply hurt and it is okay to feel the way that I do.” (Use comforting words to ease your distress about a specific situation.)
Some other thoughts that may bring you peace: “Even if other people judge me, I don’t have to judge myself.” “What other people say and do is about them, not me.”
Enjoy
Take a deep breath and take a moment to sit in the calmness of mind and body.
Nature
Say to yourself: “The moment has passed and now I am at peace. This is my true nature.”
More times than not, the present moment is an anchor, solace in the midst of chaos. You can always come back to the present moment.
Observing my thoughts and accepting the situation for what it was not only enabled me to make peace with what happened, but also helped me foster compassion for the woman who offended me. I realized that her bias might have come from a vulnerable and wounded place.
Being a new mom isn’t easy and I can identify with that; perhaps she was feeling insecure that day and displaced the judgment she had of herself onto me.
Had I not have taken a step back to assess my own thoughts I may not have been able to feel compassion for her.
As I continue to practice OPEN, it allows me to feel and examine the full gamut of my emotions, and in turn this allows me to feel deeper connection and concern for others.
I am no longer as self-conscious and I don’t take things personally as often.
The lesson I learned in all of this was that worrying about what others think of me does not change anything, and life is unpredictable and out of my control. This discovery was actually pretty liberating for me.
I think we could all benefit from learning to tap into awareness and calm our mind. We can learn to forgive and be kind to ourselves, and to the people around us. And we can create space between ourselves and our anxious thoughts so that they don’t define us or throw us off our center.
The next time you feel anxiety rising, remember that our thoughts can hold us back or deeply restore us. However, we do have a choice to listen to the thoughts that encourage us so we can open to our true peaceful (or balanced or noble) nature.
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What I’ve Learned About Life While Volunteering in a Rwandan Youth Village
“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” ~Maya Angelou
Have you ever been in a situation where your thoughts and beliefs are put to test and you have to reconsider who you are? Do you adapt to a new environment or hold on to the values and cultural norms of your past?
I’m living in Rwanda for the next year, volunteering at a youth village that also serves as a boarding school for over 500 vulnerable youths.
All our students are orphans and they are some of the most vulnerable youth in Rwanda. I chose to volunteer at the village because I wanted to better understand how I could make a sustainable difference for those I saw as less fortunate than myself.
On many levels I went into this year with a somewhat warped aim of what I could accomplish. To start, the idea of “having an impact” can be seen as a very ego-driven perspective. I think the real impact has been on me. Every minute of every day—both the good and bad—plays a role in how I perceive the world and how I behave.
For a fast-paced American, it’s easy to get frustrated in Rwanda. “Africa Time,” the slow-paced lifestyle that many attribute to cultures throughout Africa, is very real, and Rwanda is no exception. Tasks take long, people are less straightforward, and you say “hello”’ to every person you pass on the street. Do you know how many “hellos” that is in a village of 650 people?
People who know me, know I embody a lot of the qualities we associate with a typical American. I speak my mind, I’m hyper-productive, and I prefer to skip the niceties and jump straight into a meeting. Clearly this cultural clash would create a struggle.
Not only that, but life in Rwanda is difficult. I see things and feel things I never have before. As someone who does not like to feel emotions too deeply, this has proved challenging.
My life here is different than what I am used to, and it requires great patience, questioning, and self-awareness. But I have begun to ask myself the question: “Does that make it a bad thing?”
Lately I have been contemplating if my American capitalistic mindset of “go, go, go” and “get, get, get” is actually the best one to have.
While I do not expect any insights I mention here to be unheard of, I do think they are unique when you consider them through the context of the vulnerable Rwandan youth at the village where I work.
Slow down.
The slower pace of life in Rwanda is a gift. It allows me time to be present and concentrate on living in the moment. Every moment I am reminded that life is a gift that I shouldn’t take for granted. If we rush through our day, we miss the chance of really enjoying it. Why do I need to walk at record speed to the dining hall? Why pass someone on the street and decide not to say hello? I have no idea.
Body perception is just that—perception.
The other day a few girls in my Rwandan family told me I have big legs. While this is not revolutionary to me, it still stung a bit.
I told the girls that it’s mean to say that and they replied, “Are you kidding? I want your legs.” Cultural differences anyone? Accepting your body isn’t the lesson here. The lesson, to me, is understanding that the way we think about ourselves is totally dictated by societal norms. And, when you step into a different culture, that norm changes.
While I am still conscientious of being seen as fat, I now give myself a break and embrace that one culture’s obsession with being stick thin is another culture’s version of extreme poverty.
Human touch is a gift.
Typically Americans embrace upon introduction in a formal handshake. Rwandans first greet each other with a warm two-armed hug lasting a good five seconds, followed by a handshake. Then they’ll hold your hand (men and women), sit on your lap, rub your back, etc. And, the benefits of all this touching are real.
I didn’t want to believe it because I am a self-proclaimed “anti-hugger,” but I couldn’t be more wrong on this one. Human contact makes you happier, improves how you feel, changes how you behave toward others, and allows you to express yourself in new ways. I’m an addict now. (Watch out!)
Sharing feels good.
I’m still experimenting with this one. In a communal society (especially within our village), sharing is the go-to way to do pretty much anything.
The other day I had a little donut left. I gave it to one girl in my family and she split it up into six pieces! Every girl got a little tiny piece of this donut instead of the girl just finishing the bite herself. How awesome is that!
I struggle with this one because I do have the scarcity mentality that can exist in Western culture. But, I strive to make small improvements. Yesterday I brought my hot sauce to share at lunch. Seeing the kids get excited when I pulled out the little bottle was pretty great. I guess it’s a muscle I will just need to stretch.
Death—it’s just part of the life cycle.
This insight has been one of the more shocking and harder for me to grasp. Last week I saw a dead body. This week I saw a girl get hit by a car and break both legs. (I pray she is not paralyzed.)
I’ve seen more car accidents in the last four months than in my whole life thus far. Understanding death from the Rwandan culture, where death rates are higher and life risks are so much greater, gives me strength in my ability to just live and not let my fears shatter everything that I can achieve within my life.
And, while these events were deeply upsetting for me, more than anything they have made me realize how truly grateful I should be for the life I have been given, and they’ve reminded me to live life to the fullest. In addition, these experiences have taught me how much I can give to those around me in helping them bring more meaning and happiness into their own lives.
Don’t get me wrong; I still very much believe that some of my best qualities are those I have gained from my American upbringing. But it is so refreshing to stop fighting against those behaviors that separate the Westerners here from Rwandans, and instead embrace them.
Not only does it make it easier to do my job and live here, but just maybe, there will be some long-lasting effects which will improve the quality of life way beyond my experience in Rwanda.
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Leaping into the Unknown: Why We Don’t Always Need a Plan
“You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens.” ~Mandy Hale
Wake up.
Wish I could go back to sleep.
Get up and ready for work. Tell myself that today I’ll leave earlier but then leave the same time as usual.
Walk to work. Pass all the same people I did yesterday. At the same time.
Arrive at work. Listen to the same people complaining about the same things. Complain about the same things myself.
Teach my classes. Tell people off for being late—the same people as yesterday and the day before that.
Go home. Try to work toward my dream life. Collapse from exhaustion after about half an hour and wonder what the point is.
Go to bed. Cry lots. Hope that I don’t wake up in the morning.
Wake up again and repeat.
This was my routine for a good number of months before I finally couldn’t take it anymore.
Did I have the world’s worst job? No, not really. Did I live in a hell hole? Not at all. In fact, you could probably say that I didn’t have any problems, yet I was possibly more miserable than I’d ever been.
I couldn’t believe it. How had I ended up like this? I’d tried so hard to change my life. I’d meditated, done yoga, followed my dreams, made a vision board, and bought lots of self-help books. I’d even read them, too!
What more was a girl supposed to do? Why wasn’t my life changing?
I desperately wanted to leave my job, but couldn’t. I wouldn’t have the money to pay the rent. I wanted to leave my apartment but I had nowhere to go. Not unless I went to stay with my mother and, I couldn’t do that—not at my age!
So I plodded on, I tried to be a good ‘spiritual’ person and accept my life as it was. I tried to make the best of things. And sometimes, it worked, but not for long.
Eventually the feelings of dissatisfaction would return. The feeling of helplessness. Feeling stuck. Wanting to escape.
But there was no way out. I’d be repeating this day forever. And ever.
Let It Go
Around this time, I was reading a lot about how we need to close one door before another can open. I was also seeing colleagues leave work to pursue a life of their dreams.
Rather than giving me hope, this made me feel more downhearted. It was all right for them; they had money, a partner, a new job, or an already-up-and-running business.
I was all alone. I was broke. I had no husband to support me. No rich relatives to bail me out.
Everything I’d done to try to make a living out of work that I loved had already failed. I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore. I just knew I didn’t want what I had.
I’d get irritated when I’d read about how I had to simply quit my job, how I had to follow my heart. What if my heart was only telling me what I didn’t want? What if it was refusing to tell me what was next?
What if I closed one door and the other one got stuck?
What then?
I was so afraid of what would happen, I held on for months, hoping for an answer to drop out of the sky.
Until the pain of staying where I was suddenly became too much to bear. I couldn’t take it anymore. Suddenly, what happened next didn’t matter.
I didn’t care.
I saw the madness of what I was doing: staying in a job I didn’t want to do, to live in an apartment that I didn’t want to live in, to stay in an area that I didn’t particularly like. Just to survive. And even surviving wasn’t much fun.
So I surrendered. I did what I’d felt called to do all along: I said goodbye to the security I’d been clinging to. With no idea of what was coming next. With no income and little money. And no idea where I was going to live.
But as soon as I made my decision, I felt a huge sense of relief. I wondered what had taken me so long.
Of course, it wasn’t long until the fear crept back in. I had moments when I wondered what I was doing and how I would survive.
But even in those moments of doubt, there was a knowing that leaving my present situation was the right thing to do.
All my life, I’d put survival first. Now it was time to put myself first.
My happiness. My sanity. My peace of mind.
The worst-case scenario may not be so bad. In fact, it might be quite good.
I was lucky. I was never going to be out on the streets. I knew I had the option of returning to stay with my mother until I sorted myself out. But I really didn’t want to do that. I was far too old for that now.
Besides, that would mean living in a town far away from anywhere, with no transport of my own. I’d be so lonely. I’d have even less chance of finding work I loved. I’d be even more stuck!
Despite my best hopes that something else would magically turn up, I indeed ended up returning home. I tried telling myself it would be fine, but the scary thoughts were still lurking.
However, within a couple of weeks of the move, I saw the new path begin to emerge—chance meetings with like-minded people, work opportunities in unexpected places, community events where I thought there’d be none.
And for the first time in months, I actually felt happy. Because for the first time in my life, I was truly putting myself first. And I was truly living in the present. Survival was no longer the name of the game. My own peace of mind and happiness was.
When the pain of being where you are is too much to handle, when life is shoving you in the direction of the unknown, dare to trust it.
As I said, I was lucky. I know not everybody can do exactly as I did. Not everyone has someone who can help them out while they make a drastic life change.
I also know how annoying it can be to be told to change your life when you simply don’t see how. But the point here isn’t to do what I did, but to let go where you can even if you have to face your own worst-case scenario.
When you begin to take care of yourself, when you follow what feels good for you and put your own physical and mental health first, you’ll find the path will begin to open up. You’ll find support from unexpected places.
You may even find that your worst-case scenario turns out to be the best thing you could have hoped for.
What I’ve learned is that having a plan is overrated. Sometimes we really do need to let go and see what happens next.
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My Proactive 8-Part Plan for Beating Anxiety and Negativity
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’m on a much needed and looked forward to vacation with family whom I love dearly, and yet I’m entering the belly of the whale. Perhaps it was triggered by my habit of making sure everyone is okay and having a good time. Perhaps it’s because the act of preparing for and traveling to Baja was exhausting and now I’m just tired.
Whatever the cause, my anxiety starts as an uncertainty, an insecurity tickling the back of my skull. Then it attacks my ego, assigning me responsible for the self-created and the mostly non-existent negative body language that whoever is sitting next to me is giving off. The way you picked up your fork makes me think you’re angry. The look you flashed when I coughed causes me to cower.
From there the insecurity spreads like a plague until it’s part of every thought, every action. At some point, it doesn’t even seem to originate in the brain anymore. It becomes a vibration within. A simmering under my skin that makes me jump at the smallest of noises. A discomfort that makes eggshells appear under my feet.
Once here, it’s like I can’t do anything right. Every action is disappointing. Every thought is wrong thinking. The big picture comes crashing down making it hard to breathe. It settles onto my shoulders and around my throat, like an over-zealous travel pillow. Tears usually follow accompanied with sides of hopelessness and embarrassment.
Anxiety attacks. No really. It attacks. It’s calculated, methodical, and unforgiving. It makes me think that it’s All. My. Fault. It’s exhausting and it can happen anytime, even on vacation.
I’ve been dealing with anxiety since I was a kid, although I didn’t know what it was until I was well into my thirties, at which point I had to make a decision: to be a stressed-out, anxiety-ridden person, which also meant living with the idea that there was something wrong with me; or to accept the fact that I’m a person and all people have struggles.
Anxiety and negative thinking are my struggles, and I choose to handle them in the same way I handle having seasonal allergies or a bad back.
Let me explain. I live in a state of sleepy sneezes when things start blooming. In the months before spring arrives, I begin taking bee pollen daily so I’m less prone to lethargy and allergy attacks. I injured my back last week surfing, so I’m not going to lift heavy things and after a period of rest, I’ll start doing stretches and exercises to strengthen myself so I can get back in the water.
I’m not going to wait to get to the point where I’m laid out and feeling sorry for myself, and I’m not going to jump into an activity that will exacerbate the situation. I am being proactive about my well-being.
When I was about thirty-five, my anxiety got so bad that it led to a depressive state. I was panicked all of the time and I began to realize that the life choices I habitually made were feeding my negative state of mind.
I wasn’t living a healthy life style. I didn’t find my job fulfilling. I was angry that I didn’t have what “you” had. Something was always missing and I was constantly reaching outward to fill the empty space.
The problem was that nothing from outside myself was helping. I realized that drinking alcohol and eating poorly (i.e. binging on sugar), sitting in front of social media, smoking cigarettes. and watching hours of television were all the same type of abuse.
I had been using all of these things to dull myself to, well, myself. I had been living un-happily for the majority of my life and so unhappy had become my default.
I also had to admit that my discontented state was a direct product of living dishonestly. I hadn’t been communicating about the things that I knew would make me unhappy because I was only worried about what would make me look good to others.
So, I acted based on the assumptions of what others thought I should do (without asking them, of course). Then I got pissed off when others didn’t act the way I wanted them to. The result was that I pushed away the people I loved and in turn, felt isolated and angry.
When I started seeing all of these things that were making me unhappy, the natural question to ask myself was “Well, then, what the heck makes me happy?” The shocking answer was that I didn’t know. Something had to change.
Drinking alcohol was the first thing to go. It was a raging red flag that had been waving for a few years. I finally decided to pay attention.
Once I had a few months of sobriety, an odd thing happened: I started painting. It wasn’t a huge stretch for me, as art had always been in my life in some way, but painting had never been my favorite medium.
But there it was, in all of its colors and shapes. Abstract painting. I didn’t really care what the painting looked like. That wasn’t the point. The point was the present state of mind that creating art brought me to. I didn’t think about my to do list, my sadness, or my insecurities. I was just painting.
When I was a kid, I loved to make art. The art studio in my high school was where I was most comfortable. I loved getting my hands dirty in clay. I left spatterings of paint and ink on my clothes because I liked them there. I felt at home when I was doing art.
At thirty-six years old, immersing myself in abstract painting reminded me of what it was like to actually feel like myself again.
I had to come to terms with the fact that since I was thirteen years old, I had been living the life of a person that I thought I should be, not who I really was. I had to let go of all aspects of that person that wasn’t authentic to me and remove all of my masks in order to follow the life I want to live.
I felt relieved to finally be exposed. I didn’t have to hide anymore. I admitted that sometimes I am more of an introvert than extrovert. That if all I’m doing is chasing a paycheck, I’m never going to be okay with a nine-to-five job, even if it comes with an impressive title. That I am not ever going to be like anyone else but me.
I recently had a discussion with a friend regarding how to be the best and most useful person to the world. She was given the advice to follow her authentic passion, as following passion leads to happiness and a happy person is more useful to themselves and everyone around them.
I don’t really remember how old I was when I started making art, but I’m pretty sure that it’s the first thing I found that felt good to my soul, and it was life-saving to be reminded of that. Now, having come full circle, I have four years of my authentic work under my belt. I have quit my day job and I’m pursuing my passion of being a professional artist (which is something that I deemed not possible very early on).
I don’t know what prompted me to pick up a paintbrush four years ago, but I believe it was a gift from my Self to myself. The really cool thing is that I don’t want to be anyone but me anymore. I’m so interested in giving attention to this person that has always been there, but I ignored because I didn’t think she was good enough.
It was difficult to grasp that the only one judging and bullying me was me, but I have to remain compassionate to that misguided part of myself as well. She was only doing the best she could.
Anxiety is still a part of my life. I am not “cured.” But just like I treat allergies or an injured back, I have decided to be proactive in dealing with my anxiety.
When I’m actively practicing the below, I’m better rested and less reactive. I am able to clearly see my options leading to less confusion and better decisions. Most importantly, I can feel when anxiety is welling up and I have the tools to tamper it down before it is out of control.
When I am active in the following, my anxiety is manageable:
1. Choose to live authentically. What moves me? What do I feel I am here to do? What is going to make me happy? Whatever it is, don’t judge it. Do it.
2. Practice acceptance. We all have hard things to deal with. Every last one of us. That’s life.
3. Meditation in the mornings sets my base line for the day and helps me sleep at night.
4. Painting every day keeps my hands busy and creates an outlet for the mental energy that cannot be released otherwise.
5. Exercising outside in nature, particularly surfing in the ocean every chance I get, allows me to see that the world is sooooo much bigger than me and all decisions are not mine for the making (see the above mentioned back injury).
6. Reciting my gratitude list regularly, and telling the people I love that I’m grateful for them, helps me to see the positive side of life instead of focusing on the negative.
7. Eating right and treating my body with respect keeps me feeling whole, healthy, and balanced.
8. Reminding myself that this is a practice. I am not perfect. It’s okay not to be.
It’s not always easy. When I started writing this, I was entering the belly of the whale. Now that I’m many paragraphs in, I already feel more at ease.
By identifying and accepting this particular whale, I don’t have to be swallowed. Just by writing this, I have taken the unknown out of the scenario by calling the anxiety out for what it is. Once I have given it a name, it’s not quite so scary. It just is what it is. Some people have diabetes. I have anxiety.
We cannot choose whether or not we have problems like anxiety. We all have our issues and that’s just part of being human. Rather than be at odds with anxiety all the time, we can choose to learn more about it and actually co-exist. We have a choice about how much say we allow anxiety to have in our lives.
I find that I prefer to swim along-side my whale and learn more about it rather than being engulfed by it. Frankly, more and more, I’m finding that I’m just grateful to be able to go for a swim, and so I dive in. Deeper and deeper. Excited to find what else is beneath.
