Oh HELLO!
I just came back from a WALK. In the SUNSHINE. Punched that green exercise ring on my apple watch in the FACE! BOOM!
Can you tell I’m feeling a bit better? SEVERAL people came up to me in person, messaged me on Instagram (which I found later), sent me a text or emailed me to tell me how much my last Instagram post about my struggles with anxiety landed for them. The journey of living with anxiety is a marathon–not a sprint.
TANGENT ALERT.
This phrase, “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” SO accurate, yet always cracks me up. Am I the leader of the pack in this example breathing in fresh exhaust fumes from the scooter with a camera operator on the back tracking my every move while I try to block out the sounds of the helicopters broadcasting my greatness to millions across the world? Am I the one in the tiny bikini bottoms with 2% body fat who wakes up in the middle of the night to get my training runs in?
NO. No, I am not that marathoner.
Am I the one in the very back of the race? The one who signed up for this stupid race under tremendous peer pressure and I’m wearing a tulle skirt that is soaked in my own urine and my calves have turned into rocks and my knees won’t cooperate any more and now I look a little bit like a version of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz after a rainstorm and that bus is on my heels. You know the bus that picks up the people who can’t finish because the police have to open up the streets to traffic again?
NO. No, I am not that marathoner either. I am somewhere in the middle. I’m not going to win, but I’m not going to quit.
Circling back (this is what my teaching lectures are like… strap in), I wanted to talk about what I do to reset my attention and my nervous system. Here are the steps I’ve developed over the last three years that work for me.
1) Do not check your phone in the morning. No pointless scrolling before creativity occurs. No toilet toiling. No reaching for input before I make some output. I can check the weather or my schedule, but no picking up my phone without a legitimate reason. Then, try to stay off your phone all day. I have a lockscreen to help with this.
Several people I respect and admire have been writing about this struggle lately. Tina Roth Eisenberg of Swiss Miss Kevin Roos of The New York Times.
1.5) Eat real food. What can I say? I forgot a step. Abstain from processed sugar and fast food. Eat vegetables! Which in turn helps with the next item!
2) Move your body. This one doesn’t have to be complicated. I have a tendency to be all or nothing in this regard. Either I’m sweating profusely for 60 minutes 7 days a week or I am a sloth.
A walk around the block will do. A yoga series from YouTube will work. (These are my favorite) DANCE PARTIES TOTALLY COUNT. DISCO BALLS HELP.
3) Make a playlist. I have spotify playlists for every mood. I have playlists to inspire creativity. I have playlists for dancing. I have playlists for working out (No, I don’t do drugs. Never have, but this playlist makes it seem like I like raves). What kind of music makes you want to create? I have movie trailer music when I’m writing a moving picture or when I’m trying to recreate an emotional scene in my head. You get the idea. If you need french music to bake, then get thee some Édith Piaf and start kneading! Every fire needs fuel, heat and air. Figure out what those things are to help get your creativity burning.
4) Sit in your feelings. Let’s face it. These tiny glowing boxes we call “phones” are really are just mechanisms for distracting ourselves from discomfort. That discomfort could be as simple as boredom, it doesn’t have to be anything revolutionary or a deep dark wound from our childhood. But whatever you’re feeling that is urging you to pick up that device and avoid that feeling, try feeling it. Untangle your discomfort. USE IT. To remind myself of this I have artwork below hanging on my office wall.
Sometimes I doodle. Sometimes I paint. Sometimes I color. Sometimes I play with my kids. Sometimes I meditate. Sometimes I meditate with my kids using THIS free app or THIS app on my watch (I mean, what better test of one’s equilibrium and equanimity) Sometimes I watch Netflix. That’s it really. Do something other than lose hours of my day pointless staring at a screen. These are the things that work for me. What works for you?
Consider the Jim Rohn phrase, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Now apply it to the five things you spend the most time DOING. As someone I love recently confessed when I asked him to think of his Instagram feed in this way he said, “Maybe I should work on making mine a little more tailored. Mine is just ASS ASS ASS MAN TITTIES JUNK IN THE FRONT inspirational quote ASS ASS ASS MAN TITTIES… ”
SO YEAH…