While walking inside the bookstore, I found this tiny journal. It contains 365 questions that you can answer everyday and you can do so for 5 years. It was a really interesting concept and that's how I got it. Very worth it!
The way it works is it has one page for a day that contains the question and 5 empty years so you can fill it out with no pressures in case you miss a year or something. The answer lines are not that long, so it is very encouraging to write something cos it doesn't pressure me to write long-ass paragraphs. I can even write just one word if I like.
Once December is done, I can just go back to January and answer the same questions but of course in every year, the answers would be different. Even if they stayed the same it would still be interesting. It would be so nice to be able to look back on my answers after many years.
The thing that I like as well is that the questions are not boring. Some of them require a lot of words to answer and some just very simple. I don't have to think about what to journal per day. :P
Today you cancelled ____.
Yesterday's question was about the thing you cancelled. It can be anything really, a subscription, a celebrity, for me, my anxiety.
Since getting my ADHD diagnosis, I have figured out the cause for my anxiety. Apart from PTSD that I have which also causes anxiety in day to day life, I have other worries as well which is very unnecessary even on good days. Not those what if someone is gonna hurt me, or what if something happens and I need to get out of this building to survive types of anxiety (which hypervigilance is pretty much PTSD) but I'm talking about worries on very small things.
My worries in general include about not aligning the lines I make in my bullet journal properly, staining the bedsheet, forgetting to buy something at the grocery store, spilling my coffee, you know, those things that are so small and are very easy to fix. Yet I still worry about making those mistakes. I know now that it is my ADHD causing it cos I know I can get clumsy and if I make mistakes that means I have to repeat the task or it adds another task which is very boring to me that's why I avoid them at all costs.
I have LESS worries nowadays than before my diagnosis and it's such a big relief to me.
So, today, I am cancelling anxiety.
Well of course I can't just completely cancel it haha because anxiety is important for the human race cos that's what drives us to do stuff but you know what I mean! Aside from those tiny worries I have with everyday stuff, I also worry about work stuff. I care so much about my art that a lot of times I have to think and plan carefully what I'm gonna do. You can say Why can't you just create and not worry about what people will say??? That's being an artist!. That's so easy to say and I even try to think about that myself as well but before I couldn't figure out why.
I am very versatile. I know a lot of art mediums by now. I think of myself as "jack of all trades, master of none" type of person. It comes with a cost, of course... That means I have the intense desire to change art mediums once I am already able to get good at the current one or I lose interest in it.
I felt a lot of guilt for that because as an artist, it is important for you to master one medium and stick to it if you want to get popular or great at something. I mean, of course, it is given that an artist should be able to explore but a lot of them stay in one medium (and master it) for years before they try to do something else. Like, that's the ideal for me if you know what I mean. But I've never been able to do that really.
Because of my ADHD I get bored SO EASILY of my art medium and even art style. I know pencil drawing, charcoal drawing, oil painting, acrylic painting, a lil bit of sculpture, video making, photography, screenwriting, digital painting, a lil bit of animation. I got a lot of gigs especially with video making in the past and I even thought of enrolling myself in film school at some point... seeing myself at the Oscars or some shit haha. But now that desire is kinda gone.
But yeah... that worry is just so unnecessary! Just create anything you like then??? Yes. That's what I'm gonna do from now on. Why spend time thinking when I can just spend time creating??? With medication right now my mind became so clear and I can see clearly how much time I'm wasting just thinking about those.
So yep. Anxiety, gtfo cos you're cancelled! 😂
I don't deserve to put myself in a cage that I myself created. :P