I started the day with an order for an organic food brand. We do a quarterly wellness newsletter, which is great since it basically allows me to talk about whatever health/diet/beauty curiosities I have and get paid for it. Anyway, it set me in a pensive, and grounded mood which put me in mind of the Minimalists, so here we are.
Much as I try, I'm not someone well-accustomed with balance. I go through long periods of chaos, and then look back, and wonder how I managed to sustain myself through them. In the past year, I've been looking for more supportive pillars, to keep my sanity in place. Yet for each one I find, I observe another ten cracks in the foundation. A creaky base. Water gets through. The more I look inward, the more I'm amazed/embarrassed/upset over the irregularities, the dangerous behaviors, the profound imbalance of the past several years. I see now many ways in which I could've acted better, and I think one of the first ways to create balance is to accept those indiscriminately.
I am different from who I was this time last year, but is that fair? Am I allowed? This question often bothers me. Were I to stand before the people who observed and indulged my transgressions, chiefly before my former self, could I honestly just shrug off who I used to be, like a dirty jacket?
The title, as some may have guessed, is a LOTR reference. Treebeard tells the hobbits "That doesn't make sense to me. But then, you are very small." It's how I felt finding this tree in the forest.
I seem to be doing that a lot. And then I think the person I'll be next year might be so different from who I am now... at times, it's enough to make me think none of it is worth it. Movement. Why move forward, when you don't know where forward is?
But.
But I do think I'm moving in a better direction, and I've thought that for a while now. There's a lot more peace in my life than there used to be. A lot more ownership of who I am, and what I've done, and what I've got to prove to the world, which is nothing. In the past six months alone, I've reached so many realizations, embraced such deep understanding that I wouldn't have thought possible.
I run from it, wherever I can, because I think it's bullshit to play the martyr and take it when you don't gotta. That's not to say I can't handle stress, just that I'm picky about the things that get to stress me. I have a lot of empathy, so I tend to get caught up in other people's problems easily. Which means stress. So I'm learning to curb that, while keeping the empathy warm and tender. Not letting my heart get harder, as Warren Zevon would say.
I'm teaching myself to let go of the things that do not pertain to my life, to my freedom. I try to only get stressed over things I can change, while observing the rest from a distance. It helps.
But by far a more profound change has been the way I manage the stressors in my life. Like most people in their twenties, I suppose, there's a lot of angst over walking the right path. A lot of questions, and nagging doubts, and fears. Which risk overwhelming me. They often did, which is how a lot of bad influences, ideas, and behaviors get through in the first place. Once you get control of someone's squishy self-fears, you essentially got them in your pocket. So you need to guard those fears like a hawk, and not let them overwhelm you.
I try to focus on how I can change. I've learned to listen to instinct more, and the more I do that, the more I find the answer to be easy. Often, the solution is what I want to do in my heart. At the very least, if it turns out to be wrong, I get the satisfaction of having listened to my instinct. And I don't know many things more valuable than that.
What am I stressed about right now?
Where to go next. I don't know if I want to stay here, or travel some more. I'm scared, as ever, of making the wrong choice.
Finishing the book I'm working on. But that'll get done one word in front of the other.
Publishing the first one, which is already done. That's tricky. And easy to get upset about. I'm worried no one will wanna put it out there. In which case, I'll just put it out there myself. I'd rather know nobody wanted to buy it than have it sit in my drawer till the end of time. Not knowing is how you grow frustrated and bitter, so in the end, managing stress, for me, is about making a choice.
I don't know if it's gonna be the right choice, but honestly, living in guesswork is a hell of a lot more stressful. So I won't have that.
Managing stress also means speaking it out loud. That's what I did above. Even saying these things here, to the blockchain, is a bit stressful. It's always stressful showing people the little things that make you tick. But if you ignore the scary things, you allow them to grow, until they become so firmly rooted they're no longer a mere stressor. They're the foundation rock of your frustrated, jaded self.
And that really fucking scares me.
For now, I'll start small. Writing my newsletter got me thinking about adaptive living. I almost wrote 'leaving'. Freudian slip? Haha. I don't think you're supposed to live the same way year-round, just like I don't think you're supposed to eat the same way year-round.
I want to wake up earlier, and get some sunlight in early in the morning. I keep hearing good things about that, how it regulates your circadian rhythm or some such, and I wanna see how that pans out.
I want to spend time in the sun.
I want to eat lighter.
I want to try the cucumber, kiwi, lemon water @millycf1976 told me about.
Banal stuff, I know. Or is it?
