Mindfulness

I suffer from anxiety.

It sucks.

It is completely misunderstood. Many think it is the same as being scared to go up on stage and talk in front of people or taking a test or any of those things that we get scared about from time to time.

It's not. I mean, that shit can affect me completely, but it is not that. Not really. It is much more extreme and abstract and fucking annoying.

I hate it. I hate having to deal with it and not dealing with it and letting it get worse and making it go away and thinking all is right with the world and then suddenly getting bitten on the arse by it, but this time it is bigger and badder.

Hate it.

Badder is a word. It should be. Is it badda? Bader? Who the fuck cares.

Anyway, yeah, hate it. Messes up a day. Heart races, chest tighten, pain in stomach, head spins, get very warm all of a sudden, can't speak properly, legs go funny... its stupid, but it is not. It is horrible.

Last year I discovered mindfulness. A series of techniques that allows you to train your brain to have a better relationship with these feelings that take over your body. Not getting rod of them, but allowing you to understand through meditation, breath exercises and awareness that these feelings are just that, feelings. They cannot hurt you and they should not be used as a way to prepare yourself for the future, unless of course you are psychic, in which case you don't need to be reading this at all.

So I practiced it and I got better. I got better. Stupid to even think that. There is no cure. I stopped practicing it and got myself into a mess again. Change of routine threw me out of whack, completely and utterly. I did not get better. It did not go away. This is who I am.

I am practicing again. Mediating three times a day. It helps. It helps with creativity as well. I had a project I was developing and it wasn't going the way I wanted, it had been though many iterations and just stunk. It was wrong and it was a mess. This past week I have cracked it, freeing up a part of my brain that was being swallowed by self doubt, worry and anxiety I have managed to come out the other side of an annoying 'block'.

Mindfulness is cool.

Namaste.