Intro

It's the last month of 2019, Christmas is five days away. It is absolutely pouring with rain.
I've been stuck in a rut of anxiety and intrusive thoughts for a couple of weeks now.


My usual coping mechanisms aren't working, or at least not fast enough: writing in my journal, making music, self-help blogs, meditation. I'm not even motivated enough to make out time to meditate (shout out to the headspace app).


Maybe my problem is that I'm too impatient; if I'm putting effort into something I want to be able to catalogue tangible results quickly. Perhaps there's nothing I can do and I'll just have to wait until I feel better.


A lot of what I get anxious about is things I feel like ought to have done. Opportunities I ought to have taken; I want to be someone whose hands are open and ready for any opportunity the universe throws their way.


I think there is a part of me that would like to be successful and achieve, but also a very big part of me that subconsciously self sabotages and allows things to stagnate because it's safer to not try at all than to try and mess it up.


I call my anxiety 'Time Anxiety'. I tell myself "you don't know when you'll even get this opportunity again and you just wasted it" or "three months have gone by and you have nothing to show for it".There must be a middle ground between appreciating your time, but also being self-compassionate, realistic, and reasonable.


Now we've come to the purpose of this blog. I am consciously deciding to side with the part of me that wants success and knows I deserve it, the part of me that is willing to put in the work needed to be happier.


Ever since I discovered mindfulness, I've come to appreciate how malleable the human mind it is. And how the way our brain functions on a daily basis is so dependent on thought patterns being validated, reinforced, and reproduced.


I have come to appreciate that you can in fact train the mind to learn a new pattern, and replace bad habits with good ones; you're not completely helpless to what your mind does and you can consciously decide how you would like to shape your mental landscape.


Most importantly, I have learned that being aware of how your mind operates, noticing your thought patterns, creating distance between mind and that which is aware of mind, is power. I don't believe in 'fake it till you make it', I don't believe in suppressing thoughts and emotions.


I will be challenging myself to mentally 'set a pattern' for a week, every week for at least the next year and document the results. I will talk about whether or not it was successful, challenges I faced, and what I have learned from the practice.


So welcome to my journey.