Hello, welcome back to my blog. Welcome for the first time if this is your first time.
There are a few things I am trying to address with this week's post. Acceptance, gratitude, rejecting grind culture, being present, relinquishing control.
I've journaled, and art therapied a lot about it. Here is my 'chain of thought' so far:
I am in the soul crushing position of hedging a lot of hope and expectations on something I have no control over. My therapist told me I'm over significant about things and I agree.
Feels like everything is fine, but also everything is completely wrong.
Did some art therapy: the art was called "hyper focus tunnel vision". It came from the need for something that would "make all the pain worth it". The art represents the unmet need of creating a solid base in what is true and current; seeing the value in their real life, being where their feet are.
The art was a long, dark, tunnel with a literal light at the end of it. Light at the end of the tunnel. This piece of art needs to be reminded that life isn't all tunnel, rewarded by the brief moment of excitement you get when you finally reach the end (that also disappears once you realise the chase is over). You can take the scenic route. Both routes end up at the same place (a little further along in life with more info, experience, and age), one having a hyper focus and the other allowing you to enjoy getting distracted, doesn't mean you end up at two different places.
"With my eyes glued to the prize, I'll miss the scenes of my life."
It seems something has gotten mixed up; the in-between, the journey, is the point. It is not just a tunnel. It is not just a means to an end. The end goal was never the point, it's just where you end up whilst on the route. Trauma might have made us think otherwise, and I suspect that the same mechanism is running on autopilot, but things are different now.
So, what am I writing about this week?
"Entertain, for a moment, that your life is working exactly as it should. Nothing to do, nothing to change. What can you achieve with the things in your life once you appreciate them for how amazing they already are?"
I'm not saying you should just sit around and not try and self-actualise, not at all. I think that restlessness that comes with feeling like we aren't where we need to be yet is almost always a result of hyper focusing on something that is out of our control. Whether you hyperfocus on something you can't control or stay present in your own life, you will end up at the same place.
I think the thing I am hyper focusing on is the sense of fairness in my life, or rather unfairness. I believe that things should change so that they become fairer. Each day for a week, I am going to imagine that the current state is the optimal state and take a more scenic route.
Day 1, 05/01/2026 - Hold Fast and Stop Trying to Escape
Caveat for day 1, I'm saying a lot of things that feel helpful but it's still aspirational and there's still work to be done on them.
So by the end of day 1 I realised the issue is this: having a desperate need to escape. This is quite a lot of progress to make on day 1 to be fair.
It started off with me thinking about this feeling of wanting things to be fair; wanting to desperately escape into a world where things were fair. Where I feel like I'm finally getting the nice things I deserve.
I don't want to sit with the reality or the responsibility of accepting that maybe, this is as fair as it's going to get, and this is as fair as it needs to be. I'd rather project expectations of being uprooted out of my life and into something better onto another person and block the rest of the world out.
I realised that the work of feeling safe in your own life is an investment of energy, resources, time and money. I don't think it accepts being short changed. I don't think it's very easy.
I think a lot of the time I am actively trying to escape or at least ready to escape. It's remarkable how much the mind can exist outside of reality, it's like a high-functioning mental illusion.
I thought about how the default is, actually, that I am safe and healthy where I am and nothing needs to change. That's not to say nothing ever needs to change and this is where I will be forever; it just means that wherever I go, however I feel, this is where I start. This is my secure base.
And if I am going to step out from that, I need to think about if there's any point. Every time you entertain a thought that all the great things in your life are not enough, it is like you are negotiating with terrorists.
I don't negotiate with terrorists.
These thought-terrorists try and trick us out of our ability to choose, out of access to our options.
Nothing should make us feel like we need to get up and out of a good spot we already have; whether that thing is good or bad.
I say to my insecurities "I am not moving". And hopefully that is enough.
Being grounded in reality means confronting the urge to flee.
Man I think it's crazy how people traumatise kids into feeling this way. Like their body was pushed so far into feeling in danger that it was left with barely any options. An utter emergency.
Who was it that said we take having options for granted? I watch too many YouTube videos and I will never remember who said this.
Day 2, 06/01/2026 - You Only Set Out to Survive, But Conquered a Whole Country (and forgot)
I'm writing about living in reality. I'm thinking about when I will finally get justice. I'm thinking about how I shouldn't let that strong desire for justice trick me out of my access to choice. I project on to people the possibility of my life finally becoming fair. I think that's what I want most in the world. The raw wounded part of me that wants this, I don't know what to tell her in the meantime. I focus and fixate on it, what can I say my brain is doing what it's doing. It's just my own thoughts, they aren't inherently dangerous (I appreciate this is a loaded statement and acknowledge that thoughts can become dangerous), but this is a helpful way of framing things for me, right now. It's just me, my thoughts, things my brain is doing. Surely, I'm not that scary...?
I'm thinking about that projection onto people: "This person could be the chance for my life to finally, be fair." if I reframe it, describe it with more of my internal language, which unmet need is it pointing to?
"The need to feel like someone can be proud of me, that I should be celebrated, honoured, appreciated, for who I know myself to be."
A lot of restlessness around this idea of fairness comes from an urge to make things fair. Maybe a better approach is to notice the already fair things around me? Smaller Scenes of Celebration.
I am skeptical of this approach; sounds like it could fall apart easily. But why? Let me think about this:
Noticing fair things around me. For the longest time I thought this nirvana of fairness could not be where I currently am. It's somewhere I have to 'get to', not realising in the process of getting there I'd reclaimed so much land. I'm using reclaimed here rather than conquered because as much as some areas are new, others are old areas that have taken on a new identity in my pursuit of fairness.
I wrote down Boundaries and Borders, I was scratching my head like "What did I mean???" I think I was talking about, not venturing past the territory you've already claimed. Why would you? You have so much space where you are, you worked hard to get out. It's within your domain. It's when you venture into unfamiliar territory that you are more likely to feel stuck and confused.
You definitely have the option of maintaining the pursuit of into foreign lands, but it is an option like many others. You are no longe desperate for food, no longer desperate for water; the outstanding needs that pushed you to make the journey in the first place.
Going into foreign lands should be considered 1 option of many (many better ones mind you); don't be so fixated on escaping that you lose sight of the viable options all around you and right in front of you. This is moderation; not putting all your hopes and dreams into one basket, or at least acknowledging that our emotions can make us feel like we only have one basket.
You conquered a country and forgot.You claimed so much land that you've moved out and past the thing you were desperate for in a multitude of ways. Narrow thinking can make it hard to acknowledge this.
Day 3, 07/01/2025 - Whilst You Were Conquering New Land You Formed Allies
In my quest for a fairer world, though I may not have reached my final destination, along the way I have recruited people who also share the same vision as me. Who also want me to get what I deserve.
Sometimes it's so easy for us to feel isolated and alone.
Day 4, 08/01/2026 - Correcting Your Posture is Not Easy
Why is all there is, not enough? It's a question to consider for sure.
I love fantasising and escaping. Otherwise why would I do it so much. I love adding layers and illusions to life. But when I do this it makes me thinking that perhaps I don't have the present moment at the right scale. Maybe the present moment is not at the right scale because when you're fixated on a fantasy that isn't real it blocks most of everything else out; only slithers of reality make it in.
And because there's so little of reality making it into your view, it doesn't get a say. You end up getting dragged around by visions of things that aren't actually real; it's a type of restlessness.
It's easier to mature, ripen, grow when you aren't restless and moving around all the time. But that 'sitting in it' really sucks. It's like correcting your posture, and it takes some getting used to for sure.
When you're fixated on the fantasy, it's like you'll want to leap as soon as it feels like you're getting too far from it, or when you've almost reached it. I don't want anything dragging me around.
These things that make you want to jump are fleeting, they're like ether They aren't real. You know what is real and not fleeting? The scenes of your life.
Day 5, 09/01/2026 - We Want to Bury the Bad Things That Happened to Us
Accepting that things might be fair enough as they are or will have to be fair enough as they are, feels like being able to withstand the impact of a cannon ball. Being strong, and sturdy, and stoic. I don't want to do that; I want to be able to tell the world how much it let me down. I may not be able to get justice, but I can at least articulate the injustice, I should be allowed that much. Otherwise, it isn't fair.
I have to absorb the shock and stop it from spilling out everywhere. No one showed me how to do that. Doing this requires holding two conflicting ideas together at once and I just don't know how to do that.
I'm reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk. It mentions how everything you do is a diary, you're babbling away all the secrets of your life with whatever you do; walk, talk, write, eat. It cannot be hidden.
Everything you do is a self-portrait.
And this was kind of a relief. It made me feel like I need to stop running from my life, really. When I am escaping into fantasy, I think I'm trying to imagine myself in a version of my life where these feelings do not exist. But your life is a diary. You cannot outrun your life, you cannot conceal your life well enough to live in a version of reality without it, your life.
Every time you wish things were different you are denying the current version of your world; you want to live a version of life where you don't have to worry about all the things that come along with reality. But you can't turn away your own life and your responses to life. You've got to anticipate all the ways you could feel about anything; "I have been expecting you". This is the best approach, no matter how dark and prickly these feelings might be, how much they trigger our fear that we haven't made enough progress, and we aren't close enough to the life we want. Whatever it looks like, welcome it with open arms; "I have been expecting you". I don't think the feelings are the problem, but rather the interpretation of them. In particular how much this interpretation deviates from or converges towards our ideal version of the world.
And it can also work with getting lost in an idea that is far away and fantastical and not real. It's a fantasy, and slightly out of reach, just beyond your fingertips because there are real feelings of insecurity and undeservedness around that thing you may want. But when we get lost in the dream of it, we are again pretending those feelings aren't real.
Day 6, 10/01/2026 - You Still Have to Come Home at the End of the Day
My therapist used to mention a secure base, and how I needed to work on fortifying mine basically. After all the fantasising and fixating, things we hope would happen, catastrophising, we still have to return to our normal life.
I've started writing in my physical journal for this because everything is allover the place and I'm wondering what I do next.
This Chuck Palahniuk book is really great. It mentions how things don't mean much in isolation. It's only when we connect the dots, see the relationships between things. It's networks and relationships that make anything worth anything. We can build a web of ideas that is more helpful, less helpful, was helpful at one point but is not helpful anymore. We should aspire to not let anything trick us out of ability to build webs in our favour.
Trick us into oversimplifying and seeing too few nodes. Trick us into skipping important nodes out.
A network like this is load balancing, not attributing too much weight to something and not enough to other things. It helps us to stay honest, it helps with moderation.
Seeing things like a web gives me more room to breathe, helps me be kinder and gentler. Things aren't small and significant, they're connected to all the other seemingly small and significant things in my life to make up the greater picture of the scenes of my life. Idk, for some reason this helps me resist the urge to run away from my life.
It's part of the web; things that have happened, things I would like to happen, feelings that feel empowered, feelings that make me feel ashamed, the urge to want to run away, feeling like I shouldn't have the urge to run. Whateverrrrr
Day 7, 11/01/2026 - Conclusion
Small things matter, instead of wanting to skip steps and change things in big sweeping actions, appreciate where you are. Build a web, node by node. Life was only ever incremental.
At the moment your living life quantum by quantum, and it's in your best interest to have capacity for whatever comes along with these little pieces.
Like where are you going? Where you are is the best place for you to be.
You can't bury any of it, so you may as well be the position that you're going to take a step back and observe without judgement. Be the cup, the container, instead of identifying with what's insid eit (is this a good analogy?).
Forming an opnion on any pparts of ourselves makes it hard to move forward because we can never make a fully fair judegment on ourselves. Life is fluid, life is a stream, life is always moving. You think you have a static web of ideas but an extra node can always be added. Life never stops moving but you stop moving when you oversimplify it and think "it must be this way".
People may have formed static opinions of you, but this was never fair. And you ought to have never taken it on for yourself.
On day 7 I did a bit of art therapy. I was frustrated that I felt like I couldn't move on from shame. The sketch was dark, confined, like a prison.
I could never be free from judgement it felt like. Even when I was alone, there was self-surveillance. Me taking on what had been done to me by other people.
We have to understand that being in this position is something around trust. The world doesn't trust you'll get it right the next time, you also don't trust you'll get things right. Everything you do feels like it's scrutinised and examined, first by others, then by yourself.
This piece of art had a desire to feel like it was finally being taken seriously; that there had been enough scrutiny. That a final opinion doesn't need to be formed about everything it does. This piece of art believes in a near future that this scrutiny will finally fulfil its purpose; things are fine as they are and it doesn't need constant course correction. Finally, some space to itself and a break from the judgement.
I can expand out the web of ideas finally; to things that acknowledge I'm not a lone actor, some things are out of my control, I can't be attributed all the blame for something, maybe that thing isn't even that bad.
This is the only time I get for my life, my real life.
What has any of this got to do with not wanting escaping from my life?
You want to escape from what feels like a small life into a bigger fantasy but ideas, like people, don't mean much in isolation. We need to connect the dots, identify the relationships between these concepts.
It is important to acknowledge that our life history may have put us in tunnel vision mode; rather than see these ideas as a load balancing network, moderate, evenly spread, bigger, kinder. Seeing thoughts, feelings, ideas as a evenly spread web means nothing can trick us out of ability to choose, out of our autonomy.
It also helps us to recognise that our current life is actually enough.
When we focus on the connections between two or three things, and block everything else in our lives out. What helps us to avoid this is trying to avoid forming an opinion on these ideas; someone might call this detachment. If you and your ideas are a cup of water, observing them is like being the cup and gently holding the water. Why should any one idea or thought be more significant than the other? This is not rhetorical; you have an answer to this question. And this answer should also blend into the water. Remember you are just the cup, the container.
Everything you do is a self portrait; I think that's genuinely beautiful.
If you got this far, I hope you are kind to yourself, I hope you build a beautiful web of things in your life that is nourishing and helps you. I hope you can feel more like a container for all your feelings and thoughts and not the stuff inside.
Cheers!
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