sobriety
recently, i crossed the threshold into eight months of sobriety from marijuana; the longest i’ve been able to go without it in six years.
without an immediate calming vice, sobriety has left me living life with a startled, bare-naked nervous system without a safety buffer.
my feelings have come back online and it’s been incredible work wrangling them into a spacious and ordered corral.
fortunately, through avid meditation, i’ve found deep success in calming down my body; but lately i’ve found trouble in reducing my mental anxiety.
to me there seems to be a difference between the two; physical and mental anxiety.
so, i got curious.
stress & resistance
long ago, i happenstanced upon this clip (sorry for the shitty youtube short) from Jeff Bezos which stuck out to me. he talks about stress not coming from working hard, but from not working on something you CAN have control over.
this resonated with me, but i didn’t know why at the time.
then, i found my next clue.
as a part of my morning meditation routine, before sitting, i ingest a simple form of wisdom. lately this has been from The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield.
Pressfield wonderfully personifies Resistance; the opposing force of all creative and prosperous endeavors. the second clue came from his reading which was about how the closer a venture is to your soul’s evolution, the greater opposition Resistance will feel to you.
armed with my shitty youtube short and this newly named force, i had a thought come into my head.
magic
just like how god needs the devil, what is resistance defying? i certainly know what procrastination and avoidance feel like in my body, but what about the days i push through the resistance and end up feeling accomplished, aligned, and content?
to me, it made sense that the countering force of resistance would be evolution.
what if instead of dreading or avoiding anxiety (or to Bezos, stress) i use it as a guiding light towards my soul’s deepest evolution?
with a half finished album rotting on my hard drive, countless books collecting dust on my bookshelf, and an endless list of homework projects to complete, maybe i SHOULD be stressed and anxious!
this reframe of anxiety means making peace with the grit and fervor required to evolve. as the Marine Corps says, to embrace the suck. to become a spiritual warrior who eats resistance for breakfast and asks for seconds.
so i turned towards the place of greatest Resistance— which is my creativity.
i will explore my life-long journey with creativity and how reframing anxiety has rekindled my connection with my neglected creative part in my next post.