The devil’s in the details and he’s taking his toll

Song of the day: Dance in the Graveyards - Delta Rae 
Currently reading: A Feast for Crows - George R. R. Martin

June. It's June. Where on earth has all that time gone?

This afternoon that wonderful companion of ours called anxiety reared its ugly little head and I was lucky to experience paralysing fear for a short while. Because what else would we want to do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, hey? This is only read as diary-ish for a very short time before I get to my point for today.

This weekend a Teen Wolf convention is happening in Austria. I saw pictures of it on tumblr. There's people I admire there, everyone looks like they're having a wonderful time and it's extremely sunny. They're also, you know, in Austria. I initially became aware of all this around 10:30 yesterday morning, when I was in London, watching torrential rain pour outside knowing I had to go and walk in it soon to get to a physiotherapy appointment to find out why I've been in agonising pain all week. So you know, I wasn't overly happy, and I had a nice little moan about how I wish I was there rather than here, but then I moved on. I went to physio, discovered I haven't done anything particularly serious, and watched a fair bit of TV in the afternoon. Tidied my room, skyped both Harriet and J, practised the viola and generally had an ok day. I mean, I was in pain, I couldn't do much more than take it easy.

Today I'm thankfully in a lot less pain. I woke up late. I had my viola lesson at 12:30. I had a late lunch. And I've been on tumblr, unavoidably seeing pictures of the convention because whilst I follow over 300 blogs of a variety of different subjects, that seems to be all anyone currently online is talking about. I realised that it was 3pm. It's a lovely day outside, and I was inside doing absolutely nothing. And that's when the fear hit.

Because I want to be like this:

But I don't know where to start.

Living in London, and particularly in an area where I'm high up enough to see all of central London from my bedroom window, even as far as the other side of the river, I'm constantly aware that the world is at my fingertips. Possibilities are endless. I can do whatever I want, all I need to do is reach out and grasp it. I'm a very blessed person - I'm white, middle-class, living in a first-world country, intelligent, financially stable, went to a good university and got a good degree, get on extremely well with my family and haven't had anything particularly bad happen to me other than occasional brushes with anxiety and depression. The only way I would be even luckier regarding doing what I want in the world is if I were male. And yet, despite knowing the world is mine for the taking, I feel paralysed, like my arms are stuck to my sides.

In part, there's too much choice. I know that I'm not doing what I want to be doing just at the moment. I have ideas about what I would like to do, and even some notions on what I can start to do in order to get there. But then I feel that if I'm spending my time doing x, I'm not doing y or z. So if I decide to spend a couple of hours reading a book - which I really need to do more of - then that's wasting time that I could be writing, or going and finding people to socialise with, or attending an acting class, or doing exercise etc. In the end, I don't do anything. I have similar problems with choice when deciding what to watch or what to eat. In the end I just don't make a decision and have wasted several hours of my day.

Then there's the lack of feeling connected. When I'm online looking at things related to people I admire and wish I could be like/ work with, it's very easy to feel connected to your dreams. You're learning loads of information about your ideal hobbies, careers, people you'd like to meet one day. But this feeling is a lie. You're not getting any closer to being a successful actor by looking up pictures of your favourite actors all day. You're not getting any closer to being a published author by researching various publishing houses that you're going to send your book to 'when it's written'. Looking at fitspiration won't make you any fitter.

You have to switch the internet off and do something. And it's not a good feeling. For me personally, when I turn the internet off, I no longer feel connected to the wider world of people in film, theatre and television, and I feel further away than ever from my goals. But that's not the case. If I used the time I spend daydreaming online actually doing something constructive towards my goals, I'd be so much closer. In fact, I've wasted so much time over the last few years that I could probably have written several novels, learnt a few languages and mastered a couple of instruments. Saying "omg Chris Colfer has published three novels, written and starred in his own movie and written an episode of Glee on top of performing in all the episodes and doing press etc and he's only 23" won't do anything other than make you feel bad. Yes, it shows that some people are successful when they're your age. But a) they're anomalies, and b) they're not spending all their time going "it's not fair so-and-so is my age and yet they're so much more productive than me". It is fair. They're actually working their asses off for what they want. What are you doing? Absolutely nothing, other than thinking you should get on with something.

Yeah, I'm going to say no to that.

I was always a very confident child when I was a lot younger, who believed that she could do whatever she put her mind to. But I wasn't very driven. I didn't need to be. I just stumbled into opportunities, and I was fortunate enough to find a lot of things easy. I didn't need to revise for tests, I didn't need to work hard to make people like me, I didn't get stage fright before performing (in fact I loved the attention and sought it out), I didn't really need to practice any of the instruments I tried to play. But now I do.

Buried somewhere deep, deep down inside me lives that confident child. She's just extremely hidden. Or, clutching to her last breaths, I don't know. But I still believe that I can do whatever I want to if I just put my mind to it. And when I dream about my goals, I dream that I'm successful. Not necessarily famous, but well known and respected by those I know and respect in the same field. I'm also constantly told that most people don't ever achieve the levels of success that I dream about. I know this, and I also know that I won't get anywhere near that if I don't even try, but there's the difficulty. I get scared to try, because I don't want to fail. I've not really ever failed before - I've always landed on my feet. I've also never had to really rely on being driven and working hard to do anything before. I haven't flexed those muscles in a very long time. I don't know that they won't fail me.

But unless I move on from worrying about this all the time, I will definitely fail me.

I need to move on with my life. I need to stop letting this fear of failure paralyse me. Easier said than done, but acknowledging it is at least a step in the right direction. I need to start doing. And I also need to think about what it is I want to do and why I want to do it, because achieving my goals might not even be the way to achieve what I want.

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Things I'm improving on: Keeping my room tidy.
Things I've still got a long way to go with: Updating this blog.

Learning discomfort

Song of the day: Bottom of the River - Delta Rae
What I'm reading: Bad Pharma - Ben Goldacre

I actually had an 'ah hah!' moment whilst doing yoga the other day. For the first time ever, I discovered that a thought I had whilst reflecting on what I was doing in that current moment (trying to relax into pigeon pose for a full minute) actually applied to all areas of my life.

I was uncomfortable. And I needed to learn discomfort.

Yes Harvey, thank you for your input.

I had read somewhere at some point that hip openers in yoga were important because the hips and pelvis hold lots of stress and negative emotions such as sadness, guilt and fear. I didn't hold anything by this, because how on earth can any particular part of our body 'hold' emotions, which are all created by the brain. It was new-age-y nonsense, and I was quick to put it out of my mind. Until I was actually doing hip opening poses, and getting really emotional. I wouldn't be able to place the particular emotion(s), but they were definitely negative, and they were definitely uncomfortable.

My instinctive response was to stop what I was doing immediately. But before I did, I re-assessed my situation. Yes, I was uncomfortable. But I wasn't actually in any pain. My hips were feeling a slight stretch, but it was the feeling in my chest that was the strongest, and I could already place that as emotional not physical. So there was no real benefit of me stopping. Sure I'd be more comfortable, and I'd no longer feel awful, but I was doing yoga in the first place to try and get fitter and more flexible (and to relieve stress and anxiety). You're not going to get flexible by not actually doing the poses. So I held it for the allotted time, and then I moved on. And I was fine. But for those two minutes, I was very uncomfortable, and I hated feeling that way.

I realised that whilst I didn't stop what I was doing that time, I usually do, and that's a big problem. I'm no longer very fit, and I'd like to improve my cardiovascular health. But the rare occasions I do work up to the point where I'm really hot, sweating and breathing heavily, I stop what I'm doing. I don't like that feeling, I'm scared of that feeling even, and so I don't let myself stay in that state. As a result, I haven't actually improved my ability to do anything that requires any physical effort. I mean, you hear people talk about people throwing up after an intense exercise session. I don't ever let myself get anywhere near that.

Side note: I was watching an early episode of The Biggest Loser the other day, and one of the contestants was crying and said that she's really scared of the feeling of the intense workouts. I am with her 100% there. The trainer said to her something along the lines of it won't kill you, you push through it and it'll never feel this bad ever again (because even if you have a super-intense session, you'll know that you can deal with it). I know this, but I've yet to learn it.

This obviously applies directly to physical health/fitness, but I find that I have the same problem in everything else I do in life. Confrontation getting too uncomfortable? Find a way to stop it or run away (usually the latter). As I mentioned in a previous post, not done something I was supposed to do? Make an excuse and/or run away so I don't have to face the discomfort of the consequences of my actions. Have to put a bit of effort into learning a new skill? Give up. Anything that I feel out of my depth in, I tend to give up on, because I don't like that feeling at all.

But I can't do that any more.

Missing a day or two of work because you're uncomfortable and tired when you've got your student loan to fall back on is immature, irresponsible, but at the end of the day not that big a deal. Missing a day of work when you need to pay your rent, bills and buy food and don't want to get fired is out of the question. I start my new job on the 17th of this month, the first full-time job I'll have ever had, and I have been nearly paralysed by fear at the thought of the discomfort today. I'm used to being at university, where yeah I may need to do 10 weeks work here, but then I'll have four months off, woo hoo! I'm now going to have to go to work every. single. day. With no day off in sight unless I pre-book it far in advance.

Yay?

I know that's not a big deal to most people. But I've got used to myself being a quitter, and I don't want to be one anymore. I was on Skype to my mother earlier, and we were talking my potential and how I've not really lived up to it in the past (my words, she was actually fairly complementary about what I've achieved so far). I pointed out that I know I haven't lived up to my potential in the past, and she said how it's easy to blame other things, but now I've got to take responsibility for my actions. I was quick to point out to her that I take full responsibility for not getting enough done in my past. I am very aware that I am the problem. I don't want to be the problem anymore. This is going to be difficult.

And so I need to learn discomfort.

This applies to other things rather than just work. I'm going to become the lead tenant in our house, so I'm going from not being responsible ever for any bills, to being responsible for the upkeep and running of our house and the three people living in it. I'm going to be meeting a lot of new people, and socialising with new people is another area I feel out of my depth. I'm going to a networking event on Thursday, and I have no idea what I'm doing. My previous response would be to just not go.

But learning discomfort. I need to learn that I can do these things, be uncomfortable for a short while, and then things will get better. There's a Sex Nerd Sandra episode that discusses mindfulness, which might be something to consider here. One piece of advice given is to practice awareness without judgement. So acknowledge that in this moment you feel uncomfortable, but try not to over-think it. Don't assume it's going to last, don't blame something that you did in the past, don't start putting yourself down because you're uncomfortable, just acknowledge this is how you feel and move on. Everyone says you only learn by making mistakes, so if you're paralysed at the idea of making mistakes you're never going to learn.

And the whole point of this blog and this endeavour is that I want to learn. So I have to make mistakes. I have to do the things I don't really like doing. Because after a while they won't seem like a big deal anymore.

I used to never make my bed. Now I do it without thinking about it.
I think that's quite good metaphor for life in general.

Bam.

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Things I'm improving on: Oversleeping less.
Things I've still got a long way to go with: Finances. Not overspending. God, do I have a long way to go when it comes to this.