Ok, I've been depressed for about 2 weeks or something idek
I'm done with that. I'm just done being depressed. I had made so much progress and I think all the events with my uncle which really, I mean having him out of the house has been beautiful. But then there are some other things that have come as a result even tho this is really a good thing. I didn't even realize how much he affected me until he left, but immediately I could feel how much had been lifted from me
I also think I reached a point where I had to evaluate a lot of things as I'm just a very introspective person I guess. I really don't know what happened. I'm the kinda person who's always digging for those 'whys', but maybe it doesn't even matter
I feel like depressions aren't wholly negative things. Sometimes I think they're breaks we must take from physical reality to as I said reevaluate things. It's basically just that with anything that happens in my life I search for the reasons why both on the level of causality and overarching meaning. The latter is far more vital tho
Something cool that did happen was that Wednesday night I read some of my poetry out at an open mic. This was the first time in over a year and I'd only ever done it two times before, the second time I was also very sick and my voice pretty much gave out completely in the middle and someone had to finish for me. Both times were in highly intimidating settings with professional writers as opposed to this one which was more local, but those two others times my whole mentality was just different
My mentality those two times and with every other thing I'd do to pull myself out of my comfort zone was all about proving to myself just what I could do, putting myself out of my comfort zone just to see how far I could go. At this point I really have no doubts as to how far I can go and that I could do anything, so I don't need that. It's not a path of progression for me. Lately I've been needing something a little more, ya know?
I'd been trying to figure out what my new juice is. I have those inner tools so what's the next level??
Well that former mentality included doing some things solely for the sake of challenging myself. But you can't just take on everything in life that's challenging and even moreso JUST because it's challenging. And honestly, my inner monologue of questioning whether or not I should do things was basically..."does this make me scared on any level?" 'if no, then do it if you want to, if yes, then DEFINITELY DO IT NOW IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT IT IS'. I mean those are vital tools to gain, but after you gain them, you don't really need to keep doing that ****
Now it's more about meaning, something more personal. It's one thing to be able to go up in front of an audience and just get your *** out there and share something that you created, but it's another thing altogether to be able to actually make your time on that stage a piece of performance art which is one of my goals with my poetry reading. I know that's not gonna come until I do this so many times that I'm just that comfortable and natural up there that it's my default
I do have to admit that I was really nervous to go up and do this especially since I have social anxiety in every social circumstance. I tend to get shaky and stutter and all this other nerdy ****. But I had a quick convo with my sister who was also reading and had been reading her stuff this yr already and she told me to just own it. Just own my nervousness and my anxiety. I didn't even have very long to process that, but I enjoyed that fact since I just immediately went into action mode. I didn't give myself time to think about it all much altho I did think about what I'd go up and say
I kinda just went up there and told the crowd it was my third time ever reading something and I was extremely nervous. I explained to them why I was reading what I was since that particular night had a theme and I dedicated it to my mom since she has similar anxiety issues to mine that disturb greatly her creative process and orientation toward what she creates and I just did it. I wasn't nearly as shaky once I started and that quickly dissipated, but I still stuttered a bit. but that doesn't make me feel bad like it did in the past
Obviously I wasn't TOOO bad as some guy with very beautiful energy was flirting with me after
This was at a bar, but I hadn't had time to drink yet. I was 100% sober
Anyway--
---thing about anxiety is that it's really all about the fight or flight response. It's really just energy built up, priming us for action. That's what it is. It's an evolutionary advantage, otherwise it wouldn't be so rampant as it is. It helps get us out of our minds and just do what we need to do. That's the whole ironic duality of it. Anxiety prone individuals tend to overthink, yet anxiety calls us to stop thinking
As a result, I surprise myself all the ******* time. I'm very good at thinking on my feet, bullshitting in the moment, thinking fast and taking action based on those thoughts, and I have superwoman reflexes. Things like that. I'm thinking a lot of people with anxiety probably have these abilities laying latent within them as well and these are things we can tap into
What I've learned is that every traits comes with it's little partner in crime. The more extreme we are, the more likely we are to hold opposing traits of whatever extreme trait we have. So being a very extreme person in general like I am is quite the trip!!
As an example, if you're very anger prone or prone to extreme hatred, you really do have equally as extreme pools of love within you. That's just how it goes
