01. I used to ask myself: what would I be without my anxiety?
and now instead, my higher Self asks, what has my anxiety given me?
do you want to know a secret? I have been doing little experiments. I went to write the word “casting,” not “doing,” as if these experiments were a spell I have been sending out into the world. and in actuality, they are.
because I’ve been asking my Self these experimental questions, every day. everywhere I go. I start by asking, “how long can I exist in pure love? how far out can this radiance of energy reverberate?”
and in the process, I string together a series of thoughts and intentions, all meant to foster positivity. okay, sure, that’s cool and all, but stay with me.
I ask:
what can I do in this moment that will make me feel most alive?
how many happiness-inducing things can I bring to mind, one after the other? examples include your average cute doggos and rainbows and (California) sunshine, but really, if you are the type of person who doesn’t feel an immediate surge of serotonin when in the presence of a really good boy, this may not be the newsletter for you.
for how long can I focus only on this—this heart-expanding, life-affirming wave of sparkly, really fucking good energy? I carry it with me in the Uber. I put it in my back pocket for later. I turn on that song I’ve been hyper-fixating on and dance a little (or a lot) while waiting at the bus stop.
and how often, with what immensity of focus can I redirect my thoughts when they are not immediately positive?
on the last Q, that is not to say that I avoid feeling the feelings that arise when intrusive or negative thoughts come up. what you resist persists, after all.
just that it’s a lovely reminder: when I return, again and again, to a place of pure love, I arrive to and at my (higher) Self.
and because, for so long, I was decidedly in the other camp. meditation didn’t work for me. neither did therapy. I fueled myself on anger, especially predicated on the dark and unruly things that had happened to me. the Trauma Drama™, or so I called it.
I climbed a rope of heart-broken-open in my dreams, braided my hair with sadness and stars, caught myself on my own sharp edges each and every day. it was all a very glamorous undoing, one I had toed the shadowy line of for years.
who needed things like “mental health awareness”, when I could wear my depression like a glittering cloak? when I could paint sparkles on my face, dye my hair a veritable rainbow of colors, and pretend myself into the whirling alter ego I claimed to be—utterly and whimsically free of anxiety?
and yet, the future is always arriving to us. in fact, it is already here.
the moment I realized this—and by realized I mean felt—and by felt I mean really felt, achingly and exhilaratingly and heart-breaking-openly so… I was forever changed.
because I stopped waiting for this nebulous, improbable set of outcomes to come to me, and I got up and went out of my apartment and lived my life. and maybe it wasn’t the way I’d always envisioned in some ways; and in other ways it was far more spectacular. yes, a spectacle to be ogled, and to be treated as such—as a stunningly beautiful thing unfolding.
and that is not to say it was that simple, or that my anxiety has fully dissipated.
or that I’m not still messy sometimes or hot-tempered. or that I don’t still at times feel insecure, wondering why no response was forthcoming to what I thought was a pithy, clever message in the group chat. or that I don’t smash through certain walls when others would have simply found a door. just Aries emotional Juggernaut things.
or that or that or that. there’s always something.
but.
when I treat my “feral joy” as an open form of rebellion,
my own happiness as a superpower—most especially one that can be wielded against the patriarchal, capitalist powers that be, all of which are literally gunning for my/our peace, bodies, and personal autonomy—
when the above is treated as such, I return again and again to my (he)art.
and that finding. all that finding, my open hands full of it. is a thing to be marveled at, protected. to be held up to the light and inspected.
it’s one of those things that makes the observer, the adventurer, the arbiter of experience—indeed, the experience artist—avail themselves of the words, “oh, yes. it was all absolutely and unquestionably worthwhile.”
and you, my new reader? how do you find your way back to you?
xx
Kimia