Insomnia -- my head is a busy intersection of thoughts and worry. Worry seems to be something I'm good at -- perhaps it's in the DNA or perhaps it's a learned behaviour that I've cultivated over many years. I have to wonder why some people are compelled to feel anxious and to fear the worst case scenario all the time? Is it because we have somehow overdeveloped the part of our brain that responds to fight or flight? Do we instinctively sense the negative outcome as a perverse form of self-protection?
I tend towards negative and defeatist thinking and have all my life, it has become so entrenched in my personality that I no longer consciously notice it but I have been trying to recognize it and head it off when it comes up more and more of late.
It is an accepted fact that a negative mindset is not a sure formula for success in life, yet on the other hand, I've always thought that by expecting the worst outcome, I am psychologically buffering myself against it. The problem with being overly negative is that it is used as a "crutch" to justify inaction and when things don't work then my bleak, despairing worldview is reaffirmed. So, it's a nasty spiral that one can become quickly lost in. I have allowed the fear of failure to keep me in a state of complacent inertia all my life and it's become so reflexive that I really have to be alert in order to avoid falling into that trap.
Being overly optimistic can have its perils as well -- often it comes from a place of denial. It is equally annoying to be around "joy addicts" -- people who feel the need to demonstrate their prolonged and easy cheery-ness. It's particularly off-putting if their hyper-positivity comes across as a shallow and vain facade rather than a more considered and authentic expression of one's being. However, happy-go-lucky individuals have "hope" and I believe it's healthier to be around that kind of personality than being around those who prefer to live under a permanent cloud of nihilism.
I have a birthday coming up this week and it offers me another opportunity to take stock. The worry and negativity formula hasn't been working for years now yet it is a comfortable place I return to. How does one break this chain?
I've dabbled in yoga which is supposed to realign your energy and it has had a soothing effect for me. I've also thought more and more about meditation but it's something that one has to be more purposeful about making time for and my time, like most others', gets filled up quickly with the distractions of the quotidian. Not to sound too "New Agey" but I've heard that meditation is very effective in calming the mind and putting you in touch with your "higher self."
In a sense, I feel that I already practice a form of meditation when I play music. As a musician, I sit down at my piano or play the guitar and get absorbed in a space where the chatter in my brain drops off and I am singularly enclosed in that moment when I'm connecting to the universal through tones and melodies. Music is a very satisfying therapeutic territory for me and helps me to access a higher plain while creating something very immediate and temporary -- the impermanence of a musical note -- it's sustain and decay -- forces you to inhabit the moment.
Recordings can't really do justice to live music because there is an energy to a musical performance in a specific time and ambience. In listening to live recordings you can anticipate the idiosyncratic hi-lights of that given performance, but despite the quality of the recording and the repeated pleasure one gets from listening, it still lacks that vital sense of immediacy -- where you as an audience member -- are giving the performance your undivided attention and are part of something bigger. It's not the same as listening to a live recording at home on a Sunday morning over breakfast, despite the pleasure you might derive from the audio.
I diverted into music to illustrate a wider point and that is that we have forgotten to live in the "now" -- especially those of us who are incessant worriers. I am anxious because I prone to existential panic. A fear of the future because the future ultimately leads to our finality and I have a struggle accepting that there an afterlife.
Playing music with friends, for me, is like a sacred ritual that allows me to escape into the moment. What could be more about being present in the now than making music that is a filter for joy and camaraderie? or riding your bike along a sunlit path? or being physically active or having a creative interest? I think that, we, as humans, need to have some passion or outlet that animates our senses and nurtures us outside of our routines. I find that my life is more complete with hobbies, they help me to elevate my sense of being alive, now.
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