Friday, March 12, 2021

It’s Friday night at the end of a tough week, a week where I lost myself. Learning that Charlie had close contact with Covid and the domino effect of that was difficult. One of my unhealthy anxiety coping strategies is numbing out with my phone. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and around and around we go. It’s a loop. I’m ashamed of my anxiety, and then ashamed of what I do to deal with my anxiety. The truth is that living in this pandemic has been tough for this control freak. And now that we’re getting a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel, it seems to be getting worse.

I’ve been happy to have this daily exercise of writing on here each night. And there’s been an idea for a creative project that’s popped up. But I haven’t been able to start. The resistance is bearing down on me. It’s worse than ever. I’ve read that it does this right before a breakthrough. Fingers crossed.

So, on Wednesday, as I sat all day waiting for Charlie’s test results, I looped on my phone and I looped in my head, going over terrible anxiety inducing scenarios. And I decided that night that I need to take a break. Christian came home from work, and (I’m ashamed to admit this) I had to have him change all the passwords on my social media. I knew I wouldn’t be able to break the habit without an intervention.

It’s been two days. What felt really good at the beginning, is not feeling as good now. It’s going to take a bit for me to change these habits. But it feels right. The thing I want most is meaningful creative work. And now I can see that this is one step closer to that.

And here’s the note I have at my desk. (From The Artist’s Way.)