MOMENTUM IS SO IMPORTANT

Note to self!!! It's so much easier to keep a ball rolling than to get it rolling!

Just because you've managed to do something you love to do doesn't mean you can rest easy and just leave it like it's wala lang - you need to make an effort to keep going, because even if it stays there somewhere in your head, it doesn't mean it's going to stay easy to get out into your hands or whatever you use to get your work out there 2.0 - the rest of the world outside of that big old head of yours!

This explains my absence for many months. I could never just keep the ball rolling here. So here's a non-edited, super wala-lang post, just for the sake of getting things rolling.

These days, most of us are stuck. If you're one of the lucky ones, like me, that means stuck indoors. But for many brave souls, they are stuck outdoors, stuck outside of their usual routines, having to brave so many new perils, apart from Covid-19 itself - lack of transportation, the difficulty of staying three feet away from every other person, a suddenly very dangerous job (every "frontline" job entails being around other people!).

The lucky ones face a different peril - the peril of not feeling like you can choose what to do with your time. It feels as though we are all on guard, our fight-or-flight responses just waiting to respond to any new danger - and when you're relatively "safe" indoors - that might just mean being on high alert for any new announcement from the government, or the news. Any red ping on your social media channels, any new hoax or report, or anecdote. And it's so easy to remain frozen in your seat, with wide bloodshot eyes, and suddenly free time isn't really free anymore.

Today, I felt truly stuck. I felt that familiar dopamine ride of having to keep scrolling my feeds to get updates. Updates on what, I don't even know anymore. But I just knew I had to stop. I had left so many things alone for days now, and have lost sight of what's important.

In December I had started a plan of re-hauling my lifestyle - I wanted to do a less-is-more approach and to monitor it through my journals. Since then, I'd have stretches of time where it was easy and good, and a few times where things suddenly changed drastically and I get confused and feel unable to keep habits going. 2020 has been a particularly topsy-turvy year. But I wanted to treat it as an opportunity to train and test the habits. But these days since I've been stuck indoors, I have done little apart from just watching my feeds. I guess it's the ambivert in me, wanting to know how everyone else is doing. But today, I'm taking my control back.

I decided to leave my feeds alone for 5 hours. Just 5 hours! Just to break the negative momentum. I decided to look back on my habit plans. I'm going to take back my control.

I need to put out at least as much as I'm taking in.

I hope you find a way to find yourself, take a bit of yourself back, during this strange time. Remove the non-essentials. It's a good easy way to suddenly have some perspective in life, when things suddenly go very very wrong. Find what it is that would make your days feel like they're what you want to make of them. Take a little bit back each time. Find who you want to be, no matter what the rest of the world is like. Then take it day by day, until you can just keep it going. Upward. Forward. Onward. That's my new catchphrase. I know it's corny. But I love spacey stuff (U.F.O.! Isn't it cute?!) and to me it truly works to make things catchy and silly. Whatever works!

Let's keep moving, friends. We can do this. We can stay human.

U. F. O. !🚀

it's not about me. it's not about you.

in this production that is life, where we make scripts out of ideas and perform our humanity by sharing ourselves and our work, some of us will choose to be on camera, to be under the spotlight, to be the ones on the stage.

some will choose to stay backstage, behind the camera, working their magic from behind the shadows: their work doesn't have their faces on them, and we critique their work without making it personal.

but a lot more of us will choose to be part of the audience.

the audience plays a crucial part in any performance - we are the ones with enough distance from the productions to be able to objectively critique them. we are not operating on the survival mode level of "the show must go on" and are able to keep our wits about us. sometimes too much wit, that we forget to empathize with the performers in their heavy costumes under the hot spotlight.

we are the lucky ones able to just sit down and digest whatever's offered, and to place judgement. we don't feel the frantic energy behind the production that might make our opinions about inauthentic props and bad makeup feel very petty and unjust.

oftentimes, we forget that this is a privilege we receive by taking on this more passive role.

when you are onstage, people can hear you more, but you are also given fewer chances to be wrong. each failure, each misstep, can taint your name and even remove you from the stage, if it gets too bad.

we are all people, when stripped of our roles: we have preconceived notions, biases, unkind thoughts, misdirected emotions...

but when we only operate in the realm of ideas, and not so much in the realm of action, we are safe to think wrongly of things at first. our silence becomes a safety net for peoples' perception of us. we can try again, change ourselves, and choose to just show up when we're better. someday...

as i get older, i try harder to remember this, and to remind myself to look at everyone, whether they be actors in the spotlight, crew members behind the scaffolds, or vocal audience members, as parts of one whole. it is this one whole, this production, that needs to be critiqued. to be improved upon.

what is it to be human? what are we imparting to this world? where are we going?

i see no harm in criticizing points of view, in fact, it's crucial. but i find it important to remember that it's not about individual vendettas, that everyone comes from some place when forming their ideas about the world. it's all about trying to tip the scale, not writing someone off because they had a bad day, chose the wrong word once, or had a fuzzy brain day, like i'm having today as i write this.

(but of course, there will be those who will repeatedly resist any efforts people around them to put them on track, those who probably need some time off and take some time alone. i am not talking about those people. sometimes some people just need to SIT. DDOOWWWNN for a bit.)

i keep getting creative blocks whenever i get new ideas. i can never put anything forward because i fear being criticized in this way. i find the warm safety of my silence to be nice and familiar for little old low-impact me.

but i'm thinking that maybe if i am able to offer myself this same kindness, it wouldn't be so bad. i will just have to ignore the little nonconstructive audience member voices in my head, and accept that when you're ~in there~, you will be imperfect, you will make mistakes, but you will exercise the muscle of being out there, and little glimpses of what's right will eventually outshine the parts that are wrong, or awkward, or poorly done.

so, here's to me having to write sentences without capitalization because it ruins my flow and i'd rather write ugly than not write at all.

here's to me probably having a few typos or grammatical errors in here somewhere that i probably won't see until someone points it out because i don't want to risk not wanting to post this at all by reading back too many times (please do tell me if you find any! i'd appreciate it.)

here's to making mistakes on stage, in front, out loud, on camera, here's to exposing myself and to accepting that sometimes, audience members can forget to be kind, but that i don't have to be unkind to myself too.

here's to deciding to fill in one role fully instead of mentally splitting myself into all roles at all times, running the risk never getting anything done as a result.

here's to less of me, and more of what i want to bring forward.

here's to less of you, and more of our interaction and its effects.

here's to the production we are creating together.

may we be both grittier yet kinder somehow.

Emotional Minimalism

What if you could declutter your feelings?

What if you could look over the stock of emotional reactions you keep around, decide which ones to keep, and which ones aren't serving you anymore, and let them go?

Sure you can't toss people out in your life, there will always be bad apples in your circles, maybe even your family, but what if you can toss out the guilt, shame, undeserved care, or any other feeling associated with them that doesn't do anyone any good?

What if you can free yourself from the insecurity of not being as good as you want to be, and make some space to stock up on feeling excited about how much you can improve instead? After all, minimalism isn't about merely having less, but rather having what is essential, and forgoing everything else.

What if you could accept and recognize the effect of toxic people on you and decide not to feel obliged to impress them, and allow yourself to keep a civil, safe distance?

The thing is, you can. Sure, it's not an exact analogy: there is no before-and-after picture you can take, and it cannot be done over one long holiday. Emotions are habits, not things, and saying they're easy to quit is like saying beating addiction is as simple as just not buying cigarettes anymore.

Most days it would feel like giving away old clothes, only to find them back in your closet the next day. Emotions are clothes, if clothes were alive and could crawl.

Emotional decluttering feels more like training a muscle. You'll have to do it regularly, but there will always be an improvement, and it should only get easier over time.

And the way to start is to stop and decide to be aware of what you have in there in the first place. A lot of objectivity, a listening ear from a friend, maybe even a bit of journalling, but the most important thing is to choose to be aware of how you feel from now on.

Know that your emotions don't have to BE you. You don't have to let the monstrous black tides that wash over you pull you away into an endless sea of hopelessness or anger. You are more like a shelf, and emotions are the books you put into it. And sure, the longer you keep some books in there, the more they're going to look like they're part of that shelf, and the shelf won't ever be the same without them. That's all fine and good if you're keeping good classics in there that remind you of how to strive in life, and how to create and keep joy. How to love, or feel grateful, so sure keep those. But if they're shitty novels or gossip rags, would the shelf never being the same be such a bad thing?

It's hard, and it will take time. But it's a choice you can always make.

And again, Minimalism is not about having the least possible amount, but about having less of what you don't need, and more of what is essential. So perhaps, replacing the bad with the good will do you more favors than just trying to create a void and resisting the icky feelings when they come. Build the habit of hopping onto a happier train of thought instead of boring a hole into an awkward memory of a moment that you can't change.

There is loads of good advice out there about the hows of it all, but the most important part is to remind yourself that it's an option. There is a different way to live. There is a way to think kinder, that is, thinking in a way that is kinder to yourself, and this will allow you to also be kinder to others.

Since we're welcoming a new year soon, perhaps it would be a good time to start.

It's Longer in the Thick of It

If you're expecting anything raunchy because of my title, prepare to be disappointed. I'm here to talk about a very un-sexy topic for most people.

The passage of time. Or maybe more like your passage within it.

Time flies, they say, when you're having fun. And time supposedly goes faster for you as you get older. As you notice and remember patterns from every day life, repeat sensations will start to feel like your brain just skimming a page, never letting your consciousness settle or find a home within the moments. And in the end, you look back, and much of it would feel like you just floated by, with your senses numbed. Tewwifying!

A couple nights ago, I walked home on my usual route, and a thought made me freeze: This street I'm walking on feels suspiciously shorter. Am I letting "the Now" slip by too fast? Am I skimming this page of my life?

When things like that happen, I like to recall what it was like to be a child, to have every sight, scent, and sound assault me. So vivid, my days felt like dreams within dreams, and every sunset would feel like saying goodbye to a good friend. I try to conjure that up in me, with varying results.

These days, they feel more and more like missed chances with encounters of smiling strangers. We could have been friends, but I didn't quite get to know who you were, Day, or what we could have been. So bye I guess.

This pattern recognition thing, although I'm sure it helps us function easier from day to day, sometimes feels like a bubble suit acting like a barrier between me and the world. As more patterns form, it's as if the bubble crystallizes, letting me feel less and less, separating me from the world.

Except when I'm scared shitless.

I realized, while walking that night, that it wasn't that I was savoring my walks more in the past. It was more because I always felt like something was going to hurt or kill me, and I've grown out of that somewhat.

Now that I have less travel anxiety, I could function like most folks during transit or on foot. I'll sort of just go my way automatically and think about something far far away in my head, and that probably makes things feel shorter.

I feel more safe now, and that's a good thing.

But for other things in life, too much safety, too much of the same, not taking risks... It can make time feel so short.

Are we always going to go through hardships that feel drawn on, only to find that once we've reached the resolution of our challenges, time will slip by beyond the finish line?

I'm still holding on to a hope that I can keep things fresh without having to resort to risky behavior.

But a comforting thought that I get from all of this is that: Right now, I'm in the thick of figuring things out. And it will feel slow, and at times, it will feel like things aren't changing and can never be the way I hope them to be. But even though I'm challenged and I find myself anxious and fearful a lot of the time, I'm at least in a safe place where I can grow, I am cared for, and I have people to talk to. That's far better than where I used to be, and I have hope that my challenges will evolve and change, but I will always be able to step back once in a while to see, smell, feel all of it in all its glory.

I will always remember in gratitude the things I used to be unable to filter out, and in the future, when I'm over my current ones, the things I still can't filter out to this day: all my over-analyzed interactions, my illogical fears, all the times I think I come off too strange...

Someday that might change, but I won't forget that it did. And so time will slow down in reverence, and I will be able to stop and stare in wonder at all the beautiful ways that a person can evolve within a lifetime.

Tricycle Therapy aka Dealing with my Demons in the Dark

Coming home today I had a nice talk with Beardy. It was one of those talks where what you say just unfolds by itself, sort of a live epiphany in front of a one-man audience.

It helped that we were in the dark, in a cramped tricycle, loud motor running, me buzzed from sitting all day making* art. I felt like bursting, and was in a safe space to do so.

I told him about how I think I've been avoiding being "seen" for a long time, because I wasn't comfortable with myself.

Being "seen" as in leaving any sort of impression. At first I claimed that I didn't want to leave any strong impression on anyone, and so I feel scared when people seem to get a whiff of my critical/agit side (I attempt to mask this by showing my kooky/awkward side so people know I don't bite) but I suddenly realised that I was trying to not make ANY impression at all.

Thus I had an aversion to speaking my mind without being asked (by name, not as part of a crowd), or to volunteer for things, or to make friends with people I liked or admired.

But recent developments had made it so that I've been spending more time with those people, and so it's becoming very unlikely for them to not have any impression of me. And so this provided a stark contrast from how things were just a year ago, which made the reasons, I guess, bubble up to the surface.

let's provide a visual! the oil = deep seated issues. they were stuck to the bottom when i was socially empty and friends = water!! 

It's because I have an ideal self, and I know I'm far from being her as of yet.

My ideal self would be kind enough to speak her mind, ask questions when in doubt of what someone says, but sound calm and reassuring enough that the person wouldn't feel attacked. But that takes a lot of nerve. It takes a very calm person. And I'm typically a very nervy person.

I get too nervous when speaking up around people because I'm overly either sensitive or imaginative about what they would think or how they'd feel of/about what I say.

It's kind of funny to realise this now, at a point in my life where I've supposedly very decidedly stopped caring what other people think about me. But now I realise that that only goes as far as my appearance. I don't care about being ugly, fat, or hairy. But I do care about being kind.

Beardy reassured me that it's already a lot for me to be so ambitious about being a better person, instead of being too happy about who I already am. I told him I admired him and others, who felt comfortable to be seen as who they are. Comfortable about people knowing their impatience, pickiness, all of their glorious idiosyncrasies, but he said he admired that I'm aware of mine and would like to improve upon them instead of settling.

I'm realising that perhaps I've reached the point of no return. There are things to be worked on that could only be worked on under the lamplight of the company of other people. I may feel like I got it together when I'm alone or unstimulated, when my mental, emotional and physical energies are untapped and thus feel abundant. I did feel like I was searching for a "flowier" state of being, rather than the safe and stagnant shell I felt I was in. Maybe I'm here now. Maybe this is how it will feel for a while.

I will feel more watched, my palms and feet will be sweaty, but I'd be learning and relating to other people more, at an exponential rate. I will feel misunderstood, I will feel scared about perhaps having said the wrong thing, but this way, I'd be able to reach and help more people, with whatever I'm called out to do. I'd be nervous because I care, and uncomfortable like I'm in a tricycle.

And maybe sometimes, that's the kindest thing to be.



 (*term used loosely: our mentor tells it's just copying because the composition is directed) 

🛫expanding the target🎯

there will be times where it will feel like

you're jumping off
                               a
                                   c
                                     l
                                      i
                                       f
                                        f

towards a --------------->   tiny target   <-------------------


and so it'll feel like it means E V E R Y T H I N G to you,

like it was somehow so very...
dense



in that, it's    so    very  
                                           small,       so         very     
                                                                                                            far,    so     very    hard   to   nail

but

weighed 

so, 

so 

MUCH.

and there's just this formidable nothingness

surrounding it

enveloping it and

threatening your life

and the more you look at it

the harder it is to look away

and more and more you feel like

there is no way

that you wouldn't fail

that you wouldn't miss

that you wouldn't just

go back to nothing


And when that nothingness threatens you
I hope you remember

That nothing doesn't have to be nothing
you can fill all that space with
a whole bunch of somethings

And those whole bunch of somethings
can turn into   c                                                    o                                                       w      s    .         .
                             l      o        d     s,               s          f                   p      i               o                        .
                                          u                                            t                         l    l


on which,

                 if you fail,

                                  (and we're still hoping that you won't)



                                              you can softly,



                                                          gently,




                                                                 land



                                                                  (even if it's with tears in your eyes)


                                                                           so that instead of s h a t t e r i n g

                                                                                you can simply find your feet

                                                                                    dust yourself off
                                                                                             get back up
                                                                                                                and walk over

to something  new.         

🍋what do wit all dees lemons🍋

Man this week has been rough on me. 

But that's why I'm here now, actually posting something after weeks of just meaning to, in a very frustrated kind of way. 

Normally I try to write something that's helpful, or at the very least, thoughtful. I write with the hope that the reader won't feel like I wasted their time. But lately it's been hard to complete drafts. I've been feeling on edge and I can't sit still enough to finish what I start writing, even when I'm passionate about it (actually that makes it harder -those things are usually longer and stressful to write, especially during these weird times we're having on this planet).

But this time I'm reaching out to writing in an attempt to add value to my own life: this is completely for me this time, a form of self-care. I decided, since I can't write because of my struggles, I'll attempt to write about these struggles. For catharsis, for therapy, I don't know. Maybe to simply get out of the writing rut I'm in.

I have an important appointment coming up, something probably routine for other people, but of crucial significance for me, personally. There's much (perhaps irrational) anxiety surrounding it due to past experience so maybe it won't be the best thing for me to directly summon what is, it that must not be named, so suffice it to say that it's the most probable cause of all this, but it's not what I'm going to write about.

I want to write about the anxiety it's causing, the strange way it manifests this time around, and what I've been doing to cope.

Two weeks ago, I noticed my energy at work being at an all-time high. I did things faster with more focus, and obviously thought this was a good thing! Why wouldn't it be? I probably had adequate rest during the Christmas break. Then early this week, I noticed something else: I felt anxious when I'm still and there was a bit of desperation in the act of doing my work that I thought I was doing gleefully. I felt weird things in my chest. I've felt like I was about to pass out once. I wondered if I was actually exhausted by all the work I've chosen to do and could not sense it for some strange reason. I couldn't sleep soundly. Sometimes I felt a strangling feeling in my neck.

Then I realised (with a bit of guilty Googling I admit) that I've felt this before. It was during the time in my life when I was a terribly anxious wreck and incredibly fragile, something I believe I've moved on from now. I thought I wasn't taking my looming appointment so bad, I've been more or less positive and didn't linger as much as I used to for stressful thoughts, but I guess my subconscious has been having a different experience? Not sure. 

But I do believe I have moved on from that and am very much past that phase. It's just, well, I assume that someone in recovery might still regress a bit when exposed to the right triggers and environment. The important thing is, this time around, I've been coping a lot better.

Things I've tried to combat my anxiety:

(that have sorta worked)

• Talking about it, laughing about it - Once I became aware of what was happening, I tried to talk to people I meet everyday, both as a way to express my feelings and feel less alone in carrying the psychological weight, but also to ease any voice that might eventually tell me "Your anxiety is making you act weird and now everyone hates you." I'm going ahead of it now because that's better than explaining myself after the fact. And of course, laughing about it makes the psychological weight get lighter in the first place! Highly recommend especially if you're as awkward as me. Sometimes, this makes people tell me reassuring things, so that's another plus!
• Conscious breathing - It was especially bad on Thursday, and in the bath I felt like I wanted to tear my hair out/thrash around/bang my head against the walls. Then I luckily found the sense to give the Mindfulness Exercise we've been doing at work a try, but less focusing on what I feel (it was working too slow!) and more on focusing on long, drawn out exhales. I imagined myself as having taken too much air inside, the feeling of anxiety as having been caused by excessive inhaling (as it does feel a lot like I'm about to burst at times) and this anxiety deflating/escaping up into the atmosphere and away from me as I breathe out. This brought me back to a place where I could sort of grab my thoughts which before felt like little noisy children running chaotically in random directions. I sat dose chirren down. They were still buzzing and jittery and I was incredibly tired, but I can stop chasing them around now.
• Moving a lot - I noticed that I had difficulty in sit-down tasks that need more than a few minutes, this very blog post included (I started writing this on Thursday)! I also had a hard time updating my planner, which made me sad because I'd been doing such a great job since December. I couldn't write, couldn't draw, couldn't study the software I was meaning to tinker with. I guess this is also why I've been doing chores nonstop at work and at home. I keep finding things to clean. And on Thursday, when it got so bad, I asked Beardy to come run with me upstairs, which of course turned into brisk walking after one lap because I'm no runner. I guess because there's a dangerous room in my brain right now, my whole body is working against coming near it, so I'm mostly staying down here in my body rather than up there. I was hoping this would exhaust me so much that I'd sleep better, but that's not quite working out. It does stop the bad feelings from building up though. Maybe it's endorphins! I don't expect this to help me get rid of my December chubs just yet, because I feel like my body holds on to fat more when I'm scared, like it thinks I'm about to die and it's in survival mode (I just Googled this to make sure I'm not writing complete nonsense here and apparently cortisol, the stress hormone, and weight gain, have a relationship with each other. I don't know how serious it is between the two of them but I just don't want to get involved that kind of threesome)

I do feel like I have to point out that running seemed to have made me sick now, so maybe make sure not to do the running in the rain when you're stressed and probably have lower immunity to viruses and whatnot.

There's still a couple of weeks until my appointment, and I'm hoping the worst is over, but I'm going to keep trying to keep on with these techniques until then. I do feel like I've been doing a better job than I have in the past in not bothering myself with everything at once, in taking things one step at a time. My planner helps me to set days for tasks that can stress me out, so I don't need to worry about them until it's time, and when I fail to write it down, I try mental notes. Unreliable method, but you do the best you can do when you simply can't do the best you can do.