I’m obsessed right now. I’m obsessed with what I may or may not eat on Saturday night. I’m obsessed with my running metrics and the fact that despite increasing my miles, hills and running, my watch is telling me that I’m fucking losing fitness and in recovery mode. I’m obsessed with my heart rate while I run, which isn’t necessarily new, but trying to run by feel instead of by staring at a screen is throwing my poor little brain over the edge. I’m obsessed with whether or not my ankle feels sore from adding intensity and mileage, elevation (or from walking 20k steps a day during quarantine), or if it’s my mind magnifying the plate in there and I’m broken again.
And then I feel bad for being obsessed. I feel bad for complaining about my life right now, knowing how incredibly relaxed it is and abnormally quiet. I feel bad for complaining about being paid to do minimally, while literally millions do not have a job at all. I feel bad for laser focusing on metrics that don’t account for who I am, while Mike didn’t get the first series of funding from the government for his new business that he now owns. I feel bad for being restless and bored, when so many are losing their loved ones or sick themselves. I feel bad for not appreciating this opportunity and taking full advantage of experiencing it, and instead am listing things to do or not to do in my head every day.
I give this background because I just listened to a Brene Brown podcast about how we respond to daily anxiety. There’s over-functioning, and under-functioning. I’ll give you one guess with a guarantee of being right about which course I always take. Over-functioning is how we respond to things outside of our control (hello COVID-19) by doing more, by controlling, by knocking off the bullet list and getting shit done. I didn’t realize that my propensity to do and to do more is likely a result of me trying to cope with an overwhelming situation that I have zero control over and how I have learned to cope with my anxiety over the years instead of taking medication or truly embracing sitting still. It’s how I keep myself feeling as safe as possible, most of the time.
On the contrary, other people under-function as a means of coping with their daily anxiety, and as a result do less, become timid or shy, and in my eyes, appear weak or lazy. That is not me. And because I had not considered that response to be just as viable as my response, I tend to look at people who do not function as I do and judge them as less equipped or capable.
I have a hard time finding compassion for those who do not do as I do. It’s not really a matter of me being “better” and you being “worse”, but more a function of complete confusion as to why you wouldn’t do what clearly works (for me) and makes (my) life better. Typing that is hysterical. I think I know what clearly works for me and therefore you, and what makes my life better and thus ultimately most likely yours as well. I have years of practicing what works for me, not you. I have years of perfecting my craft – my ability to do, to be disciplined, and to succeed. I do not have any time on your side of the street, knowing what makes you feel best about yourself or knowing how you feel safest. I know what I think I see or what I think I hear, and that you do not always feel good about yourself when you do not do things differently, but that is not for me to control, change, or fix. That is for you.
Fitness is how I express myself and frankly, remove a lot of the anxiety I feel and try to deflect by over-functioning. When you choose to sleep instead of grind, or skip the workout and read, or watch TV instead of walk, I can’t relate to you. And when I can’t relate, I withdraw and cocoon into safety. It looks like guardedness, judgement, and a calloused heart. It looks like irritability and closed mindedness and sometimes arrogance. It looks like I want to be further away from you, instead of closer. It makes it hard to be vulnerable and it makes it hard to stop doing to get out of my own way.
And it makes me suffer. It blocks me from the experience that I could be having, all by myself. It takes me out of the moment and places me either in the past, or in the future. It washes over me like a mantra, and if I don’t get quiet and still and literally say “NO” or “STOP”, it becomes my truth. And when it becomes my truth, I become subject to old behaviors and not trusting and a total inability to connect. And it feels bad. It feels hard. It feels unlike who I want to be.
Can you relate right now? Are you having a hard time even though it looks like you’re doing fine? Are you acknowledging that you’re mostly great, with pockets of delusion and hysteria? Are you suppressing your feelings by deflecting them into food, or sleeping, or compulsive cleaning, or mindless scrolling? Or are you here, with me, present and open and wanting to be better?
We’re all in this together, even fi our variables are drastically different. I have been mandated to walk less and get off of my feet more, so I will be here waiting for you. I will be here for calls, texts, blog remarks and hopefully laughs. We are not alone, even if it feels that way at times.
I promise.