Janus

I’m not sure I can put my finger on the domino that fell first in the line, but somehow over the last six months I have been experiencing a shift. It started with being periodically attacked with severe bouts of social anxiety and depression; worse than I’d had in years. At times, it was so crippling that I felt certain I was going to drown inside of my own mind. For a while, I couldn’t exercise. I had nothing that I wanted to do and I couldn’t motivate myself to be active. I felt lethargic, depressed, tired. I would exercise whenever I could make myself, but it was forced, and I was easily deterred. But this year I started exercising a lot more consistently, and it’s been the best possible thing that could have happened to me.

There is a gym in our complex; and while I loathe gyms, I love running on the treadmill. I put on my headphones and tune out the world and just run without stopping, sometimes for an hour straight. It is better than any therapy I’ve ever had. I get uninterrupted thinking time to process all of the insanity floating around in my brain, all while the while pummeling it with endorphins, and I gain clarity. When I’m at my worst, it helps me to not feel quite so bad. When I’m feeling down, it lifts my spirits. And when I am middle of the road, it makes me ridiculously happy. Things tend to come into focus while I run, and my body feels clear and free. Some days I just feel like I could keep running forever. Those are the BEST days.

Anyone with bad anxiety will tell you that they know that what they feel is illogical, yet they can’t help themselves from being so caught up in it anyway. It consumes you in such a way that you don’t feel free. In many ways, you really aren’t. So all of the therapy in the world that tried to bring attention to the fact that the anxious thoughts were unrealistic didn’t do me an ounce of good. “Yes, and…?” Was the response I had to this approach.

When I am in a really dark place, I am absolutely convinced that I am a terrible, unlovable person that has no purpose and doesn’t deserve to be alive. It’s that extreme. I find myself looking at things that have happened to me, and am able to find endless evidence to support this bleak and dystopian view of myself. I make the most convincing arguments against my worthiness, and I believe them.

When I’m in a good place, I feel almost healthy and normal. I drive around everywhere with the music blasting on my stereo, singing along at the top of my lungs, I have comfortable conversations with strangers, and I’m able to be myself around people and enjoy it. I’m at peace with the fact that I’m the odd duck that doesn’t fit anywhere. I feel inspired, and hopeful, and I’m kinder to myself. I don’t beat myself up for the fact that my brain only remembers song lyrics and refuses to hang on to a single useful fact. Suddenly all of the evidence supports the opposite of what I had convinced myself of before. I see that the anxiety and depression are mud-colored glasses that completely distort everything around me. I wipe the mud off, and life returns to normal.

The most interesting thing about swinging so sharply back and forth between the lows and highs in shorter periods of time is that it has brought attention to my thoughts in a way that I never could through sheer willpower alone. It’s a little jarring to believe one day that you are the scum of the universe and then the next day believe you are actually kind of awesome in your own way — with no good reason to switch between the two. This alternation has been disorienting to my brain, and it’s allowed me to pull a little further outside of myself to a higher vantage point. The lows feel like they’ve shifted, and they aren’t quite so… real… any more.

And then I realized something that I thought was interesting. That piece of me that is a lawyer at heart and can argue any side of a debate, that is sensitive and both empathic and empathetic and seeks to understand people and walk in their shoes, the writer in me — that is the same piece of me that is also the voice of my anxiety. It gets out of control and starts spinning this dark, glittering story that’s highly plausible and feels impossible to look away from. I am always telling people that the thing that feels like your biggest curse is often your greatest gift in disguise, and here is perfect evidence of that. The part of me that causes my terrible anxiety is the very same part of me that sees the world in this utterly singular way, that allows me to connect more deeply with people. It is something I would never trade away, even if it meant losing the anxiety forever. I will keep this double-edged sword. I am finally getting better at wielding it.

The Puzzle That is Life

My belief in my own self-doubt is holding me back. I cling to it like a life preserver. Yet just now I’m shaking my head, coming out of a dream, realizing the life preserver is actually an anchor and it’s dragging me down while I struggle to stay afloat.

Just because I sometimes let fear get the better of me doesn’t mean I am not also sometimes courageous. It never ceases to amaze me how when it’s something I really, really want, I can push myself through a sickening sea of extremely dark negative thoughts in order to put myself there. I’ve been wearing all of these expectations that others have of me like they are actually a part of me, thinking I have to take on every single thing. But I can’t do that. When I spread my energy too thin I wear myself down and spin my wheels. If I save my energy for the things that matter most, I can do anything.

I’ve been struggling with feeling directionless lately because I’ve been pulled creatively in about ten different directions at once. I have more ideas than I know what to do with, and more than a dozen dreams that I’m in love with. And because I create best when I follow the inspiration and allow it to pour out of me unhindered, I find myself jumping from project to project. It takes me forever to finish these projects (at least it feels that way to Miss Impatient Me) but I do eventually get there. I’m getting close to putting a box around my latest project and getting ridiculously excited to share it. But it’s not quite done yet so I’m going to try not to get ahead of myself. (Really… SO FREAKEN CLOSE THOUGH! The anticipation is killing me.) I have learned the hard way how important it is to wait until projects are actually ready before you share them. It’s worth taking the time to make them as good as you can without being such a perfectionist you get stuck in revisions forever. Patience, Tien-san.

The journey of life is very much like putting together an oversize jigsaw puzzle without ever seeing the front of the box. For a long time, you’re grasping at pieces, trying anything to see what fits. You have no idea what your goal is or where you’re going, just a blind faith that eventually some of the pieces will fit together and start to make sense. Over the years, they kind of begin to; but you still have no idea what the final picture will look like. Then one day you somehow manage to put a whole bunch of pieces together at once and a great number of things come sharply into focus. It’s been so slow in coming that all at once it seems like you can see the whole picture. It takes a while before the glow fades and you realize that it may be a big piece, but it’s not the whole puzzle. There are still more pieces that are missing. So you keep sorting, testing, searching. And then one golden afternoon you look down at the sheet of paper that came with the puzzle and realize that it says “Infinite piece jigsaw puzzle”.

It’s never, ever going to be finished. And the moment you stop fighting with that fact, the puzzle becomes a lot more fun. You realize that every single day you get to add your own brand-new pieces to it — and the picture will continue to become what you choose for it to be.

You will hurt. Parts of you might never stop hurting. But you don’t have to let yourself be defined by those hurts. They are not all that you are. That pain gives you the gift of a deeper, richer, and more fulfilling joy than you can possibly imagine. It starts with deciding to love yourself exactly as you are — millions of flaws and all, imperfections that stick like needles — not with the expectation that you have to act or behave a certain way to be a lovable person. You decide to forgive yourself for the things that feel unforgivable. You are lovable, even if you don’t always feel that way.

Today I feel the most incredible sense of peace I have felt in a long, long time. I’m a highly imperfect person, filled to the brim with flaws and fears and regrets. And you know what? I’m also fucking awesome. It’s amazing how much fear I have to say that. I’m like, “if I say that does that make me vain?” It’s a very tight shoe for someone that has spent her life feeling inferior in just about every way. But no — there’s not a damn thing wrong with me saying hey, there are probably a lot of people out there who don’t like me for one reason or another. They perceive me negatively for whatever reason. But those people don’t get to define who I am. Don’t I deserve to finally know for once what it feels like to actually really like who I am? Why does my insecurity get to be the box I hide myself in forever?

It’s such a peaceful feeling to own your power. No, I’m not going to set myself up for the expectation that I can live in that 24/7. But when I’m connected to my own heart and I say to myself I’m going to love you, Tien, even when you fall on your face, well… I feel like I can do anything.

Embracing the Dark

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Hemingway

Well fuck you, too, Hemingway. I’m not quite sure why you think it’s so easy to sit down and put words to your deepest and darkest thoughts, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say that if you think there’s nothing to it, then you aren’t truly bleeding.

I certainly don’t find it easy to do so. They say that it isn’t worth writing about if it doesn’t scare you shitless, so by that reasoning, I must have a lot of things worth writing about. Everything seems to scare me shitless. Especially these days. You can’t do anything without someone having an opinion about it and I’ve never been very good at not caring about what other people think. I have this frustrating need inside of me to be liked by everyone, so I doom myself to failure by default.

I don’t want people to see me as rude, or angry, or stupid, or cold, or weird, or embarrassing, or dorky, or deluded, or bitchy, or overemotional, or uninformed, or untalented, or scared, or inferior in any way.

Why am I so scared of being all of these things? Is it maybe… because I am all of these things?

I’ve dedicated my life to fighting against all of those aspects of myself that I don’t like, because I don’t want to take on all of those labels. I’m afraid that if I let them too close, admit that maybe they belong to me, they will completely overtake me and that is all I will ever be.

What utter insanity.

Everything in life is dualistic in nature; light/dark, inner/outer, hot/cold, pleasure/pain, everything/nothing. There can’t be one without the other. So why would I expect myself to be any different than the world around me?

I cannot be only a rude person or only a kind person; I am both. I can be either smart or stupid, depending on the moment. I am both ugly and beautiful. Generous and greedy. Free and caged. I cannot be anything without also being the opposite. The right half of my body has been running from the left and I’m finally standing here, out of breath, realizing that both sides are attached to each other and I couldn’t have even run the last twenty nine blocks if it wasn’t for both of them together.

It’s okay if sometimes I do things, and other people never understand why. I cannot stop being half of who I am. I cannot be a bad person without also being a good person, too.

The same goes for my emotions. I’ve spent my life trying to cure myself of my social anxiety. I chastise myself endlessly when I lose my temper. I feel guilty when I have a depressed day. I hate myself for wanting things I think I can’t have, I’m always trying to meditate my way back to serenity, and I hit myself over the head internally with logic when I feel illogical emotions, even though I know it serves no purpose other than to make me feel terrible about myself.

I realize now that sometime long, long ago, back before I can even remember, I bought into this idea that I’m sick and I need help; that I’m broken and if I can just figure out how, I will find a way to fix myself and become the happy, free person I’ve always wanted to be. The person I already know that I am, that is just covered up sometimes.

The mistake that I keep making is to think that I can leave half of myself behind. I will always be both caged, and free. And I will continue to fluctuate between those emotions that I put in a row and label “good” and those emotions that I kick into the corner and try to cover up and hide and mutter “bad” under my breath so that no one knows I have them.

Maybe the problem I have with my emotions is the same problem that we all have with other people. Why do we have to label everyone and categorize them? Why is she only a bitch and not also a human being? Why can’t a badass also be a sweetheart? That guy who seems like an unfeeling robot is probably also tormented somewhere deep inside, tucked away. And yes, even the nicest person you know can become irate under the right circumstances.

Why do we as a society feel so compelled to sweep the “bad” emotions under the rug? When someone cries, we rush to comfort them and try to make them feel better. When someone is upset, we try to calm them down. Why can’t we ever just let people feel what they are feeling, without trying to fix or change them?

I’m not talking about drowning in misery forever and ever, I’m talking about this need we have as human beings that the moment someone switches from “good” to “bad” to try to run over and drag them back as fast as we can, as if it’s some kind of disease we don’t want them to catch.

And along that same line, I am so sick and tired of spirituality being equated to serenity and peace. Blissing out all the time sounds an awful lot to me like being sedated. Why is this always the goal of spiritual practice, hell, in many ways, the goal of everything we do? Everyone is so obsessed with being happy and staying positive and looking for the silver lining — and don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that any of those things are inherently bad. They are important. But why do we constantly try to negate everything else — especially to each other?

“Come on, it’s not that bad. You just have to look on the bright side.” It’s a subtle comment, and something we probably hear often, in so many words. “You shouldn’t be worrying about that. Pull yourself together. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

The problem with any of these sentiments, however well-intended, is that we are subtly saying that our feelings are not valid, and we need to fix them and cover them up and feel better quickly. Now yes, there does come a point during self-sorrow at which we sometimes need someone else to help pull us up out of wallowing so that we can see things for what they are. But let’s be clear: most of the time that we make these statements, that isn’t the case at all. As a society, we habitually tend to jump far too quickly to soothing and smoothing the moment we smell sorrow or anger. We want to calm and quiet and offer solutions on how to fix the problem or feel better.

The so-called spiritual variation of this tendency feels like a more entitled version of the same, with just a splash of disguised gaslighting, even if it isn’t intended that way by the person who says it. “You don’t have to be a victim to your emotions. You need to focus more on what you are thankful for.” While these are all wonderful truths that are rooted in ideologies that can help us tremendously, I feel like they are used out of context far too often. We’ve been taught to believe that to feel pain or anger or sorrow is unspiritual, and that if we give into it for too long we are weak and unevolved.

This way of thinking is completely backwards. It is our pain and our sorrow, our fears and our hungers, that make us inherently human. There are so many gifts in our struggles. Without them, we can never truly experience freedom.

As an artist, my purpose in life isn’t just to feel joy and pain, but to feel them both deeply, and to express them in only the way that I can. If I can learn to embrace my “bad” emotions, and find a way to love them even as I hate them, I might just discover peace within the heart of chaos.