The Difference between Truth and your own Truth and How This Can Affect Your Anxiety.

I think we all want some level of certainty in our lives and in some places there is certainty, as far as our lifetime is concerned. For example: Tomorrow the Sun will rise. Maybe not for everyone, for some of us tonight is it. This morning's Sunrise was our last, but the Sun will certainly rise nonetheless. According to science one day the Sun will be gone. Until then it will certainly rise.
We also want truth and facts, but truthfully despite facts being facts and everything else being fiction people have the truth and sometimes have THEIR truth. Now perception may very well be realty, but truth is truth. I know that I want truth and facts, but I also rationalize things that may be fiction into my own version of the truth. We all do this. I think this is why their is still debate over whether or not certain groups of people are actually "people". We see it in our media and in our politics, but we also see it in our everyday lives. Something as simple as a loved one gripping over something someone else did to them, like cutting them off in traffic when they know full well that they've done it to others and rationalize the why in a nanosecond. They had to because of a myriad of reasons. None of which may be fact, but does it really matter? Maybe, but not to them and not to all of us sometimes.

Anxiety is all about certainties that for the most part do not really exist. We want a certainty that we're going to be ok, not die and everything is going to be fine. It won't and we will, eventually. For starters what is "fine" and what is "ok"? I think we think we know what we mean when we want to be fine or ok or good or happy, but really we don't know what we want exactly or what they are exactly. This is why mindfulness and practicing acceptance really do work. They may not always work simply because we can't or won't accept things for what they are. I'm guilty of this, I'm SO, SO guilty of this in fact. I want. I want things to be a certain way, I want to control my realty. This is stress. This is anxiety and so many other problems I know I go through and will continue to go through. You too will stumble over these things time and time again. I feel like every time I learn a lesson or gain experience I'm just faced with another lesson and need to gain more experience and so forth. This will probably continue for the remainder of my life.

Just take a quick look at your social media feed. This is jam packed with opinions posing as facts and everyone you know giving their two cents. This is actually pretty great. Everyone does have an opinion and a view point and from their experiences things to say about their perceived realty, but this is also an infuriating thing. Philosophers, teachers, leaders and memes all tell tales of "the truth". The truth will always come out and shine through all the fiction, or bullshit and leads us into some sunny satisfaction, the end roll credits, but how often does this really happen? Right now as you read this, and I thank you for reading this, there are people just like you and I debating over whether or not the Earth is flat. Yes, I know, but they are just like you and I. They are! lol They found some information, whether it's fact or fiction is irrelevant. They found it and they believe it and once that happens it becomes a part of them. We are constantly forming and reforming our personalities and identities and once we make these changes it's not so easy to change them back, or forward depending on how you look at it. It's a circular cycle and it seems very daunting. Facts or fiction will be fought over. Friend, family and stranger will all verbally kill each other in the comment section over whether or not the Earth is flat or if someone calls themself a he or a she or a they is ok or not, etc. Where do the facts come in? and when do they end a debate? It seems as though every issue will go on forever. This is anxiety.

Inside of your head and my head this is going on. There is fact and there is fiction and we fight with ourselves over and over again. Taking one stand then flip flopping, then playing devil's advocate, then becoming cynical and angry and negative and serving no one and nothing, just fighting to fight. We become our very own troll. A troll who knows our every move and thought just as we make it or even before. It's a fight that can't be won, because we are both on the offense and the defense. This is what I think overthinking is. It's just overlooking facts and truth and what the heart or head says and just going by fear and raw emotion. Now fear has its place and so does raw emotion, but letting ourselves get wrapped up in thought is not good. Too much of anything isn't good right? Well, maybe not pizza. HEY! Don't debate me on this! PIZZA FO LIFE! See! lol

Over the years I have identified several triggers for myself and I'm willing to bet that these triggers may be the same for almost everyone, especially those with anxiety. I love coffee, but caffeine can be a trigger. I made a very strong pot of coffee this morning, had one cup and here I am like nine hours later still feeling it. I'm sensitive to caffeine and I know it, yet I made the damn thing. Social media is a trigger. I honestly love social media and I think we all do, but we say we hate it sometimes because we know it's not great in large doses. Yet, we all consume large doses. Scrolling and scrolling. Seeing funny things and terrible things and anger and fighting and sex and food, etc. It's like a slot machine of drugs for our brains and we just keep pulling that arm. Do slot machines have arms anymore? What is this 1972? I mean, we keep pushing those buttons. Dopamine and adrenaline and serotonin etc.  We don't want to miss out. This is another form of control and basically a level of controlling our certainties. I think on some deep animal level we feel like if we keep scrolling and reading things and watching videos we're safe. The body is getting bombarded with chemicals and it kinda feels good and comfortable so we keep doing it. We all do this. All day long I see notifications from everyone else who is also supposed to be working at work lol. Now, I do have a great advantage, at least I think it's an advantage. I work outside all day. Yes, in the cold and in the heat, but outside in nature. I cannot see my phone for hours at a time and I know that even though I'm working hard and it can be frustrating I feel better in those eight or ten ours a day I'm working. This is positive distraction. I'm not trying too hard to control anything, I'm not looking for certainties. I'm just working on a task and then I move on to the next customer and do the same thing. It's challenging but not too much so and on a beautiful day it truly is heaven. It's the middle of Winter her in NY and there have been some unbearable cold days where I wanted to just quit on the spot, but then a week or so ago we had three days of fifty degree whether and I have to say that I have not felt that good in a while, or at least it felt like a while. I was what I call "in the zone". Now we all know I did not coin that phrase, but that is how I felt. I was totally in the moment and just everything clicked. Every job was smooth, the day went by at a great pace and I was in very good spirits. I don't think this had anything to do with the customers, or the jobs, or any of the same things I experience every day. I think I just felt good and feeling good made all the difference. This is perception clearly dictating reality.

This was the positive end of the spectrum of perception. I made my day good by feeling good. Sure, it was conditional. That condition being beautiful spring weather in February, but I'm not perfect and it felt amazing. I had no control of the outcome of the day but I accepted what was happening. That's it. Sure if it was brutally cold I would have not wanted to accept it and bitched to myself all day which would have made my work slow and terrible. Truth and facts are important and so are certainties, but it's our willingness to accept what is that's more important. If the truth is a meteor is going to slam into North American tomorrow morning, me going ape shit and burning down my own house and causing havoc will help nothing. My last moments will be awful. Seeking truth is important and respecting the facts is also important but also knowing the difference between the truth and your own truth is more important. Being aware of what level of ego you're letting dictate what you believe and how it shapes your perception is more important than whether or not something is one hundred percent fact. I think it's all about balance. Balance is key. I'm trying to find my balance and you should do the same if you haven't already.

I hope this made sense to you and you enjoyed reading it. If so, let me know.

Peace,

Lou
The Louniverse

Anxiety: A Day In The Life

Anxiety.
Sometimes it starts with a bad night of sleep. I will pass out way to early, like before 8PM then wake up WAY too early like 1AM. I try to go back to sleep right away but usually this is futile, so I stay awake and listen to music or stare at the ceiling or close my eyes and toss and turn for a few hours, then just before 5AM I fall back to sleep. I wake up just before 10AM and I feel pretty good. Not great, clearly because my sleep was broken, but OK. Then I make myself a really good breakfast. I throw on some distracting movie on Netflix and drink coffee, in this instance it was too much coffee. I usually never have more than two cups in the span of an entire day and never after like 6PM because it will definitely keep me awake which would just cause me to repeat the cycle of poor sleep. Today I just drank too much coffee period. It didn't bother me right away, in-fact shortly after I felt kinda tired, that caffeine crash almost caught me but I didn't take a nap. Now, I've been awake for something like 8 hours or so, on some pretty broken sleep, on the back side of a caffeine high. This is prime real estate for anxiety and here I am. I am anxious. I am a little woozy, a little uncomfortable, a little uneasy. I'm tired and wired. I'm easily agitated, but I've been here before. Not in a while, but this is still very familiar territory. I took a shower earlier today and in the shower noticed I was definitely shaking a bit. My heart was beating fast and I had to stop myself and breath. Deep, counted breaths. I even had to rinse with cold water for a few minutes at the end of the shower to keep myself calm. I did a pretty good job. My legs were weak walking up the stairs to my bedroom, but I kept it together and calmly, slowly put on some solfeggio frequencies (If you're not sure what that is I'll put a link below, they're all over YouTube and do help ALOT.) and laid on my bed and did some deep breathing until I felt completely calm and relaxed. Deep breathing works!

*Deep Breathing:

1. Take a deep breath through your nose, breathing in with your stomach, for about 4-5 seconds.
2. Hold breath for same amount of time, 4-5 seconds
3. Exhale through the mouth, exhaling with the stomach muscles, for twice as long as the inhalation. So if you inhaled for 4 seconds and held for 4 seconds, exhale for 8 seconds.

Repeat this about 4 times. Longer if you think you need to. There is no such things and too much deep, cleansing breathing. It will make a huge difference. Simply because on a physiological level you cannot be both breathing slowly and deeply and be anxious.
There are a TON of YouTube videos on deep breathing as well. Take a look if you haven't already.

This worked for me today. I did this and I felt better, for a while. I laid in bed for a while then got up and dressed to go to the store to buy cigarettes. A necessary purchase of course. As I arrived back in-front of my house I could feel my body was off again. Nothing too overwhelming, but off nonetheless. I went and drank some water, seltzer to be exact, because I felt like there was a chance I might not have drank enough water today and part of my anxiety revolves around gas in my stomach. I think and feel like if I burp I will relieve pressures and feel better. This is part fact and definitely part hypochondria. I know this, but I will continue to do this until it no longer serves me. After some epic burping and sitting and relaxing in the den listening to my family talk, which alone makes me anxious sometimes, we sat down for dinner. I ate, but slowly and with apprehension. The sensations of chewing, tasting, swallowing, etc kind of feed the anxiety a bit. Again, nothing too overwhelming. I got through that. Poured myself more water, because dehydration, and now I'm sitting alone listening to music and tying this blog. These actions seem to be helping pretty well. I'm distracted by writing about my anxiety, for myself for sure, but also for you the other person going through these same patterns. Maybe today, maybe yesterday and maybe everyday. This is for you too. The music is another level of distraction all it's own. 1. Music is comforting in general. 2. If I fill my ears with controlled noise, like a song, I won't be negatively distracted by the noises in my house, my breathing, my heartbeat, the typing of the keyboard, etc. And of course I'm no more than 1 foot away from water, the life giving hydration fluid of this planet. This works for me. It's not a surefire, foolproof system, but more often than not this works. It took me a long time to figure this out. Despite how simple these activities may seem to be, when you're in an anxious state you are not thinking clearly. I'll write that again in capital letters to denote it's importance.

WHEN YOU'RE IN AN ANXIOUS STATE YOU ARE NOT THINKING CLEARLY!

Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.

So, in the past when I was in a n anxious state ALL that I did was fight it. I would dive head first into those horrible ideas. You know that play going on in your head where everything comes at you at once and you're both the star of the show and everyone hates you? AND it's all your fault and you're also dieng. That play. Well that still happens but my reactions to this have gotten a lot better. Breathing, practicing acceptance, not indulging those thoughts, not focusing on every single bodily sensation, etc. These may vary for general anxiety and health anxiety (Hypochondria) I definitely have both. So, I'm not doing great right now, but I'm fine. I am fine. I'm not flooded with fight and flight chemicals. I'm not pacing, I'm not crawling out of my skin. I'm tired and a little wired. Not too bad. I've had anxiety for as long as I can remember and two years ago almost to the day I had my worst anxiety of my life. That caused me to become a real hypochondriac. I was back and forth to the doctor almost weekly for months. The whole year was up and down, then down, then up a little, then down again. On new years eve I was genuinely emotional, not cryin, but really happy and surprised that I lived through the entire year. During that year I started a VLOG and documented my anxiety experience almost everyday for about 6 months. I will put a link down below for that as well. It really, REALLY helped me when I recorded those videos and I actually got some great feedback from other people who watched them who told me it helped them as well. THat was my one and only goal. Sure becoming internet famous would be awesome, but my 47 subscribers were there just to hear what I was going through because I think we can all relate pretty well when it comes to anxiety. Check out my channel if you're curious.

I'll leave you with this:

Sleep is the number one most important thing that affects anxiety in my opinion. I say "my opinion" because I'm sure if you do some research you will see that there is a myriad of experts with a myriad of theories, but sleep feels like the most important. If you don't get enough sleep you will be tired, tired becomes exhausted, exhaustion leads to a lot of issues and anxiety is on top of that list for anyone so if you have chronic anxiety it's going to be an issue. My method, if you can call it that, is trying to be in bed on the "right side" of midnight. Meaning, if you go to bed before midnight you've ended your day on the same day. If you go to bed after midnight you're in a totally new day. So, the way that I look at it is, if you're going to bed at 12:30AM or 1AM or later you're already into the next day. You're trying to go to bed on the same day you have to wake up. You stayed awake through a whole day and didn't go back to sleep until the next day. Even if you don't have to wake up until after 9AM, you're still going to bed in the new day. This is not a good idea. Again, in my opinion. SLEEP!
SLEEP, SLEEP, SLEEP! Even I have trouble sometimes following this advice.

I hope this helped, even just a little bit.

LINKS (as promised)
Solfeggio Frequencies
My Youtube Channel

Be well!

Lou
AKA The Louniverse