“Manifestation is real.  Start speaking positivity into your life.  Change the way you think, change the way you speak,” Daniel Chidiac.  A nice segue from yesterday’s piece is the idea of manifestation.  Yesterday we talked about how powerful the mind is—it’s powerful enough to create things that don’t exist.  Granted yesterday’s context approached it from a darker side, I believe that was necessary to demonstrate a key point: we allow ourselves to wallow in that type of darkness, hoping for the light as if it’s some kind of far-fetched notion.  And then the darkness comes and we act like it’s no surprise.  How can we flip that energy to make it so we expect the positive?  Lots and lots of training.  I’ve long believed in the power of manifestation but I looked at it as a fanciful thing: if we hope enough then it might happen.  If we can believe it and we somehow prove we want it enough it will come.  But in the context of yesterday’s piece, I found it a bit easier to understand that isn’t the truth.  I wished and wanted all the positive stuff but my mind kept going dark—so dark is what I used as my barometer and accepted as my reality.  But there is truth to it: if these are the things I’m seeing around me and they were the things I had in my head, then that IS manifestation.

Manifestation is also real in the context of what we have around us.  What we have around us is what we allowed in our lives, what we invited in, what we brough tin.  Nothing that comes into our lives is by accident.  Sure, there are always the unexpected things, but that closet full of clothes you binge shopped on Amazon?  YOU ordered them.  That job you go to every day? YOU applied for it and kept going.  The place you live in?  YOU chose it and moved your belongings there.  The furniture, dishes, blankets, T.V, computer, phone—all of it, all that exists in your life is because YOU brought it there.  I don’t pretend that there aren’t circumstances that surround all of those things we bring into our lives—sometimes options are limited but sometimes we only SEE the options as limited because we feel pressured to make a choice or we fear we can’t get anything better or we don’t want to do the work it takes to get something else.  I have 100% been there on all counts.  However, there is no denying that, no matter the reason, what we have in our lives is the result of our own choices and what we accepted.  Some of us tend to sway dark like I spoke about yesterday, some people lean toward the light, and some have to force those little pinpricks of hope to shine.  Even that level of effort is a matter of perception.

I looked at manifestation as some sort of power where we think it and it arrives but that’s only part of the truth.  Manifestation has that type of magical element to it but manifestation only works with focused effort and direction.  Manifestation isn’t designed as a fast food menu where we can pick what we want and get it in 2 minutes.  It’s about the same thing we’ve talked about for ages: energy and frequency.  That which we want can not arrive in our lives if we are thinking about it in a negative context.  We will only see the negative version of it because the mind is sending out that frequency.  Like attracts like so manifestation is a combination of a draw toward (and a drawing IN) that which we think and feel but also what we allow into our lives and the energy/effort we put toward supporting it and creating space for it in our lives.  It’s multifaceted but that doesn’t men it’s false or not real.  Everything we have in our lives is a direct result of manifestation.  We believe a certain way so we behave a certain way and that is what comes to us—we see the evidence of our thoughts all around.  If we can create what we have in a haphazard way, imagine what comes with focused intent and purpose.  It’s worth the effort to focus so we can harness the power of manifestation in our lives.  That’s when we see magic.  

“Nothing kills you faster than your own mind.  Don’t stress over things that are out of your control,” Daniel Chidiac.  I’m not sure if it’s some sort of cosmic alignment but I haven’t been able to shake this funk I seem to be stuck in.  It could be some deep rooted wounds surrounding worth creeping in again but it has been a fight to even wake up some days.  With that being said, I am fully aware it’s in my mind—and I’m angry about that.  I have absolutely zero reason to be upset about anything right now.  Truly—I am fully aware and grateful for what I have in my life and I’m also aware of what a gift it is to live the life I do.  I have what I need and am creating the rest of what I want.  I feel aligned with the universe and see signs supporting my growth yet I have this overwhelming feeling of doom, like something terrible is going to happen, almost like this is too good to be true.  I’m sabotaging it before I even give myself a chance to enjoy it and I am ashamed of it.  The mind is such a powerful thing, and how twisted is it that it can take something perfectly fine and warp it into disaster?  Why would something with so much power lean toward anything negative?    

My mind always was a dark place to be and I improved upon that with YEARS of work and focused effort on healing.  I see what I’ve built around me and I am proud.  But this nagging voice in my brain constantly tells me that I’m not good enough for this, I don’t deserve it, that I can lose it all.  And it IS killing me.  My brain almost killed me once when it convinced me that I wasn’t worth the air we breathe, making me believe the world was better without me.  It is killing me now in putting these spinning/confusing thoughts in my head.  No matter how bright it is, if the brain decides it’s dark, we believe it’s dark.  I want to use my mind for good and I am wasting my energy convincing myself to not cower in fear every day proving to myself I earned what I have.  And folks, this is just good old fashioned anxiety, this isn’t even counting the outside factors influencing me (or anyone else).  There is so little we can control in our world but our mind is supposed to be the one domain we have total control over.  It feels incredibly helpless and frustrating when your own mind won’t cooperate. So this is your reminder to make sure you’re watching those thoughts and change them as fast as you can.

I know this has been a sort of down and out type of post but it isn’t meant to be like that—this is meant to be honest.  It’s meant to be a demonstration of how, even in our darkest times, we can be a light for others and sometimes those brightest lights are still dark to themselves.  We live in a complicated world—complicated by our own humanity, to be fair, but complicated nonetheless.  It doesn’t get any easier if we allow our minds to run rampant.  It’s a reminder that we need to be kind because sometimes the person who seems to keep it together for everyone, the one who is always smiling, is the one quietly falling apart inside.  And that space, when it feels like the inside is breaking down, is anything but quiet.  We need to be there for each other. We are all so aware that the way things are now isn’t working—we all feel a degree of shallowness and emptiness and disconnectedness because we have real feelings in fake times.  But real life keeps going and if we aren’t careful we can get dragged along with it.  So reach out.  Don’t believe what the mind tells us—and I know that can be easier said than done.  If you can’t reach out, find a way to remind ourselves that the mind isn’t always telling the truth.  The world has a lot of good, we are just a lot distracted and in a lot of pain.  Put it aside and when it feels like too much, if anything, just stop.  Breathe.  Ground in what we see/hear/smell/feel around us until the mind slows down.  Then remember that there is more out there and we can take it one step at a time—that’s all we ever could do, so allow ourselves to slow the pace.  Breathe again.  Begin again. 

Sometimes you just have to start over.  There’s a time for persistence and grit and pushing through and there is a time to know when we need to cut our losses.  When something doesn’t feel like us or we feel it doesn’t reflect a certain representation of who we are or who we want to be, the product will feel disingenuous and misaligned—because it is.  We can’t build a full product on half truth and we can’t build a stable foundation half on water half on land.  The life we are meant to live will call to us and we will know when we are all in.  We know when we have something that clicks and feels right.  The world stops and another dimension in the world opens.  Time doesn’t matter, it feels like it doesn’t exist.  So if we feel constantly stuck or like we are starting and stopping over and over again we have to look at why.  Is it because we need to learn a different way?  Or is it because we know that something doesn’t fit who we are?  The inability to commit speaks volumes when we get to the why behind it.

It sucks to start over especially when we’ve dedicated any amount of time to a project we thought had meaning.  The work seems to fall flat, it doesn’t look how we envisioned it, the message isn’t clear, the pieces just aren’t fitting together and it took a lot of energy to find out that the vision doesn’t work.  Look, we all know that projects rarely go 100% on track and stay true to course and we know we need to be adaptable.  However, we’ve all had those moments when something simply won’t work, we face objection and obstacle repeatedly.  It’s then we need to be smart enough to know when to lay down the sword so to speak.  It’s often said that we quit too soon and I can attest to that as well.  I’m guilty of not seeing the project through when I probably should (and definitely could) have finished.  So it’s a fine balance between patience and practicality.

I want to end this with a reminder that starting over isn’t a failure.  We talk a lot here about how there are lessons when things go wrong and that mistakes are valuable learning tools and it’s true.  So if something doesn’t work out how we thought it would, that’s a time to take the new information and try again from a different angle.  Any time we apply a new lesson to what we are working on is a potential positive outcome.  Here’s the thing: even if disaster hits and our best intended plans are no longer salvageable, then that too can be counted as a win because if the scenario is that bleak, at least we are clear that we don’t need to waste anymore time on it.  So always remember that starting over is ok and when used wisely, it can make all the difference.

Today I am grateful for animals.  I had a moment this week where I absolutely felt like I was losing my mind, coming out of my skin.  I’ve always been close to my animals and when I lost my Maine Coon last year, I was devastated and thought I would never have another quite like him—that is true to a degree.  However.  Last week during this break down, I laid on the floor trying to mitigate the anxiety that washed over me, seemingly uncontrollable.  It didn’t help me in the slightest and my phone kept ringing further distracting me from trying to calm down.  I had a moment where I screamed in frustration because I didn’t know what else to do.  Two of my three cats ran away (as expected) but one reminded me of the very real connection humans and animals can have.  After that scream, he came up to me, sniffed my head and then proceeded to walk onto my chest and he curled up and started purring.  I almost started crying right then—this guy loves pets and attention but he doesn’t like being on people or being confined in any way so that was a big step for him. After a moment, he got up and instead of walking away, he laid by my side, putting his head over my wrist and he continued to purr loudly.  The purr of a cat is healing and that animal knew I needed it and I could feel it.  I 100% felt healed and calmed and recentered.  He helped me ease into a more relaxed state and helped me breathe.  He helped me come back to myself and he didn’t leave my side until I moved.  There is so much power in that type of bond and I will forever be grateful for the fact that he was there with me—I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t been there.  I am grateful he brought be back to my body in that moment, for his presence while I calmed down. 

Today I am grateful for reminders of my responsibility.  I am not a victim of any circumstance.  I know who I am.  The world seems to be falling on me all at once, needing me to make decisions faster than is appropriate or than I am able.  I understand this is partially my fault because I’m approaching life like drinking from a fire hose.  Still.  I know I can’t take it all on at once yet I feel like it’s my responsibility to figure it all out at once, like it’s me who has to fix and solve everything.  I know I can’t do it but I’m still somehow putting out the energy that I am meant to take it all on.  What comes into my life is a direct result of what I let into my life.  What I focus on, what I spend time with, what I lament, what I love—all of that is what I choose to see.  I know I can’t catch all of life coming at me with that type of pressure.  So it’s up to me to get out of the line of fire or to deal with what’s coming my way.  What I see around me and what I choose to do with my day is my choice—what gets done is a result of what I focus on and what doesn’t get done is a choice.  And it’s fine either way.  Just remember we have the power to slow it down when it feels like it’s coming too quickly.

Today I am grateful for getting the train on the tracks.  The house has been a huge distraction for me, a point of frustration because I hate that it’s been like this, torn up, for months.  I hate that I’ve been asking for things to be put away—like I don’t even care if the project is finished because we are at the point where enough is done that things CAN be put back together and it’s entirely functional.  So I just want the big stuff put away so we can move forward and enjoy the season.  This past week we took some time to finish a few small things and to start clearing the house.  It’s still got some work to do but it doesn’t feel so overwhelming.  This is one of those scenarios where we entirely created it—the chaos.  So I want us to take back some control and decide what we are doing next—it doesn’t all have to get done right now.  I’m fine with that.  I just want my space back and the more I move into place, the better it feels for my sanity.  So I am grateful we are moving things where they need to go and creating the space we want.

Today I am grateful for unexpected surprises.  A long time friend whom I haven’t spoken to in a couple of years reached out a few weeks ago, quite randomly.  I didn’t think much of it—we certainly aren’t on bad terms by any means but we are absolutely in our own worlds and we are both guilty of allowing time to dictate what we’ve been doing so finding time hasn’t been a huge priority for either of us.  When I put it that way, It makes me feel sad and a bit guilty.  I have always loved this girl, she has always been a caring and fun friend.  Things just changed as we went through different things in our lives.  Marriage, divorce, children, deaths.  None of us will be here forever and I hate the thought of wasting time for stupid reasons.  So we met up yesterday at a local school event and talked like no time had passed. I found out that we are in a similar place mindset wise as well as career wise—and possibly just in life in general where we are looking for similar things and transitioning certain facets of our focus to what we really want.  She is bold and far braver than I ever was—she made me bold when we were younger—and she is acting on those things, not that I can’t.  But she makes me feel less alone in that what I was envisioning CAN be done.  She was/is a reminder that I need to spend more time with those who know me and are focused on similar things.  Still.  It was also lovely over the course of the last month to reconnect with my best friend and talk and laugh and commiserate and celebrate together.  It’s nice to have someone to not need to justify my existence with—these two women remind me that I am known and loved and that all is well.  They reminded me that I need to be around people who know and love me.      

Today I am grateful for taking a chance and being a version of the person I want to be.  While at that school event, there were a lot of people there who were involved in the incidents I spoke about over the summer with me needing to stand my ground and who taught me about self-respect in that when we don’t get it, we need to walk away.  I would be lying if I said I didn’t care about these women—that was why it hurt so badly when things went South.  Because I cared a lot and laid it all out on the line and it felt like that meant absolutely nothing to any of these people who were supposed to be my friends.  So seeing them yesterday, I knew that I had done no wrong and it was time to talk it out.  I went up to one of them, and I hugged her and told her that I had called her this summer.  Right after the incident happened, I had texted twice and called her once and never heard from her.  I left a message and I told her that I wanted to talk.  I had never NOT wanted to talk.  I believe in ownership and I said over the summer that I knew what I thought my part in this was and that I WANTED to know what I had done wrong from their perspective.  That just never happened.  So I took a deep breath, knowing that I had done my part and I went up to her and I hugged her and said we needed to talk.  She asked when I had called her and I told her.  And I reaffirmed that I wanted to talk.  We will have to see what happens from here but she didn’t say no, so I am hopeful that we will be able to begin repairing things.    

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

You can have all the evidence of the world and slap people in the face with it and they will still believe whatever they want to believe.  People will tell themselves whatever story works, what makes sense to them, what serves their purpose.  Once you understand this, you can start to break free.  The norms and rules we follow as a society have us placed in these little boxes but it takes facing the reality we started with, that people don’t care what you show them—they care what you can do for them—so if they don’t care what you show them, then why should it matter what you do?  People can talk and people do talk, often for the sake of hearing their own voices.  There doesn’t have to be substance behind it and the world is slowly moving toward an altered/engineered reality anyway.  We engineer our food, our chemicals, we augment our appearance, we believe we are something we are not, we have a computer write our words for us, draw pictures for us, show us the scenarios we only see in our heads brought to life but only because we can see it.  We’ve forgotten the core of living and what matters.

At the end of the day we must remember that the eye and ear can be fooled but our intuition cannot.  If we know something to be a certain way then we have to trust it.  There is no point in trying to prove what is right—we simply have to do what is right for us and keep moving forward.  No, it isn’t always fair.  Just remember: no matter how far down the road, the truth always comes out.  It can’t stay hidden forever.  If we think about some of the other premises that I’ve shared recently such as not being able to take anything with you, it stands to reason that all that matters is what we know in our hearts and what we do with that information.  If we operate to the best of our ability and seek to do no harm, if we operate with a clean conscience, anyone can say or do anything and it doesn’t matter because we know that we’ve done what is right.  Our time here isn’t about proving anything to anyone.  It’s about learning, growing, and having fun.  We are allowed to have some peace and some joy while we are here.  We are allowed to be happy. 

There is one more key truth in this as well: the parameters change.  What we thought was right we find is wrong. What we believed to function one way is entirely the opposite.  So why do we adhere to crazy standards and why do we put so much stock in them?  Why do we take life so seriously?  I mean, we need to take our purpose and drive seriously yes.  It’s wonderful to operate w/ a purpose.  But the way we make our short time here contingent on things like money and status and what people think and how controversial we can be how loud we can be makes it seem kind of like a waste of time.  We’re here for more than that.  We’re meant to be more than that.  So don’t waste time trying so hard to fit in when you were meant to break the damn mold.  Go with what you know is right and let that be your guide because what other people think matters so very little in the end.  We regret what we don’t do more than what we did so make sure to take the time to live life well and enjoy it.   

“The miracle starts with what we already have.  Close the door.  God doesn’t need an audience.  The oil will keep flowing as long as you are open,” Daryl Black.  Miracles surround us and live within us.  The ideas and feelings we have and the breath in our bodies, all of that is miraculous.  The ability to connect and create and change and understand this world and to live with purpose are all varieties of miracle that we must appreciate.  Even the biggest of miracles starts small and grows.  Not everything explodes into our world where there’s this one life altering moment.  Those small moments are the ones where we plant the seeds and nurture it and become all we are meant to be are often the greatest miracles of the universe.  The work is often done behind closed doors, in the moments of focused silence we steal between the image of life as we’ve created it and the life we envision.  We have all we need to create whatever it is we want but the real magic happens when we create what we are meant to.  When we find that alignment with our purpose so the miracle can truly unfold. 

We are given gifts that have no other explanation than a divine source.  The days we feel like we can’t keep going and we find the strength to put in one more minute, one more paragraph, one more stir, one more mile, one more smile, one more hug, one more call.  When we find the strength we never thought we’d have.  The purpose of miracles isn’t to be flashy, it’s to establish a divine connection, a connection with the presence of source that is everywhere.  Miracles exist to remind and make us aware that we are part of such a bigger picture and that, while we are so small in that grand scheme, we are giants in our own right.  We don’t have to crash though, we can proceed with caution and care and purpose and allow the magic we are gift to flow from our fingers like a river.  Magic isn’t an avalanche, it’s a flow and we are all able to tap into that flow.  More importantly, we are meant to tap into that flow so we know that we are conduits for our particular brand of magic.  A magic that God/Source bestowed upon us to share with the world.

What we have will always be the foundation of what’s to come.  How we view what we have and what we decide to do with it become the stepping stones to the bigger picture. How we move with it and what we make of it is a mark of our connection to flow.  I reiterate time and again that we are taught scarcity.  It is engrained in us and hammered home over and over again that there isn’t enough x,y,z in the world.  The truth is multilayered and can’t be attributed to an overall state of lack because that simply isn’t true.  There are finite resources of specific things yes.  If we are all attempting to live the exact same life and paradigm, there isn’t enough room for that—we aren’t meant to all live the exact same way.  Once we understand that which we need to truly sustain is limitless, we open up avenues to resources we didn’t consider when trying to adhere to the limited thinking of others.  Imagination is limitless and we were meant to use it.  What we need for our particular brand is limitless.  And when we find our path and walk with belief and trust, we will see that our flow will never run out.

You can’t advance in a direction you have no idea of.  There are times it feels like we live life like we’re trying to hit a dartboard.  We wander aimlessly just hoping to hit something. Sometimes we get a vague idea of what we want to do and we need to take a few steps forward so we can get a clearer view.  But we can’t expect to get to wherever “it” is if we simply keep throwing darts with no real aim.  This statement reinforces the point I made yesterday about stopping to ask different questions to get to the real meaning of life.  When we stop taking in the influence of the entire world and get comfortable discerning what is truly ours, we will often find the direction we’ve been looking for.  We spend so much time convincing ourselves that we aren’t doing enough that we end up doing with no purpose, running around for the sake of running around.  When did it become so difficult to sit with quiet? What are we afraid to hear?  I think the soul knows it’s lost and it wants us back on track but we struggle to reconcile what it wants with what’s happening around us—they can be very different things. 

We lose sight of which way to go with distractions out there and the influence of others and we get the wrong idea of what life is about/what it’s supposed to look like.  We focus more on what it’s supposed to LOOK like than what it’s supposed to FEEL like.  We’re told what it should look like and we’re told what to do to get there.  As we all know, that formula doesn’t work for everyone.  It’s true that advancement is relative as well.  What may seem like baby steps to some is someone else’s Grand Canyon.  Whether it’s doing what we are told, seeing the influence of others around us, or feeling we’re doing something wrong, the root is the same: comparison.  I know that lizard part of our brain is afraid to let go of control and it likes to make sure we know exactly where we stand with those around us because if we aren’t keeping up then we surely won’t survive.  Our inner knowing gets all mucked up and confused when we look outward for answers.  So we wind it back to ourselves. 

To get where we want to go we need to put aside those fears and distractions. We need to train the lizard brain to calm down and evaluate what actually matters.  Once we have all that under control, we can stop the game of comparison.  It’s worth repeating: we can’t compare our chapter one to someone’s chapter 20.  Once we understand that, we listen to what our inner knowing has been trying to tell us all along.  We find our direction.  If we don’t listen we will spend our lives drunkenly throwing darts in the hopes of landing somewhere good.  The first key is to make sure we’re aiming at the right board—do we have the right intent in our lives?  We need to know what it is we want.  Then we figure out how to get there.  As any good dart player will tell you, it takes practice to master the game.  We all need a little practice refining our course every now and then, we are human and we will ALL wander off our path at some point.  But the more we practice guiding ourselves the closer we get to the bullseye, our personal true North.  Keep aiming until we hit it-it’s even better than 50 points.    

“I don’t need a billion dollar career [to achieve great things and be worthy].  Sometimes all you need is a few birdseeds and a smile [to make a difference],” Safi, ShotSavant.  There seems to be this ever pressing need to do something with our lives.  Like we have to do something significant all the time to make it mean something.  I don’t blame people for believing this—we have curated a world culture where we live in extremes—it’s all fantastic or it’s all terrible.  The way the brain works with group-think would then deduce that if we aren’t sharing something fantastic then everything is terrible.  It’s true that there are tons of people with global impact doing a lot of different things and they are meant to have a global reach.  We must not discount those who have the impact to change our world as individuals. The ripples created by changing one person’s life can be immeasurable.  It’s the quiet work behind the scenes that advances us.  It’s the seeds planted by someone that we curate and tend into our own—or vice versa where it’s the people who curate what we have planted. 

Never underestimate what people are capable of, even if it’s one person at a time.  It all makes a difference.  There will be a time when we are quite literally all gone and an entire new population of people will inhabit this Earth.  It’s quite possible that one decision we make can create a change felt for generations.  Even if that’s the case, the new generation will put its spin on our work anyway.  All the things left behind, the pieces of day to day life, the art, the technology from previous eras only give a glimpse into what life was like and we are only applying our best guess at that.  So all we do is going to be viewed differently no matter what we do and we have no control over that—and it doesn’t matter.  If I’ve made strides in my life and I have done better than I did yesterday, if I have given someone hope and encouraged them to go for what works for them, if I have been a catalyst for any change in someone’s life, that is just as impactful as the money.

We can’t take anything with us when we move on.  There were cultures who believed there was a weighing of the souls upon moving to the phase after this existence which suggests to me we need a constant awareness of our priorities.  What did we value in life?  Who did we value?  How much did we love?  What kind of influence did we have?  What KIND of person were we?  These are the questions to consider.  That means we have to consider another set of questions.  Do we need billions of dollars to be happy or are we really content with what we have?  What do we need to have the kind of life we want?  The freedom to make a difference comes when we live authentically aligned with our core truth and that truth is what shows us what we need to be happy.  We need purpose.  What gives us that sense of purpose?  What drives us? If we sit with that for a while, we will start to understand the influence this world has on us because with the quiet that comes with hearing our own voice, we find it’s far simpler than we make it.  We can make a difference in the world with who we are just as we are.  What kind of a difference is up to us. What is it that makes you smile?   

“Anxiety brings particular challenges but there are a few upsides that I’ve uncovered while writing the book.  The first is that anxiety is universal and it really connects us.  The second is that if we do the work, I found that anxiety can bring us into our bodies and bring us into the present moment.  And third, I found that people struggling with anxiety typically have really beautiful and big imaginations and are creative thinkers and maybe see the world in a way that maybe can get us a little unstuck,” Sara Billups.  Anxiety and I are no strangers.  It feels a very deeply embedded part of my personality and seems to be a semi-permanent state.  There are ways to cope that help a bit but it’s ever-present most days.  Whether it’s the constant urge to DO something, the inability to focus, the inability to handle quiet all the way to the actual physical manifestations—the sweats, pounding heart, short breaths—through any flavor of those things, it’s there.  I am in favor of flipping the script and watching the stories we tell ourselves because words are powerful so if we can start looking at the positives that anxiety can bring, there is a chance that we can utilize it for something good.

I’ve cursed anxiety nearly my entire life because I let it run wild through my brain for a long time.  It is NOT a pleasant feeling to constantly feel like something is wrong, like the other shoe is going to drop at any moment.  It sucks when you question the little things like what music to listen to because you don’t want to miss something else, or looking at the clock for 20 minutes straight to leave at the exact right time so you’re not late. Or just that SOMETHING is going to happen whether you know what it is or not.  It’s living on high alert at all times always expecting the worst.  The mind can’t sustain that, it isn’t designed to.   We need to reframe it and Billups does present truth in her observations.  Everyone deals with anxiety to a degree so we truly are never alone.  It’s also true when it comes to reconciling and managing it, we are able to recognize physical symptoms sooner and more accurately so we know what to do.  And I will full on support the observation that anxiety prone people are also creative.  I mean, in a twisted way we have to be creative to constantly come up with all the scenarios we have in our minds.  But we certainly do see things in different ways and can find creative solutions. 

So instead of lamenting anxiety, we can work with it.  Yes, we can admit its downfalls but we don’t have to live in that state.  We can see where it has served us well and appreciate its purpose and we can also see that, yes, there are some benefits to it because we communicate and see the world differently.  That is a gift. Our brains weren’t all designed the same way and that means we will see and experience things in different ways and we will take different viewpoints and understand things in a multitude of ways.  That also means that there will be variations on how our base functions operate at times.  I’d be lying if I said that having a higher tuned frequency for fear and things that can go wrong is fun—it isn’t.  There is a huge amount of pressure that exists in our brains and not in reality when we constantly view the world as a place that is ready to hurt us at any time.  It’s stressful constantly being on the lookout and ever vigilant for what can go wrong.  But it is nice to be prepared and to know that we are always ready even if the worst of the worst happens.  It is nice to know that we know how to handle a crisis.  We just have to learn to work with the upsides and not live in the downside of a tool meant to protect us that got a little too keyed up.  Choose to see the good.   

FYI It gets better.  You find better. You experience better. You become better.  Time changes everything.  What we feel now will fade and something else will take precedence in our lives.  We are dynamic creatures and we need to remember that moments pass and things can always pivot for the better just as easily as they can turn against us.  We take those experiences and build on them to become the best versions of ourselves.  As cliché as it may sound, no one is meant to stay down forever.  Everything blooms but not always at the same time.  So when things get really rough and we forget who we are for a minute, take a deep breath and remember that with a little time the light changes, the circumstances change, and suddenly everything is different. And one last reminder: all those things we feel are so important and that we can’t live without them, the things we feel need our immediate attention—one day that will all seem laughable.  It won’t matter.  Just stay the course and trust it will all go up someday.