Often when I set out to do something new, or pursue something I've always been or wanted to be passionate about I get this block. Often it starts in the middle of my chest and works its way up my throat making it hard to breathe or speak. Then I get this feeling like what if I make a fool of myself or don't succeed, "they" are all waiting to watch me fial and "they" don't care if I succeed.
I don't know why this happens, but it even gets to the point where when I finally find the time to write, and work on all the ideas that have been swimming around in my head just waiting to be put into words to be publish, I draw a blank...
Even when I began this blog, something I have been putting off for quite some time, I wondered what I should write my first post about. It took me a minute...it was as if all my ideas on the whiteboard inside my head, got erased and windexed in a mere few seconds. I am so frustrated with this problem. I know that whoever is reading, is thinking, okay lady all you're describing is anxiety.
Here's where I'll type and just say "DUH!"
I know its anxiety, but there's something else to it. Even now when I'm trying to type this, it's as if some force is trying to make my fingers and wrists too tired to move in place for a key stroke A SIMPLE KEY STROKE! It literally feels like someone is tightening shackles about my wrists willing me to stop typing so I cannot accomplish what I have set out to accomplish: To share all that I have to share, in writing, in art, in everyway possible with the world. I want to reach out, I want to be heard, but I feel as if every time I do, I end up sabotaging myself in someway.
I'll take you to last summer when I was taking an LSAT prep course because I had FINALLY felt like I was ready to take that next step in my life and continue with my academic growth. I was so excited, everything was set in motion and aligned just right so I could take my class and get ready for a test that would determine the rest of my life. I decided to take my prep course at Georgetown University because I thought that would serve as inspiration and I wanted to score high enough to get into their law school.
So there I was the first day of the course, beginning of July 2011, prepared and ready to start! Excited beyond belief that I was going to make this happen. Then the other people started to trickle in and I quickly noticed, I was the only person of my background in the room. Suddenly the old fears and thoughts from my past just started to echo in my mind. "You're not fooling anyone, this is just going to be another failure,,,yet another unfinished project to add to the list." "You're always going to fail." "You and I both know you don't belong here".
The whole summer went this way, to the point where I barely talked to anyone other than the instructor and I mostly kept my head down and my mouth shut. Needless to say I didn't end up doing well on the test and I clearly am not in law school.
I just want to understand why I keep siking myself out like that, even now as I type and bare my soul (even if it is in a rather succinct fashion) I feel like no one is going to like this blog, that it will be yet another addition to my long list of failed attempts.
This may seem like a downer article but...there is a silver lining. Sure, I probably am holding myself back by letting all that negativity run freely through my cranium, penetrating every thought and action as a consequence, but....the silver lining is...from every failure, information can be gathered. From every mistake, a lesson can be learned.
In all reality, I spend most days being an optimist for others, even when I am a pessimist for myself. I believe that there are no mistakes, unless you did not take the lesson to be learned to heart.
I need to apply that to myself, but the question is how do I do that with out having to constantly remind myself everyday? How to I keep from reverting back to old thinking patterns? I really wish I knew the answer...but maybe someday it will come to me.
I don't know why this happens, but it even gets to the point where when I finally find the time to write, and work on all the ideas that have been swimming around in my head just waiting to be put into words to be publish, I draw a blank...
Even when I began this blog, something I have been putting off for quite some time, I wondered what I should write my first post about. It took me a minute...it was as if all my ideas on the whiteboard inside my head, got erased and windexed in a mere few seconds. I am so frustrated with this problem. I know that whoever is reading, is thinking, okay lady all you're describing is anxiety.
Here's where I'll type and just say "DUH!"
I know its anxiety, but there's something else to it. Even now when I'm trying to type this, it's as if some force is trying to make my fingers and wrists too tired to move in place for a key stroke A SIMPLE KEY STROKE! It literally feels like someone is tightening shackles about my wrists willing me to stop typing so I cannot accomplish what I have set out to accomplish: To share all that I have to share, in writing, in art, in everyway possible with the world. I want to reach out, I want to be heard, but I feel as if every time I do, I end up sabotaging myself in someway.
I'll take you to last summer when I was taking an LSAT prep course because I had FINALLY felt like I was ready to take that next step in my life and continue with my academic growth. I was so excited, everything was set in motion and aligned just right so I could take my class and get ready for a test that would determine the rest of my life. I decided to take my prep course at Georgetown University because I thought that would serve as inspiration and I wanted to score high enough to get into their law school.
So there I was the first day of the course, beginning of July 2011, prepared and ready to start! Excited beyond belief that I was going to make this happen. Then the other people started to trickle in and I quickly noticed, I was the only person of my background in the room. Suddenly the old fears and thoughts from my past just started to echo in my mind. "You're not fooling anyone, this is just going to be another failure,,,yet another unfinished project to add to the list." "You're always going to fail." "You and I both know you don't belong here".
The whole summer went this way, to the point where I barely talked to anyone other than the instructor and I mostly kept my head down and my mouth shut. Needless to say I didn't end up doing well on the test and I clearly am not in law school.
I just want to understand why I keep siking myself out like that, even now as I type and bare my soul (even if it is in a rather succinct fashion) I feel like no one is going to like this blog, that it will be yet another addition to my long list of failed attempts.
This may seem like a downer article but...there is a silver lining. Sure, I probably am holding myself back by letting all that negativity run freely through my cranium, penetrating every thought and action as a consequence, but....the silver lining is...from every failure, information can be gathered. From every mistake, a lesson can be learned.
In all reality, I spend most days being an optimist for others, even when I am a pessimist for myself. I believe that there are no mistakes, unless you did not take the lesson to be learned to heart.
I need to apply that to myself, but the question is how do I do that with out having to constantly remind myself everyday? How to I keep from reverting back to old thinking patterns? I really wish I knew the answer...but maybe someday it will come to me.
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