Crush your anxiety, have it driven before you, and hear the lamentations of your demons

Crush your anxiety, have it driven before you, and hear the lamentations of your demons

—Not Conan the Barbarian

Saying I’m a laid back kind of guy is an understatement.

You might think that I’ve honed my ability to deal with stress because of my work. Seeing patients every day that face death, cancer, addiction, and despair… kind of makes your troubles pale in comparison.

Not to say that I don’t get stressed out or worry or get angry or depressed. I do. Just it’s the exception and not the norm.

In the past I’ve written about various philosophies that I tried to live by, such as Dudeism, Stoicism, Minimalism, and Zen. A friend of mine even told me that I was always out looking for the next “ism”. But the truth is, I was only interested in these philosophies because they explained how I already felt. How I already lived my life.

I wasn’t looking for something to follow. I was looking for something to justify my already in-born naturally prozac laced brain.

I’ve always been anti-authoritarian. Leaning towards a libertarian-distributist type of politics. (Or maybe a monarchy, but only if I were allowed to be the benevolent ruler 😉 )

So when politics started making my blood boil, I left it behind.

Here’s how I escaped: I stopped watching the news, abandoned twitter, and refused to watch any Youtube videos with talking heads giving me their opinion on why the world is ending. You can call me naive. That’s fine. But more than that, I’m at peace with the fact that I have no control over any of it.

So what’s the point to all this nonsense?

If you want to make your life better…

Make choices every day that point you in that direction.

I had a patient one time with crippling anxiety. She rarely left the house, didn’t drive on her own, and would have panic attacks riding past Walmart.

Medications weren’t working. And she had already been to several therapists, knew all their “answers” like the back of her hand, and had read more books than me on the subject. So here’s what we did…

We embraced the concept that What You Resist Persists.

Anxiety is integral to your survival. Accept it. Now own it.

Identify triggers. Make daily acknowledgment and daily progression.

This is going to look different for everybody, so I can’t give you a template.

But here’s an example: Have someone take you to the Walmart parking lot. Have your panic attack. Take your medical MJ and relax. Time yourself. Leave.

Tomorrow, go back and stay 1 minute longer than you did the day before.

Rinse and repeat.

Eventually, you’ll be able to walk up to the doors and go right in. But that’s going to take time and a flexible plan.

You don’t get better at things by not doing them. You get better by practice.

My patient now drives on her own, has a part-time job, and takes care of her family. She still has anxiety but that’s NORMAL. She’s now able to live her life with some type of control.

My patron saint is St Jude. He prays for the lost causes of the world.

And that’s me in a nutshell. Hell, that’s all of us. Trying to make the most of things with the little time we have left.

And above all, remember this: It’s okay if you’re a little weird.

Stay weird. Be eccentric. Reject the modern world’s way of hysteria, anxiety, comparison, and conformity.

There is so much out there that we can’t control and so little that we can. So, focus on what you can and let go of what you can’t.

A friend of mine stated one time: “Walk in the room like you own the place”

I told him this was my personal philosophy. But that’s not true.

I want to walk in the room like I own myself.

That’s the real goal!