A Guide for Anxious Humans
Ding. You’ve Got Mail.
Later, you will think, “I really ought to turn off that notification. It’s not 1997.” But right now, other things are on your mind. Your throat is tight, your heart is thumping, and you’re nervously staring at that bold subject line which has appeared on the screen:
Sometimes I’m ashamed to share my work. You might think that’s understandable (particularly if you’ve been exposed to many of my posts before!) but this isn’t just a healthy sense of shame at my evident limitations.
Often, it’s fear of my own unoriginality. That inner voice of shame tells me to scrap my…
There’s a difference between self-esteem and self-confidence.
Recently, the principles of Feng Shui—an ancient Chinese art which advocates a system of placement within a space to harmonise various energies—became incredibly important to me.
(By sheer coincidence, there was an unpleasant job I didn’t want to do, and spending the afternoon rearranging my office seemed preferable.)
I’m doing something scary.
(Technically, living with anxiety makes lots of things scary, I guess. BUT this is actually terrifying.)
How many times have I felt this anxiety before? And how many times was the anxiety ‘correct’?!
This year I’ve experienced a constant stream of setbacks, of varying degrees of seriousness: minor administrative life hassle, major family tragedy, missed career opportunities, painful emotional entanglements, idiotic breakages, unexpected financial demands.
At times, it’s felt as if the universe was sending me regular doses of deliberate punishment.
[post status: a brief life update] When Walking on Custard came out in 2015 (aside: I cannot believe that was three years ago! What on EARTH is happening to the flow of time?!), I needed some sort of online home. I considered all kinds of wild, imaginative ideas, like interactive websites which would act as companions to the…
Do your attempts to be kind to yourself ever backfire?
I’ve noticed lately that my moments of self-generosity are occasionally actively unhelpful to me:
Today: some thoughts about life decisions.
But First: Let’s Talk About Fourier Transforms.