Let it Go

I am an anxious perfectionistic, sensitive person.  Everything must be perfect all the time and if it's not, I get cranky.  Well, I get cranky and worried.  Well, I get cranky and worried and blame myself for everything that's going wrong.

This is why I always get so frustrated when I read Law of Attraction blogs.  "Just let it go.  Relax, and the Universe provides."  Granted, I have seen this in action.  I have been on the receiving end, and I am incredibly grateful that I can see how things work.  It's just sometimes (well, a lot of the time) my little anxious friend waves to me, greets me like he hasn't seen me in years, and hops on my back for the next six months.

The combination of anxious and perfectionist do not go well together.  I worry if my money will run out before the end of the month.  I worry how I will handle old, unresolved situations as they come back into my life, begging for resolution.  I worry that my blog posts are terrible and no one will read them.  I worry that people see my "I see Faeries" bumper sticker and use it against me while complaining about my driving.  I plan everything out for the novel that I'm writing (seriously, I have developed an entire world) but don't write the actual novel because what if it doesn't do justice to this world?  I'm a planner, which is the perfectionist side of me, but because I worry that I won't be able to execute said plans, I fail to do them, because not even starting is better than messing up even one tiny detail.

Then comes the sensitive part of me, the one that takes everything to heart.  If something goes wrong, I blame myself.  Every time I lose a game of Carcassone, I'm too stupid.  If I can't come up with a good plot point for a story, I'm not creative.  If I can't follow my extremely detailed weekly life plan, I'm too lazy.

Needless to say, it's hard for me to just "let it go."

Thanks, Britney.

And yet, that is exactly the advice that everyone seems to give; not just Law of Attraction blogs, but people in general seem to tell anxious people like myself, "Don't worry about it," "Don't focus on it," and (my personal favorite), "Relax."  I even find myself telling others this same advice, but I guarantee you that those others feel just the same as me when I get that advice.

I don't even care about feeling in control of the situation.  That's not what the anxiety is about.  I just want to think far enough ahead that I can adequately prepare myself for the all the feelings.  Aaaah, the feels.

Because I am a sensitive person (which I did not know until recently), the highs are amazing.  I get crazy.  I laugh loud.  I have to be shushed and told to use my "inside voice" or (my personal favorite), "Calm down." 

 

I can throw myself into a high just by watching the orb weavers making their webs on the back porch, or feeding the ducks from my balcony.  I know that I am extremely lucky to have this quality.

On the flip side, though, comes the boo-hoos.  I literally sob my face off at the end of nearly every Pixar movie (let's not get started talking about "Up").  Seeing someone cry is enough to toss me down the emotional stairs and make me sniffle (reasons why I should have been an actress...).  I feel the bad things equally as deep as the good things.

 

This means that I have had to learn to control my reactions, which I think is what makes me worry so much.  I am not so much worried about the outcomes of events, but of my reactions.  What if I alienate people around me by bursting into tears?  What if I act like a two year old who has just been told that she has free reign in the candy store for the next five minutes?  No, I can't do either of those things, because my deep-seated feelings makes others uncomfortable (things I learned as a youngster through all my social interactions).

Letting go is not something that I can always do.  I battle with myself constantly, ping-ponging between "chill the hell out" and "freak out, cause everything is shit!"  Luckily, this seems to balance itself out.  Sometimes.  And I have learned some things lately that help me to see the bigger picture.

Signs from the Universe are all around us.  Whatever we focus on, we get more of.  I kept seeing 11:17 on the clock (instead of 11:11), and became (slightly) obsessed with numbers.   Now, I try to keep track of the times that I see repeating numbers. (Like right now.  It's 1:11pm).  I fully believe that these numbers are signs just for me.  Anyone else might chalk it up to coincidence, but I don't believe in coincidence.  I see them everywhere; license plates, mileage on my car, time on the clock, the minutes that a song on my CD has been playing, the time I clock out at work.

I bought breakfast this morning, and paid $4.44 for it.  I saw 999 on a license plate on the way to work.  Thank God for these signs.  Ever since I decided that I wanted intelligible signs from the Universe, it has provided (I'm pretty sure it was trying to communicate with animals before but I wasn't really paying attention... more on that in another, later post).  You have no idea how balancing it is to get reassurance from the ether.

"Am I going to suck at my interview?" I wonder.  Then some dick driver cuts me off, but instead of getting angry, I look at his license plate, and it has 111 in the number section.  "Will I have enough money to get through till payday?" I ask myself.  Then I check my phone.  It's 15:55 (yes I use military time).  "What am I supposed to do with my life?" I think, lying awake at night.  The clock next to my bed flips over to 22:22.  Meaningless to most people, but extremely reassuring to me.  I like to believe that these numbers mean that I am on the right path, heading in the right direction.

I don't know if I have a point that I'm getting to here.  Wait, I do!  My point is to have faith.

Having faith that things will work out may not take away all the boo-hoos, the worry, the perfectionism, the need to control things, but it does make it more possible to bear those things.  Even with all the negativity that my mind keeps pulling me into, I can surround myself with this idea that things are getting better, that I am doing all the right things. Then the boo-hoos don't last as long, and I can get up off my couch, look outside, and dance around because a hummingbird came to visit my back porch garden.

It doesn't matter what you have faith in, be it Jesus, the Universe, humanity, (or even Cthulhu), just that you have faith.  Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and remember:

(I am so making myself this mug for Christmas)