What do you do if you're afraid and, to some degree, anxious?
You lay out what you're anxious about in detail. Ask yourself, "What it is that I'm afraid of that might happen?".
Then, you deconstruct it into smaller increments - into hypothetically manageable problems - and then you expose yourself, gradually, to the thing that you're afraid of.
The effect of this is not that you become less afraid. What happens instead? You become braver. And that's not the same thing.
To decide to move forward courageously into the land of the unknown. That's one of the secrets to a good life, I would say.
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You are complex beyond your own understanding; more complex than anything else that exists, excepting other people; complex beyond belief. And your ignorance is further complicated by the intermingling of who you are with who you could be.
You are not only something that is. You are something that is becoming— and the potential extent of that becoming also transcends your understanding.
Everyone has the sense, I believe, that there is more to them than they have yet allowed to be realized. That potential is often obscured by poor health, misfortune, and the general tragedies and mishaps of life.
"In sterquiliniis invenitur" - In filth, it will be found.
What you most want to find will be found where you least wish to look.
You have things that come easy to you and that you're happy about pursuing, you found those things and followed them, and you've mastered them. You know all that.
But then there's other places and things you don't want to go to or that you haven't faced yet, and you haven't mastered. They have this monstrous aspect to them.
1/6 - With regards to telling if you are speaking authentically:
2/6 - Listen to yourself talk, as if a stranger was talking. Try not to identify too much with what you are saying. Then, observe. See if what you are saying makes you feel stronger, physically, or weaker.
3/6 - If it makes you feel weaker, stop saying it. Try to reformulate your speech until you can feel the ground under your feet solidifying. Then practice only saying things that make you strong.
My observation is that if there is a tight relationship and one party is betrayed by the other (falling in love with another person), it's almost always irreconcilable.
I've helped people try and struggle through that on both sides of the issue. The person who was betrayed and the person who did the betrayal.
People are often loath to figure out precisely where they are.
They don’t want to know because they’d rather be spread out, in a half-blind manner - in the fog - hoping that the place that they’re at is better than it is, and deluding themselves by remaining vague.
Rather than trying to figure out, “I’m right here, right now, with these specific problems”.