Today I feel the need to process more emotions. I got some leads, but I’m afraid to call them. I don’t want to call them at all.
It feels boring, annoying, and painful.
I’m afraid if I call these people that I’m going to be sent to voicemail, or pressured to answer questions I don’t know the answer to. I’m afraid I will say something wrong that will mess it up, or that none of these leads are real.
I feel this burning numbing fear in center and left and right of my chest.
It feels like a plastic cage like a kids toy. It hurts like swallowing a hard candy that is a little too big.
Everyone I’m calling are just people like me.
But what if they don’t want to talk to me. What if they want me to leave them alone? Why do people sign up for things and then decide they don’t want to talk about them? What if I need to act excited and interested but I’m not?
The point is to vet these people, they might not want to work with you but you might not want to work with them on the same token.
UPDATE: I ended up calling and securing one meeting!
I felt very lonely today, so I watched two videos. I figured that whenever my knee feels bad I do research, but I don’t do a lot of research when I feel lonely.
Major ideas that might help me from this post:
Think about how to help others to feel less lonely. It’s weird that I always think about who can make me feel less lonely, but I actually don’t need other people for that. Helping others will help me feel less lonely.
Emotional perfectionism definately sounds like me. Thinking about how it might be possible for me to connect with people even if they aren’t perfect friends and fill all my needs makes it a lot easier to connect with people.
This one really really really helped me because it answered one of my questions, why am I distracting myself all the time and going on YouTube videos and playing games. The simple thing is, I’m not a good friend to myself.
Main takeaways:
A good friend is honest in a loving gentle way. Be honest with yourself in a compassionate way.
A good friend is encouraging and pushes you to be a better version of yourself. Remind yourself what you are capable of, believe in yourself. Encourage yourself to be a good man, a strong man, despite what others want you to do.
For some reason, the idea of being a good man makes me feel really really calm for some reason. I know I have been fighting myself and that’s why I’m on my phone all the time.
I wanted to spend some time thinking more about my ideal friend:
Someone who is accepting of me, a good listener, empathetic
Someone who wants to go on adventures with me
Someone who encourages me to dream big, believe in myself
“This is my Valorant jacket. I got it when I watched the world championship in LA a year ago. I love playing Valorant.”
“But this is the 21 day youtuber challenge”
“I’ve yet to figure out how to connect those two passions together. But that changes today”
“Hi everyone, my name is Jack, and this in the Youtuber challenge, the challenge where I post a video everyday, working not for views, but for the love of making videos”
“There are a bunch of things I’m super passionate about, but haven’t figured out how to connect to a Youtube video yet. And one of those things is gaming.”
“But here’s my problem with gaming. I like playing alone, I don’t like talking while I’m gaming, but I do feel like there are certain things I like to share after the game is done.”
“Here is the plan. I have fun gaming. In between, I’ll do a little bit of journaling, and afterwards, I’ll just edit a video that is fun for me”
I’ve been playing pokemon go so much recently. I’ve made a lot of progress in the game, but I really worry that I’m getting addicted because of how stressed out I am right now.
I stressed out about my relationship and about my career path moving forward. I want to make sure that work does not take over my life and that it stays aligned to what I want to do moving forward.
Every time I feel stressed, I reach for the pokemon go. Holy shit, I am addicted.
I feel very tired, but no longer sick. That is a good thing at least.
I’m going to walk around the airport. And this time, instead of catching pokemon, I am going to meditate and think.
On the plane I meditated on some of my issues and I came to a big realization. The first step to feeling or processing any pain is to notice and name the pain that exists. I spend so much time avoiding thinking about painful emotions or experiences, avoiding thinking about how things hurt me it makes it hard to face the pain at all since I’m not taking the first step,
I want to focus on doing that more now as the first step to processing more emotions.
I feel exhausted. My head feels numb. I feel hot and tired. My back aches.
My heart feels heavy. I feel angry at myself. So helpless. My mind in a fog.
My apartment is a mess. I just want to cry.
I can’t work. I just play games all day long. my eyes feel tired.
It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. All I want to do is eat and play video games. The pull is so strong in my heart like there is a strand of honey getting pulled.
I feel a numb panic deep in my chest. I’m afraid of failure. I’m scared I will disappoint myself and everyone around me. Pushing myself to make my business cards is only making me curl up even harder.
It was a long week. I’m exhausted. But the work just keeps coming.
I guess I can cancel tai chi tomorrow. Sleep in.
Tonight I can clean my apartment until I feel more peaceful.
I know I can use the gym as a way to process emotions, but I don’t use it.
I feel this pull, this overwhelm, like the honey being pulled, from my heart.
I’m capable of anything. Even rising from this challenge. This is important because as I get more successful, there will be days I feel exhausted, and in those moments, I need to find a way to find balance, to find peace.
I also want to learn to embrace failure. Failure is so scary to me. There is an image in my mind of my business cards being a complete disappointment and I feel a pit in my heart. A horrible amaturish website I’m not proud of and I can’t fix it.
Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone starts at the beginning. The people who are exceptional, who are savants are not people who started at the middle. They are people who enjoyed the beginning.
But how can I enjoy this? I feel so scared it won’t be good.
Makes me think of this video:
In this video, Jesse talks about how play allows us to feel pressure while still being able to learn.
That fun is the key to this.
But what is the key to fun? What would make this fun for me, regardless of the outcome, what would make designing and drawing fun for me?
What would make it an infinite game, not just a finite game focused on an end goal?
It’s true, the thought of designing business cards does not sound fun to me at all. It sounds like a slog. But maybe that’s because I’m worried about failing.
Ok, what if I tried to merge my painterly style with “woodcut” style prints. What if I created a new drawing technique that I could use to create cool stuff for friends and to sell as products?
That definitely sounds more like play to me.
So what about going to the gym, because I like it so much when I actually go, but I find it hard to go to begin with.
What if I saw it as supercharging myself – which it really is doing. Whether I go to lift weights or just to hang from the bar and stretch it really is building my body up to full potential. It might even solve my sleep problems.
And what about sleep, why do I not want to go to bed? Because if I go to bed, tomorrow, I wake up with tons of problems. Well maybe, that’s not a bad thing. Maybe before I go to bed, I fill my to do list with questions that I want to search out the answers to.
Here are the questions I have today, that if I knew the answers to I would rest easy:
What am I going to do about my art coaching and AI gaming companies?
Am I behind schedule and if so what do I do about it?
Should I extend the schedule?
Am I losing money?
How do I get out of my procrastination phase and get working?
What do I do about my art coaching website?
How do I get everything done in such a short period of time?
Should I start registering for fairs?
Should I pay someone to design the website for me?
How am I going to get the motivation to start drawing? How do I start drawing consistently?
How do I start going to the gym and working outsite the apartment consistently?
How will I start cooking again and cleaning up my apartment? Where will I find the time?
How will I prepare for the next week of work? How do I balance my other businesses?
When will I continue to work on my Javascript projects? What is the breakdown between AI work time and coaching work time.