Into the now

I pride myself on being a lone wolf. I like being alone. Walking alone, eating alone, traveling alone.  

That opening sentence on ofthewolves's article written by Troian Bellisario, an actress on the show Pretty Little Liars, speaks to me. Never have I ever read an article that caught me hooked from the very first line. She called herself, a lone wolf, which is another way to call a person who prefers to act or be alone.

I, myself, like to be alone, and quite proud of my ability to be alone. I have no problem with walking or hanging out by myself in a crowded mall or eating alone on a table for two in a restaurant or a coffee shop.  Most of the time, I choose to be alone. Separating myself from others, from the world.

When I am alone, I like to live in my head. Making up stories, rethinking past events or imagining the future. My mind continuously does this and it becomes something that I fit into my daily routine. I thought it was a normal thing to do, something that every people do. But turns out, It was caused by an anxiety. Social anxiety. 

I spend my time reliving decisions or memories from my past, some good, more of them bad. Like an unfinished Kauffman film on repeat reflecting against the back of my eyelids, I spend my quiet moments imagining conversations I have yet to have, or thinking and rethinking about interactions of the past. Wondering if I could have done things differently, wondering if when the time comes to make a different decision, I will be brave enough to do so.

An anxiety that makes me love to separate myself, letting my mind wanders into the past or the future. Making up an alternate life where I become the ideal version of myself. What I did not realize by doing this, I am letting myself become isolated in the real world. I become separated from the outside world, the world that is happening around me.

A lot of time I find this ‘daydreaming’ thing exciting, but there are some times when I find myself exhausted by doing this.  

This is heavy work. I cannot change the past, and so revisiting it leads often only to the mining and reminding of pain, and traveling to the future is no better. Preparing myself for an unknown event doesn’t lead to readiness and courage, but rather a paralyzing anxiety… what if it goes wrong, what if they won’t, what if I don’t, what if I can’t?

Blaming myself for something I did not have the courage to do or imagining myself as a person I am too afraid to be, is a heavy work. It put me into feeling weak, worthless, and contempt.

But how do I stop this? What do I have to do to deal with this? 

Well, as Troian said in this article, one way to deal with social anxiety is to be more present, to be connected with the world outside of your mind.

Engage in a conversation and not spacing out in the middle of it.

Do what you feel right at the moment.

Don't contemplate too long,

and when you find yourself starting to regret something that you just did,

Do forgive yourself.

and Tell yourself,

You are a human, you are imperfect but you are enough.  

Live in the moment, not your mind.  

I found myself looking in empathetic and interested eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel, against all of my best attempts to prevent it, that I was present with a group of women, equally present in the now. And if you can do it, if you can press mute on that constantly looping film of past pain and future fear, if you can be with people – that’s the power of being a part of the pack; you are drawn out of yourself, into the group, into the now.