Idle hand’s are the devil’s playground. Or for me specifically, if I am not inundating myself with countless tasks and responsibilities, my brain wanders into dangerous territory. I swear, I must think of every possible scenario that would cause catastrophic mayhem and devastation in my life, and wonder when the inevitable other shoe will drop. If I am busy, my brain doesn’t have time to meander into dangerous thought, but the second I can “relax,” I almost start to give myself a panic attack. I am very aware that I sound nuts, and I don’t know why I self-sabotage my relaxation time, but oh my goodness do I seem to have it out for my own sanity. I fill up every single second of my day busy with some sort of task, activity, or responsibility, so that I do not have time to dwell. I don’t know how some people have perfected the task of shutting down their brain as they unwind at the end of the day, but I truly envy that ability.
I can’t be the only person that does this. Things are going great in life, and fairly smooth, and if I am lying down in bed at night, I just start thinking. Thinking about death, pain, destruction, and a vast multitude of horrors that haven’t even taken place yet. I guess my mind can’t seem to “sit still.” When I should be relaxing, I instead begin to worry. Worry about what-if scenarios and why I have such good things going on in my life. I tell myself that everything will come crashing down because I don’t deserve it. Then I inevitably end up tossing and turning all night and having extremely restless sleep, often full of nightmares and bad dreams. This is why I have always struggled to fully immerse myself into a vacation or time off. My brain just creates all these different scenarios and then I begin to hyperventilate until it becomes increasingly difficult to catch my breath. My subconscious wanders and begins to build up anxiety and negativity in my mind.
I try to keep myself busy to stave off any intrusive thoughts from creeping in. As much as I may complain about always having so much to do, and an ever piling plate of tasks, I secretly relish in the idea of keeping my brain so preoccupied that it doesn’t have time to dwell. If I work myself to the cusp of all my waking hours every single day, then I will be too exhausted at the end of the night to sit in silence and ponder. I am so insanely jealous of my husband’s ability to often ‘go with the flow’ and let things happen as they may. He is very much of the ‘it is what it is’ mentality,’ where I am very much of the ‘one thing has gone awry and now all of my plans are ruined’ train of thought. I am sure they make some sort of medication out there to help relax people like me, but though I am a Schell, I do not want to become a shell, and therefore will pursue other avenues instead. I just want to be able to not be so tightly wound, so type-A, and so unwitting to let myself just be at peace.
Perhaps one day I will learn to be okay with not scheduling every single thing in my life. I can learn that it’s okay if I don’t mop the floors on my typical Tuesdays or bleach the bathrooms every Thursday. My world will not fall apart if I don’t adhere to such strict, and occupying tasks. I guess it’s a great thing I married someone so incredibly opposite of my thought process to help bring me back down to reality and calm me down when my negative panic starts to creep in. I still thoroughly enjoy being busy, because it helps me feel like I am making the most out of my time here and that I am serving my purpose. But I still hope that one of these days I can go on vacation without feeling guilty or worrying about outlandish possibilities. Either that, or I will plan a vacation centered around ayahuasca in my future and maybe give my psyche an overhaul on what it means to be contemplative to the point of making one sick with worry. In the meantime, I will just continue to keep myself preoccupied 24/7, and savor in the joy that I have the ability to be able to do so many things.
