QtP: Activities I Really Enjoy Doing

Think of some activities you really enjoy doing. If you could do one of these activities without feeling stressed out, without having anxiety, and without worrying about your family, kids, job, etc. how would that feel? Why do you not do this activity more often? What steps could you take to do this activity stress free and without worrying about other things? Do this activity this week.

Learning songs on the guitar
Producing Lo-Fi songs on my computer
Mountain biking
Going on dates/meetups
Walking

I am picking song production because it produces the most viscerally complicated response: fear that i won't be good enough, fear that I will start and the same old shit will happen as always has done in the past (after 10 minutes I start getting a fast heartbeat, short of breath and rushing everything, struggle to concentrate and just want to stop!), Self flagellation that I do not indulge in this activity more often and that it scares me, hope that eventually I will...

How would it feel without all that? How would it feel just to enjoy creating, moment to moment? Well, goodness. I don't know. I don't know if I've ever felt that. For more than 10 minutes... It would feel like 5 in the morning: just before dawn when no one else is awake. It would be that buzz, that relaxing into the river of life rather than fighting the current... It would be all consuming in a way I can't describe in words. It would be exciting and pure joy, even when I knew what I was doing wouldn't sound 'good' to anyone else and doesn't even sound 'right' to me. Pure vibing with the moment.

Why do I not do it more often? See above. Fear: fear that I will exhaust myself mentally for my other passion: my confidence and career coaching business. Fear that I deprioritise making a living and then feel a failure. Fear that I bring on exhaustion/fatigue/fog/canker sores/depression (my symptoms) by pushing myself too hard.

Fear that I have to face the fact that I'm actually not that good, or that I really don't enjoy it as much as I fetishised I 'should'.

What steps could I take to do it without worrying?

Begin. Today. I'm feeling pretty foggy today, in the brain. Just doing it anyway. No force, no pressure to make anything spectacular. Just begin and see what happens - flow with it. Enjoy it. Light a candle. Make some tea, play my guitar, copy someone else's song beat for beat. Make it play!

 

Happy to report I spent about 3 hours producing a LoFi track this morning, after writing this post.

I didn't feel energetic, or particularly motivated to do it. But I also felt NO anxiety, panic, phsyical symptoms of fear... For the entirety of the session. When I had to do something like Google a certain technique or fix a guitar input (anything that is not what I hoped to be doing next in order to finish the song), where I usually would have got frustrated and scared, I just got on at my own pace and ambled through it.

I can't stress how *not feeling anxious at all* for 3 hours was awesome. My brain fog and fatigue lifted but only by 0-5%.