Exercising Demons Part 3 🏃♂️🏃🏃♀️
Address Me
Why I am I writing about demons again? Embarking on a new blog, it's important for me to recognize my relationship with the internet, to understand my personal flaws and demons so I can work on them and have an authentic experience writing from the heart. To remember what mistakes I've made and challenges I've faced, to let you and myself know that yes, there are elephants in the room.
So there is a bit of a crowd now and we've moved from the cozy breakfast nook to the mess hall to accommodate all these critters. I think if I were to be completely thorough with this demon hide and seek, feeding, and exercising ordeal I don't think I'd ever get to what I want to write about. Also to be clear, I call them demons or elephants or critters but they could be character flaws or human conditions, I just have a tendency to personify things. There's a desire to wrap this up in this post. So lets look at a few other demons I've encountered.
Perfectionism:
Sometimes as projects go on I find the level of polish I want to achieve increases, and the energy to maintain that polish increases as well. The little weirdos project as it originated was a scrappy thing that turned into a over produced and over curated thing that was no longer fun. Perfectionism pairs really well with...
Over Thinking and Procrastination:
This is a recipe for disaster. Anytime my thinking out paces my doing by a significant margin the project has ceased to be. In my over thinking, I have lived multiple lifetimes of simulated doing, thus robbing myself of the journey that is doing. More importantly, it robs me of the present moment, which is so critically important to stay in touch with in order to be writing or doing. Allowing space to dream was my intention with little weirdos (much more on what little weirdos is to come). Yet too much time spent dreaming seems to potentially lead to over thinking.
Depression:
This is where I find myself often after over thinking. As the process itself seems to split the present moment in two: the past and the future, sadness and anger, the gears are completely stuck now. The only way forward is figuring out how to return to the present moment.
Fear:
Yet sometimes the path back to the present moment is not clear, and sometimes it is very much blocked, blocked by fear. Which when encountered there's a desire to run away from it, but because the fear is a part of me, the act of running away is futile. What's fascinating is the first demon I mentioned; wanting attention, is the medicine that this demon needs. Which again, self love is the cure-all here.
Anatomy of a demon
When I think about all these things and their negative effects on the creative process they compound quite quickly and zap me of my energy and my ability to be present, making the smallest of tasks seem like monumental ordeals. What I've come to realize is all of these demons are forms of resistance which is an inevitable part of any endeavor. It's a little bit corny but Do the Work by Steven Pressfield immediately paints all of these demons as internal forms of resistance, and that the antidote is action. I would add action WITH self love. Not a narcissistic self love, for me one that says "I am enough".
Roll call!
OK so lets take a look at these demons one last time: wanting attention, wanting validation, social media addiction, vanity, sentimentality, Perfectionism, Over thinking, Procrastination, Depression, Fear. Hello everyone! Here you are! You are my Demons! Thank you for being you! You have my attention I am feeding you and will continue to do so! I am grateful for you too! Thank you for making me the person I am and challenging me along the way. <3 I will now shower you in infinite likes.
