Did you see me? Did you hear me? And did anything that I said have any impact on your life? No matter where we come from, no matter where we are going, these are the three questions we unconsciously and incessantly ask our surrounding beings. Especially the ones that appeal to us the most.
Am I anything to you? Based on the answers we get, we trust, we reject, we guard or we flee. Based on them, we live. This is not a blog to condemn you on dependency and to urge you to look within and to magically transform to an autonomous creature.
Attention seeking is inextricably bound to validation famine. Am I important to you? Do I influence you in any way? Should I continue? Should I stop?
We ask and ask again and based on these answers we move and we breathe, we rest and we run, we dare and we shrivel. Everything we are, our timidness, our audacity, our patience and our drive, is choreographed around the individuals fortunately found in our orbits.
Did you hear me? We are looking for affirmation. We are looking for authorization. We are looking for reinforcement. We ask. And we claim by avoiding open ended questions. We want to know. Yes or no? And when the answer is no, we either re-strategize or we collapse.
Holding on to social strings and fretting not to get caught up in them while trying to knit a shielding blanket for your breathing days, does not make you a marionette. It does not make you incapable. It only makes you human.
The problem with attention seeking is not that we ask for guidance. It is that sometimes, we overdo it. And in these occasions, this over zeal develops into too much thought and too much doubt.
"Underwater swimmers" by my favorite Greek artist, Maria Filopoulou
When you find yourself oscillating between decisions, paralyzingly indecisive and feeling that you have lost your sense of self, try making minor attitude alterations that will eventually accumulate into a greater redemptive change.
When you find yourself regretting the past and overthinking the consequences of today, try seizing the moments of calmness that are already there. When you feel trapped between memory and anticipation and cannot feel the present, try recognizing the moments when you are resisting the least. Try appreciating the moments when you simply are.
Here is something that I have noticed about me: When I overthink -- and trust me, this happens a lot -- I many times realize that under a state of alertness and stress, my thoughts are rarely creative but are mostly repetitive and futile and most of the times cause even more anxiety. To step out of this vicious cycle, I assign my body with a calming strategy. I tie my shoelaces and I go out for endless walks, until I physically feel so tired that I cannot think anymore. And when though has subsided, I am present in the now, dropping the past and too exhausted to project in the future.
Besides physically draining oneself, I have found three questions that may help center you and make you self-reliant enough, to be able to defy anxiety and keep going.
Say you work in an environment where you feel like everyone judges you. Acknowledge how you feel and embrace it: accept it. You feel like everyone judges you. So in work per se, they paint a picture of you and they draw an outline in which you unfortunately find yourself in. They say you are unworthy and sometimes you believe them. But remember: this is who you are THERE. In the geographical location of your office. Use coordinates to your advantage. When you leave and threat is no longer tangible or seeable, ask yourself these three questions:
1) Who are you in your room?
2) Who are you when you dive into the water and are still underwater?
3) Who are you when you are afraid for a split second, past-less and future-less, when the now only counts?
Then remember: it is in these past-less and purpose-less moments when you simply are. It is in the present moment that has been reduced to a byproduct or a means to an end, where you can find yourself and where you can simply be.
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