Refraction #1: Stop awfulizing

Photo by Javon Swaby from Pexels

I love this photo. It reminds me not to awfulize.

You see, everything we see -- or think we see -- is filtered through our mind's eye, our "lens." Or perhaps more aptly said, refracted through our lenses. Some days I'm wearing the proverbial rose-colored lenses, but most days I'm wearing some cracked ones. So cracked that I have a hard time seeing anything beautiful -- everything looks distorted.

And on some days things look downright awful. My friend tells me that this term -- "awfulizing" -- is what they remind their clients at a drug rehab facility not to do. Don't make everything out to be as awful as it possibly could be perceived to be. Especially things that have not yet happened. Don't awfulize the future.

But that's what anxiety is like for me. I'm not officially diagnosed probably because I'm a high-functioning anxious person. I get by and succeed well enough that no one notices the cracks in my lenses. No one notices the way I occasionally wobble and have to put my hand down on a table or against a wall to brace myself.

So I can conceal much of my anxiety from the world. Even the quavering in my voice I can subdue if I stand like Wonder Woman long enough or dance around to Lady Gaga before speaking publicly. Or, if I can't hide away in my room to do this little routine, my last resort is a trick I've learned -- but not yet mastered -- where I can pretend I'm brilliantly confident through some kind of weird out-of-body performance (as they say, fake it 'til you make it).

The truth is though that I have an awful tendency to awfulize. Especially about the past. I ruminate about how I could have done things differently -- and how a better person would have. And I worry about the future -- will I do anything differently in the future?

Perhaps the worst anxiety is anxiety about anxiety: when I have another big day, will my anxiety interfere with my success? (Incidentally, I've found this is usually a sure-fire way to give my awfulizing amazing predictive power.)

Now contrast this to my persona when my Anxiety Devil is not sitting on my shoulder. When my Badass persona is in charge, well, I'm a badass. No two shits about it. The fact that I can be a badass even just sometimes makes it very clear to me on a rational level that I could be a badass all of the time. But I'm not.

I'm working on it though. I'm aware that sometimes I've put on the cracked lenses: these days I usually know I'm awfulizing when I'm doing it. This helps a lot because it means that I can choose to change my glasses. You know, put on that snazzy pair of tortoise-shell cat-eyes...

And take a good look around without awfulizing what I see. Look around, see the world. See it as it is in all its tremendous and imperfect beauty. And be awed.