defying self-consciousness
when was the last time your belly hurt from laughing?
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I’m increasingly convinced that the purpose of all insecurities is one thing: to keep you in your head, convince you that you are inadequate, and to prevent you from taking action.
I spent much of this morning reading through the journal I have been writing in for the last few months. As I read through it, I could literally sense the waves of feeling inclined towards action, towards exerting my will on the world, taking risks and leaning into life—and the waves of the inverse: self-consciousness, insecurities and old brain worms crashing onto shore, after years of remaining underwater, invisible, undetectable to my consciousness until they were monopolizing it. I could see the force with which I was willing to show up in the world wax and wane proportionally to my sense of confidence and security within myself.
The more insecure / in my head on any given day I was—even if the insecurity was completely tangential to what I “wanted to do” that day, the less likely I was to do it. The better I felt about myself—even if the source of my confidence had nothing to do with the actions I intended to take—the more likely I was to take action, independent of the stakes or probability of that action being effective.
The way I could sense this from my journal was simply the clarity I was writing with and the “position” I was assuming towards the world: leaned in, or leaned out.
This observation supports a long-standing thesis I have had that the highest leverage knowledge you can obtain, and the most effective “work” you can do to increase your effectiveness in the world is self-knowledge and inner work.
If you know yourself well enough, and are fluent enough in the language of your inner world, you can invert negative attitudes, navigate challenging inner experiences and invert maligned thoughts sooner, so you can redirect your attention towards where you genuinely want it to go.
You can be the most effective programmer, quant, researcher, product manager, banker, [insert seemingly non-emotional profession where your inner state should not, in theory, affect your ability to perform your role well] — and still be entirely thrown off by an inner world that is out of order.
One of the greatest things I have ever done is choosing to write pretty much every day and track my inner state, fairly religiously. This allows me to do what I just did this morning: to look back and remember what I actually thought three weeks ago. Not just what I did, or what my day looked like, or what the aesthetics of my world appeared to be, but what was actually happening inside my own head.
This ability to track my inner state alongside the contents of my outer world has allowed me to notice and address how my thoughts are shaping my reality. My conclusion is this: self-doubt and insecurity absolutely, categorically, fuck up your ability to take action in the world.
When you untangle the contents of your inner world often enough—which can be done in a number of ways, like working with me 1:1 to translate the signals of your inner world back to you, and into action—you start to see the tangible results of having your fingers on the pulse of your inner world.
When I notice my mind teetering negative… instead of trying to muscle through this state and force myself to work, which in the past would just exacerbate and prolong this strained inner state, I now try to face it directly, try to understand what is nagging at my consciousness, and resolve it fully so that I can actually heal the root of whatever is uneasy for me, then return to my intentions of how I’d like to direct my energy.
When I am tending to my inner state often and consciously, I am hardly ever held back by these deep-rooted insecurities that veer me away from the path of action. But when I am letting them ferment without supervision for long enough, I can easily end up in this pocket of inaction that leaves me feeling even worse about myself than the inner-rifts are already causing me to feel.
What was most fascinating about reading through the journal so sequentially though, was realizing that the true remedy for these excessively-in-your-own-head feelings was immersive social time with family and friends.
I know that might be the least interesting and novel observation of all time: that hanging out with loved ones makes you feel better. But somehow, we tend to forget this? Or at least I do? We do all the yoga, meditation, exercise classes, writing in the world. But have you recently put yourself in a situation so full of love and joy that you laugh until your stomach hurts and you get so lost in the collective orb of love, joy and banter that forget yourself entirely? Because if not, I would strongly recommend starting with that!
In this stream of consciousness that I was documenting for several weeks, the most significant spikes in action, agency and courage seemed to occur after events where I felt deeply connected to community. Notably: community that had nothing “directly” to do with my work. Simply communities that reminded me of the freedom, ease and joy life can feel like when I am not stuck in my own head, stewing on things I cannot control, bemoaning all the things I am not yet, or punishing myself for things I am but wish I wasn’t.
I write this because I seem to forget just how powerful and life force-inducing a good old fashioned hang out with family and friends can be, and by contrast, how draining an untamed negative mental loop can be. I often interpret this kind of excessive heady-ness as something I need to solve, with force, with rigour, with conscious, mindful intention.
But often what I need is the exact opposite: some tangential form of fun that cleanses my mind of the worries and stresses it has no business trying to control excessively.
I intend to apply this profound insight to my “work” regimen this summer. That maybe when I think that what I need to do is press harder and push more forcefully, what I really need is to back off completely, surrender, and get some good old fun on the calendar. And on that note, I think I am going to close my laptop now and head to the park with a blanket, book and a huge jug of water, hopefully forgetting all the things my mind loves to grasp onto when I sit at a desk, in front of a screen with mountains of things I could be doing staring back at me. May I recommend that you do the same? :)
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This is well written, Isabel.
Spending time with loved ones during such seasons is cathartic because it helps you forget about your problems momentarily. Otherwise we risk ruminating endlessly about these challenges and overestimating them when in reality they are not as pressing as we may think. And at times it takes external entities—trusted ones—to break out of this loop. This is a form of brief recess before you go back to your battle.
During this brief period, you shift your attention elsewhere, denying your problems of it and thus diminishing their significance. This is not to make these hurdles frivolous. Not at all. But the frame with which you come back to approach them is often fresh, which puts you in a better position to address them than if you would have stayed in the self-conscious loop.
The other effect is, of course, in interacting with others, you often realize how minuscule your challenges are in the grand scale of things. This grants you carefreeness, which enhances the frame with which you tackle your challenges—taking them less seriously, ironically, leads you to solving them much faster and much easier.