I went on a hike this morning and as I traversed a trail to a distance I have not in the last two years, some thoughts overcame me about limits, balance, and trust.
I spent a lot of years working to identify and manage various mental hurdles. Mostly because I grew up hearing the age old adage, “you are mentally stronger than you know.” The idea that your mental strength can take your physical farther than expected. And I have experienced this on multiple levels over the years. But the only way to know your true limits is to push up against them or past them. A handful of years ago, I pushed beyond those limits not really realizing it.
In part, that burnout led me to start making my own music and playing shows as a solo artist. I am grateful for the experience but damn if it didn’t damn near kill me…figuratively and at times, literally.
My EP Mental Hurdles is about just that. Identifying those mental hurdles and learning to accept and work with them in life. Amongst those are social anxiety, Depression, OCD/ADD, and midlife crisis.
As I traverse some medium-to-difficult terrain on my hike this morning, I’m reminded that trust is imperative. Trust that my shoes will not slip on the large boulders but more so trust that when I choose to keep going my legs and my lungs will not fail. The trust I am trying to rebuild is with myself and my body. I have to push past the mental limits that my body has set in the last few years to build trust in my body, that I can survive pushing just a little farther.
Too many years have gone by where my health was a sidecar to literally everything and anything else. This comes from the long held idea of starving artists. That it’s somehow inherently necessary for artists to suffer in their process. I believed this for far too long.
Trust is not just a physical trait, it’s a mental one as well. I’ve been exploring this idea of subconscious guilt where when we say to ourselves, “I’m going to go for a walk, eat healthy, and lose weight,” that when we don’t do those things subconsciously this guilt and lack of trust in oneself builds and builds. Now multiply that times 20-25 years of ignoring the physical signs and mentally pushing through. I tell myself it’s to achieve a goal of success in a creative endeavor, that If I can just get there I can sort out the issues at that point. There is no “getting there.” In fact, I’ve come to realize that not taking care of those issues up front and ignoring them, not taking care of my physical well being, is actually holding me back in my creative endeavors.
Life is a path that winds and flows through its entirety until its inevitable end.
I choose to rebuild the trust within myself so that at the end of my life, I can revel in the experience that I’ve lived a full life on my terms, my way, and face the unknown with excitement and sense of curiosity.
