A couple of weekends ago I was down in London and I remember feeling a bit anxious for the first time in a while. I’ve got to admit it took me by surprise a bit.
I was down on business for the weekend so probably should have been in bed early! but I could resist checking out the London Latino Salsa scene!
I’m normally pretty comfortable going out to a bar on my own but, as a I approached ‘Bar Salsa’, I found myself starting to tighten up.
I think it was because I’d never been out in London on my own before, it had always been with friends, that it suddenly felt all alien and new to me.
I could really feel the butterflies starting to do cartwheels in my stomach as I joined the queue and, for the first time in a while, I felt genuinely unsure of myself.
It’s amazing how, when we do something new and different it can sometimes be scary. We start to create things inside our minds that aren’t real just to scare ourselves!…Potential scenarios going wrong, people staring or laughing while we nervously shift about.
There were some really bizarre scenarios going through my mind as I got closer and closer to paying my 8 quid to get in and none of them were particularly pleasant.
Lucky for me I knew they were total nonsense!
I knew it was just me responding to an unfamiliar situation and the scenarios weren’t actually real…They were just fantasies, illusions, fabrications.
I was just simply using my imagination in the wrong direction…
It’s great to have an active imagination but sometimes it can feel like a bit of a curse.
The first thing to realize though, is that it is just your imagination!…it’s not real!
The second thing is even more important…to realize that IT’S YOU THAT’S DOING IT!
I know it’s easy and popular sometimes to buy into the idea that we are fighting some horrible demon like we’ve been invaded by some strange alien, foreign body.
I look on the inside quite a bit though and, the last time I looked, I was the only one in there!
There was no-one else!
When you find yourself in one of these internal struggles, it’s the same person that’s doing the fighting that’s being fought so the whole thing is really just a house of cards.
This kind of self acceptance is tremendously powerful. To deep down appreciate that you are the only one in there and there’s’ no-one to fight.
It’s a simple concept yet it takes a bit of reflection to really get it…To feel and accept it truly on the inside.
When you do though it changes everything. It doesn’t mean you don’t ever get nervous or anxious again, it just doesn’t have the same impact now that you know you’re on your own team of one.
There’s no fight no matter how much you try to keep it going…
Easy tiger!…Breathe…Relax….Let it go….That’s right… 🙂
Take care,
Steve
