How I Conquered Worry (And How You Can, Too!)

The lofty endeavor to change my life situation and most importantly my mental outlook came to me not as if in a dream but rather from the suffering endured from the confines of my dungeon-like Chicago apartment on the lower west side. It would then spirit me away on a journey West across the continental US until my ultimate destination, Los Angeles. It would also be one of the most liberating endeavors wherein I learned that I could be complete and full on my very own.
The Wallowing
To ignore the catalyst to my journey would be inherently shameful for, “The avoidance of struggle is a struggle and the denial of failure is [in itself] a failure.” — Mark Manson
To say I had lost vitality in ordinary life would be an understatement. I found myself consumed in worry in nearly every aspect of my being and in my bones. Stemming from fear of loneliness and failure, I indulged in pleasure and pity almost ritually. I had become nocturnal in the dead of winter, a product of working the night shift in a bleak warehouse and working from sundown to well into dawn. I found a modicum of solace in the underground music scene in Chicago because the only things I could feel were the vibrations of an 808.
I succumbed to countless wrongs and fruitless thought patterns. My mind had entertained victimization rather than accountability and led me in illogical circles with no end in sight. In the depths of my depression, I contemplated existential questions like, “Is this really it, is this all there is to life?” And so I endeavored to make some drastic changes.
· Acceptance of your problems is the first step in making changes to solve them.
· Know that, “the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience.” — Mark Manson
The Undertaking
I had built the strength and discipline to take action through an emphasis on mindfulness and meditation. I took refuge in the sanctuary of my yoga practice and my passion for rock climbing. These two activities in tandem grounded me, and more so allowed me to be present. By connecting with my breath, I could inhale the future and exhale the past.
A dear friend once described practicing yoga to be like windshield wipers clearing the grit, fog and bird shit off the windshield that is your world view. This could not have been more accurate. For once I had begun to reveal my third eye, my seat of intuition, I could readily make decisions and begin trusting myself again.
I ventured from Illinois to California, a nearly three thousand mile journey. I made frequent stops in famed American cities and in breathtaking parks that I only dreamt of visiting from the deepest pits of my previous sadness. I trekked to an altitude of 13k ft. in the Colorado Rockies and managed 5k ft. of elevation change in the Grand Canyon. I reveled in alpine territory and the deep valleys of this beautiful country. I learned the kindness of strangers while hitchhiking in Zion and felt gratitude turn a can of tuna into a feast.
· Cultivate mindfulness through activities that bring you happiness. Happiness is a problem that requires solving and is a by-product of doing. It is cyclical in the way that doing more of the things you enjoy will bring you happiness, and in turn, this happy state will motivate you to continue doing those activities.
· Be grateful for what you do have. “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.” — Melody Beattie
The Awakening
I felt lighter physically and mentally, as if my crowded head space had disallowed positivity and gratitude. I began drafting my vision for a happier and more fulfilling life on paper, sketching palm trees and waves next to what I knew would make me happy: spiritual development, yoga, traveling, reading, biking, rock climbing, surfing, healthy friendships, nourishing food. I felt surges of happiness replace pain and enjoyed lasting joy from sunrise to sunset for the first time in what felt like ages.
I could swallow forlorn and forgotten days and quell my anxious mind from fretting about the future. I could live in day-tight compartments like the water-sealed compartments in the undercarriage of a ship. I merely had to live one day at a time. I can’t match the eloquence of the Roman poet Horace, so I’ll quote him verbatim, “Happy the man, and happy he alone, he who can call today his own: he who, secure within, can say, Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.”
· Live in day-tight compartments. Imagine your sense of time to be like the water-tight compartments in the belly of a ship. Shut the iron doors of the past and future and don’t allow water from these states to seep into the present and sink your ship. (Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living)
· Make a conscious and willful decision to be happy. Do NOT be afraid to be happy. “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” — Abraham Lincoln
