3 counter-intuitive (yet super effective) ways to overcome anxiety during Sydney’s lockdown
The question isn’t about: “How is it possible for me to not feel negatively affected when our current environment is so crap?”
The question is more about: “How does you dwelling in self pity going to positively impact people who have lost their jobs, feel hopeless, or are physically ill? How does feeling sorry for yourself energetically inspire others to lift themselves up and take control of their lives?”
Patty Jin (Founder of ImpacU2)
Since September 2020, I have made a weekly commitment to visit Eastern suburbs (Rosebay, Watsons Bay and Bondi Junction).
Every single week, I would spend an average of 6–7 hours there, walking up and down New South Heath Rd, meditating by the bench at Watson’s Bay pier, writing my book at Boathouse cafe and Duffs Reserve and beaming a bright smile at every dog that walks pass me.
The 4 hours commute per visit never bothered me. What bothered me was the fact that I could no longer visit the very place that makes my inner child beam with joy. The place that takes me home and connects me to my higher self.
Yet I should be so thankful to have an actual house to safely come back to and not even have to worry about keeping a job to have my basic financial needs met.
That is not to say that even though I have been fairly productive over the last month, I do not experience any anxiety or mental blocks from being in the place where I’ve spent suffering endlessly from my trauma.
Over the last 10 years, I have tried very hard to run away from the deep seated self hatred that I’ve instilled within myself since high school years. The very last place that I would ever want to spend majority of my time working in is actually here.. where I am currently located right now.
But finally.. I have come to confront my internal pain by choosing to end my self pity. I choose to take 100% emotional responsibility for where I am and do the best that I can do right now.
Now you may be wondering, how exactly do you confront trauma without judgement? Especially if you are forced to be in the place that puts you in the lowest vibrational state?
Well here are the 3 principles that I choose to live with and has worked very well for me.
Let’s have a look!
- Observe your vibrational state and don’t let it drop beyond your control
Over the last few years, I learnt that when it comes to experiencing anxiety or depression, there are actually multiple states that we go through prior to reaching the point of self defeat.
For example, there are some nights where I experience broken sleep from 2.30–3.00am, and choose to stay in bed all the way till 10.00am to snooze and play with my phone. When I choose to throw away the first 4 hours of my day lying in bed half awake, I would find it very difficult to respect myself.
The first feeling that I would feel is grogginess. This grogginess would trigger me to spend time procrastinating on low consciousness activities right after I am conscious, such as checking social media feeds, feeling angry about the cluttered kitchen and dwelling in negative thoughts.
Now my energy would fragment to all different directions, which causes me to feel a sense of guilt for knowing all the theories on positive habits, but failing to implement them on a consistent basis.
Because I am not able to reach a flow state to effectively engage in any higher consciousness activities, I would feel disappointed in myself.
This sense of compounded disappointment would lead to sunken cost fallacy. Suddenly, I would find myself repeatedly justifying inside my mind: “I’ve already been lazy the past week, so I should continue to stay lazy because I don’t deserve the victory that comes from having self control anymore”..
This self justification would eventually lead to self defeat and anxiety.
Do you see how preventing the first feeling of grogginess from occurring is much more effective than trying to directly get rid of anxiety?
I believe that if we keep embedding power habit eco-systems into our lives that makes us at the top of our game, we would actually feel empowered by what we are able to achieve during lockdown.
2. Practice emotional independence on a daily basis
Do you notice what happens to most individual who is isolated during lockdown? They feel lonely. They say that the lack of physical contact, lack of socialising and lack of emotional bonding makes them feel “bored” and demotivated.
Now I completely understand that it’s normal to feel disconnected when you are forced to break your pattern and spend more time confronting your dark self.
But in reality, there is NOTHING that can truly affect our emotional state if we choose to acknowledge our wounds and patiently heal them. We can re-building a loving relationship with our inner child and experience self-fulfilment without any external validation.
Alot of people tend to get swept away in different kinds of negative emotions, such as frustration, self pity, hopelessness, boredom or discontentment. They blame COVID, their socio-economic position, their workplace, the stupidity of government and all sorts of things for their self pity.
While of course, the reasons may be legitimate.. what victim mentality actually does to you is make you energetically weaker. You really can’t improve your life situation by engaging in patterns that automatically puts you in a losing state.
I’m here to tell you now that it is actually not that hard to practice observing these emotions from a state of neutrality and ask ourselves why they keep occurring.
During my daily morning meditation, my energy tends to shift drastically from the first 10 minutes that I wake up and sit against my pillow in a lotus position.
When I am lying down and half conscious, I tend to dwell in negative thought patterns right away as compared to sitting up straight to sit in silence. Where as if I sit up straight away and intentionally align my focus, I am able to hold higher concentration levels and experience synchronicities throughout the day.
When you finally learn to control the inner demon within you by choosing to break your pattern, the negative feeling would naturally transcend through you.
3. Be the source of inspiration for others
Since January 2021, I have also made it a commitment to post 100 pictures on my IG baking account Patty’sBakingDelight by. As of today, I have posted roughly 124 beautiful pictures of my baking, consisting of strawberry jam roll cakes, matcha macarons, durian tarts, sausage bun, roti-boy, rainbow cakes and even pandan crepe cakes!
Most of them are my dad’s breakfast and friend’s snack.
Yet when people look through my social feed and see that I don’t only just bake a crap tonne of cakes. But I also practice ballet, do cardio yoga, write my books and became fitter than I‘ve ever been without a gym membership, they feel motivated to take positive action.
When other people tell you about the positive impact that you’ve made to their lives, this in turn amplifies a sense of self respect that you have for yourself.
Honestly, I find that if your mind is focused on self respect and feeling proud of your small wins, you won’t have the capacity to focus on excessive tragic news and let fear run your life 24/7.
Even if you are aware of the increasing COVID numbers, you may only feel frustrated for 5–10 minutes, and you will eventually revert back to engaging in high consciousness activity that bring out the best in you.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
It is impossible to feed your mind with positive and negative thoughts at the same time. You can’t feel emotionally fulfilled and bored as hell in the very same second, which means that if you’re feeling bored 18 hours a day.. then you’re letting boredom run your life rather than find ways to be emotionally fulfilled.
The question isn’t about: “How is it possible for me to not feel negatively affected when our current environment is so crap?”
The question is more about: “How does you dwelling in self pity going to positively impact people who have lost their jobs, feel hopeless, or are physically ill? How does feeling sorry for yourself energetically inspire others to lift themselves up?”
That question should be enough to choose whether you are going to continue living in reactive or pro-active mode.
Anyway, let me know if these 3 ways are effective and how you can start building positive momentum in your life TODAY!
Love Patty
Founder of ImpacU2
