The Bridge #95
in which we feel our way through the anxieties
Hello
& Welcome ! The Bridge is a newsletter connecting the professional and the personal creatively across cultures and a diversity of topics, until we are not only full of ideas but also ready to take action. Thanks for joining in the conversation.
As a reminder, I am a coach for those seeking a different way, a way to balance health and wealth, success and ease, struggles and experimentation. If you’ve been professionally successful, but find yourself a bit lost or stuck when it comes to deeper fulfillment, it’s probably … not all your fault 😊 The system around us is designed to distract and confuse, and it’s a mistake to think we can succeed on our own. I invite you to a free call with me if you believe talking it out could help clarify your situation.
Something to Get Us Thinking
ANXIETY - I haven’t yet met someone who’s said they want to feel it.
& it’s not usually a badge of pride to be paranoid. We usually encourage people to TRUST, and if they feel anxious we encourage them to calm down. Don’t overreact. It’s probably nothing.
The truth is, we fear the anxiety might be contagious! We want to be liked, we want to be confident, and often the person who is openly anxious is… not so fun to be around. We don’t want to be like them. & at some level, we sense they have a point. So what we’re really doing when we tell them to calm down is trying to soothe ourselves, to reassure ourselves that there is nothing to worry about. There are no threats.
Often though the person who is highly observant and emotionally intelligent, sensitive to near-invisible details and brave enough to articulate what they see, is a canary in a coal mine. A highly observant person feeling anxiety is — like the canary — able to warn of danger before the rest of us have fully sensed it.
When facing non-obvious dangers, we need to be like detectives, searching for clues to unravel a mystery: Why do I feel this anxiety? What are the root causes? We can only figure it out with the help of others. Because not everything around us should be feared. Not everything around us should be trusted either.
Are there people in your life helping you know when to trust your anxious gut, when to soothe it?
Something to Spark Conversation
Preparing for my 2024 Sabbatical (The Nap Ministry)
A book author, public speaker, and creative workshop facilitator Tricia Hersey has been playfully communicating about a serious topic for quite a long time: We need more naps. It’s true, we do.
Grinding and hustling is still all too common, even among the rich and famous. It’s an even more dangerous ideology for those in the middle of the power structure. As we try to move our way to a place of safety (professionally, for instance) we risk sacrificing our health, which is precious. Worse yet, we too often delude ourselves into working so hard for something, when it no longer serves. Do we know when and how to rest?
I admire and respect Tricia Hersey for being a person who has had enormous success delivering the message that Rest is Resistance (in body and mind). I admire her because she not only communicates the message with words, she also embodies the message through a regular sabbatical practice. She lives it!
Something to Enjoy
Vampire Weekend is one of my favorite bands of all time. They formed when I started university, and their second album was released when I was in grad school in NYC. I was a musical amateur then, and I still feel that way today. I liked their music, and struggled to explain why. Their eclectic sound resonated, their lyrics helped me laugh. Not much more I can say.
Their latest album features a song called “Classical” that combines the musical styles of past albums of theirs, and it’s like a celebration!
The lyrics meanwhile ask a poetic question, challenging our definitions of what is normal, good and beautiful. In times of change, it can be fruitful to live with these sorts of questions. They help us stay attuned…
Something to Practice
Sometimes it’s enough to restfully re-read or re-listen to something that’s moved us, to try and understand what it was, before moving on.
That’s what I’m doing here in sharing below the poetry of Vampire Weekend’s song “Classical” —
Untrue, unkind and unnatural
How the cruel, with time, becomes classical
I know that walls fall, shacks shake
Bridges burn and bodies break
It's clear something's gonna change
And when it does, which classical remains?
Classical Chinese?
JPC 🍜