Action over thinking
overthinking thinking it over
I value any and all support for this newsletter. You can like, comment, subscribe, share to a friend, share to social, or pay for a subscription, I don’t care! It helps me keep this going if I feel I’m being of use to the people receiving my message. That requires your feedback. I hate to say it, but it does. I genuinely don’t know if you like what I say if I hear nothing back from you. I need your support more than I need your money.
In last week’s newsletter, I talked about being in alignment with the universe.
A topic I touched on was about taking action and I want to explore that a little more.
Action requires no thought. Action is instinctual and instantaneous. Action lives in trust.
For me, to get to the action step I needed numerous reasons to have trust in myself. First and foremost, I couldn’t trust that I would follow through with any action. I was too far removed from my truth to know how. So that required some tending to.
While practicing building my trust muscle, a workshop around the idea of building Self Trust came to mind. I needed to create a framework for myself to understand what those instincts might even be. The workshop is a beautiful container to explore instincts and play, I look forward to my future with them.
Okay so in my workshops, I tell a story about a moment when I realized I had lived in LA for 8 years and still used GPS to get everywhere. Luckily, I was in a phase of understanding my motivations for things and ultimately uncovered that I didn’t trust myself to get from Point A to Point B safely. I justified that I wanted to know if accidents were on my route or that I couldn’t see signs well enough at night. I had a trust issue with myself. From that point further, I stopped using GPS.
I do use GPS for getting to a place for the first time, I will use memory to get home.
My ability to make my way around with relative ease was a gateway to building trust with myself (or rather showed that there was a severe lack of trust). I now can trust my memory, I trust my sense of direction, and I trust I can work myself out of any situation with ease. This action, of omitting GPS, was so small and had a very large impact on my relationship with myself.
Now in reflection, I see that as me planting seeds of self-worth where there was none. I was so indoctrinated in low self-worth that it wasn’t even on my radar as an issue for me until recently.
It’s my belief that we must provide containers for these underdeveloped habits to thrive in so that we can bring them into the real world in a real way. That’s why I made an art workshop designed around trusting oneself and instincts. A practice to model what is possible in the real world.
Building trust is a solitary act and, in that respect, trust in myself thrived in isolation. I did all of what was comfortable behind my screen, in my home, in my brain, and in my heart. I desperately needed to feel secure, and that’s what was necessary at that time. No regrets. With everything comes an end, and that “safe” approach to life slowly started to crack. I mean you guys get it, you were there. In comes action.
The more action I do, the more content I am. Weird how that is. I think I thought contentment was a vacuum, but really it exists only because of chaos. It exists in contrast to chaos, like our old friend yin yang. I was mislabeling action as chaos. Still working on this one!
Emotional sobriety is key to taking action. There’s going to be a point where you’re not going to want to do that thing that is good for you. So when starting a new habit in anything you have to have a conversation with yourself, reach a conclusion on the best course of action, and then trust that decision when you’re not feeling emotionally sober. I learned this trick from a fitness guy, Mike Vacanti, years ago and it’s been super helpful in my most recent applications.
I’ve been focusing on routine the past couple of months and it’s super fucking hard for me to do anything to better my life outside of isolation(ie go for a walk). I know that. So I gotta ease in. I have to trust that when I want to have a lazy morning and not get my shit handled that a past version of myself, who had a more objective opinion, decided otherwise. What a relief!
caviat : everything within reason!
Now I know my patterns, I have all the information I need to know in order to take action. It, admittedly, took some damn time. But, at 31 I’m here. I know myself better today than I ever have. Every so often I will need to update those self-beliefs, luckily I have a deeply entrenched system to keep current on such matters. I don’t know what’s going to come up when I start a habit, I just know that something will and trust that I’ll be able to deal with it when it does.
I am fully prepared now to rely on what past versions of myself decided for us. My life is about to pop off in a real way because of this shit. I need to take all that thought energy I was using and put it into action energy. We’re transitioning but we’re well on our way.
We being all the past versions of myself and my inner committee (inner child, loving parent, critical parent, my artist, etc)
It’s funny to me now that action can look like me writing a newsletter about taking action. So meta. Writing this newsletter is so much more active than keeping these thoughts inside. When they’re inside they only live in there and what a small life that is. I’m learning to share exuberantly!
I see these kinds of throughlines in my newsletters. I share the issue I have with a limiting belief and eventually come to a compassionate resolve, peace is a practice. I usually end on notes about releasing these words into the world with no expectation on myself other than to support my multifaced life. In the past, these newsletters would have not looked like this. I’m happy to report on this side of things. I’m grateful that I didn’t then.
My little ‘business, business, business’ paragraph I was doing doesn’t resonate anymore. I’m in the middle of a bunch of projects that I feel a lot more connected to than sharing on one specific category behind a paywall. I want to be everything at once and limiting certain info feels like I’m closing a door when I’m trying to let the air in.
So I’m putting the call out for support and in the spirit of action, like, comment, share, subscribe, or become a paid subscriber. I don’t care what you do, I have love and appreciation for you nonetheless.
Thank you, you mean more to me than you know.
-Alex
I found this newsletter to be SO helpful and really resonant with what I’m moving through right now. Thank you for sharing your insights!!