Be Cool

For me, one of the defining challenges of my life is to just calm the fuck down. Take it easy, right? Have a pill. Don’t stress. Be cool. Chillax.

For the terminal brooder and those of us who bear the classic ‘all or nothing’ mindset, it’s not that simple. Worrying about stuff is just what I do, even if I don’t know I’m doing it. My mind races needlessly all the time, and not in a productive or creative way, but to useless, frustrating effect. Every phone call, a friend or relative announced dead; every letter opened a recall to the clinic for ‘repeat’ results (either that, or an audit by the tax people); every social media post a cause of rage; every minor workaday mistake a reason for self-loathing; every word spoken by someone else to be scanned for hidden threats or insults. It simply never ends. I catastrophise therefore I am.

I think I only became aware of this anxious tendency quite recently, when it was pointed out to me by a partner, who said something like, ‘Wow, the things that go on in your head’. I just thought it was normal. And to be fair, for a lot of people, it is. Meditators call it the ‘monkey mind’, an apt description of your brain’s inner workings, as it clambers, scrambles, grasps and tumbles from one seemingly impossible position to the next. And yet, like the monkey, somehow it all hangs together – just. Barring very serious mental illness, the proverbial monkey swings to the next branch, twig or leaf, makes it and keeps moving. But it seems at least, highly precarious.

You can experience the monkey mind for yourself by simply going to a quiet place for a few minutes, sitting and closing your eyes. Unless you’re already an old hand at the meditation game, you’ll soon find the monkey swinging into action as your mind fills with unfocused chatter, movement and noise. Memories, anxieties, fears, concerns, elations, insecurities, the football results, whatever it is, all come flooding in, to no good effect. A psychologist told me once that most of the thoughts that flood through our mind at any given time are, to all intents and purposes, of no value whatsoever. Some certainly are of use, and therefore it’s obviously going to be handy if we can just slow things down for a bit and give ourselves a fighting chance of working out what those things are.

Focusing on one particular thing, or nothing at all, isn’t easy, which is why mediation works much better if you practice a little every day and ‘train’ your mind to stop moving in the manner I’ve described. But nonetheless a certain calm can be achieved almost immediately by doing as I’ve suggested above: go somewhere quiet, sit or lie down somewhere where you can keep your back more or less straight, close your eyes gently and take a deep breath in for a count of five, hold for four, breathe out for six. Do that just once and you’re meditating. Of course, like anything, with practice, patience and a measure of discipline, you can get better at it, meditate for longer and feel calmer. But bear in mind that anxiety manifests itself in a physical manner, that requires a physical response. Agreed, in the middle of an anxiety moment or attack, a 10k run may not be top of your list (although it would probably help), but staying curled up in a ball and hoping it goes away is just going to make things worse.

Sadly, for some of us – and it is often addicts who bear this particular cross – there is the ‘all or nothing’ mindset to contend with as well. For me, I can either do something with total commitment and to its fullest extent, say like drinking myself to death for instance – or I can drink nothing at all. There are no in-betweens. No such thing as ‘just one drink’, or a ‘cheeky glass of red’. It’s three bottles of rum and the back of an ambulance, or total sobriety and never touching alcohol again. It’s the only way I can be. Outside of drinking, I express that in a certain workaholism, or an intense, slightly unhinged curiosity that leads me to all sorts of places, both in my mind and the world outside it. Of course these things can be obvious strengths if marshalled properly, but the problem is they’re often not. Much as I hate to say it, a certain measure of discipline has to be added to the mix and a lot of us aren’t very good at that. And by this I don’t mean a kind of Navy SEAL assault course lifestyle, up at 4am, scrub toilets with a toothbrush by 5, 20k run, bowl of Bircher muesli autistically prepared to a precise recipe the night before. No, just a simple, everyday routine, preferably done first thing upon wakening, but doesn’t have to be. Meditate or just breathe consciously for a few minutes, brush your teeth, think calmly on the matters of the day ahead and what it may hold for you. Write something down if you like: journaling is a tried and tested way of clearing the mind, for instance.

However you choose to proceed, just do it now. You are here now, after all, whether you like it or not. The day may be full of troubles, who knows, but every moment in it belongs to you and you alone. Short of being randomly mown down by a bus in the high street, no one can take that away from you. Close your eyes, unclench your jaw, take a deep breath and take the time that is yours. Just be there. Be there for you.

Be cool.