Yesterday, I went for a long walk through Mount Tabor Park before it would start raining. It was finally a cooler fall morning and this was to be my workout for the day, so I made a point of enjoying it. I wore my favorite tweed vest combo, my favorite shawl, grabbed my walking stick and just did my Hobbit thing.

I made sure to bring my headphones with me in case I wanted to listen to music or a podcast on the walk, but I didn’t think I would. I haven’t lately, and not for lack of quality in my favorite podcasts. (Seriously, check out Old Gods of Appalachia, especially as we get toward Halloween here in the states.)

Instead, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had the time and bandwidth to get more curious about my inner life- how and why my mind does what it does. Historically I’ve used podcasts deliberately to blot out intrusive thoughts, break the anxiety spirals and derail rumination funks that can sap my focus and energy. In other words, they put someone else’s voice in my head when I can’t bear the sound of my own anymore.

They are still excellent for that, but lately I’ve had the energy to explore the “bad neighborhood” parts of my brain and figure out what’s going on in there.

Some time ago, I described my anxiety and attempts to deal with it with a frankly good analogy.

I described my anxiety as being noisy neighbors, and my constant attempts to achieve and keep myself busy as buying a giant stereo system and blasting metal music to drown out the sound, with the aftermath being a blown out stereo (my energy being burned out), noisy neighbors that haven’t changed, AND other people wondering why I gave up on being a metal head (“What happened? You were achieving so much/doing so well?!”)

My therapist loved this analogy and asked to use it with other clients, but set me a challenge when I could muster the energy. “Turn down the metal and listen to what the neighbors are saying, just figure out what else is going on in the building.”

Seeing the Anthony Bourdain biopic “Roadrunner” and a conversation with my father both served as moments to turn the metaphorical volume down and listen in to what was going on.

Here’s the bitch of having Anxiety and Depression- it didn’t come out of nowhere, and your brain thinks it’s protecting you. Studies show that the brain literally does not know the difference between emotional pain and physical pain. To our brains, there is absolutely no difference between the mental responses of “bullied in 3rd Grade” and “touched a hot stove when we were a child.” The brain responds the same- “Ouch! That sucked. Okay, what did we do to cause that? Okay, never do that again. Noted.”

Let’s try out my metaphor skills again. Anxiety and Depression are helicopter parents, and you are into your third year of college trying to get them to give you some breathing room. They mean well, but not DOING well, and they can’t see that.

This is where self-compassion (something I’ve been trying to learn) comes into play. It means sitting down with yourself and saying “Look Anxiety, I know you’re trying to keep bad shit from happening to me, but it’s not all bad and you’re getting in the way of the good shit too.”

“Roadrunner” was watching my own Dark Timeline for myself and my career play out on a screen alongside my wife who- thank God- was observant enough as we left the theater to say “Let’s walk and talk a bit- you’re not ready to go home yet.” The conversation with my father, however, was eye-opening.

My father has been a doctor my entire life, now going on 40 years. He’s been working that whole time and continues to as my parent head toward their 70s. As a career and volunteering with the Scouts, my dad has, for the last 40 years, been “the doctor.”

What is he outside of that? Father, Husband, occasional teacher and Scout leader (and damn good ones all around if I do say so myself)… but always “Doctor.” He is terrified of retiring and hanging up the white coat for good. Why? “Every doc I know who retired died within a decade. I don’t know what I am if not The Doctor.”

I have enough hobbies and positive contacts in life (according to my therapist anyway) to not worry about either fate. I have managed to become more than “Matt the Baker/Pastry Chef” and thanks to my wife, my friends, and my writing there’s enough to love and inspire me in this mortal coil to keep me from yeeting myself off it any time soon.

As part of that, though, I need to dig into why those analogical noisy neighbors are being so loud. If my mind is trying to protect me so damn hard, I need to dig into why and maybe work at putting it at ease a bit. “Yes, it may hurt, but we are big and strong enough to take it.” Garden variety mindfulness and metacognition, letting the quiet slip in and listen to your own mind while you say “why does my brain do this shit”-but pull out before things get too heavy.

I’ll let you know how successful I am, but for the moment I’m pleased to be considering it in the quiet and the rain.

Stay Classy,