Day 129: Stress, ideals and deadlines

28012013

I am feeling stuck. I have these series I'm writing but I don't seem to be getting the hang of any of them today – and this is because I haven't been facing any of them today. I should be writing about what I'm facing, so it's no big deal – just leave the series and return when/if it's time to do so.

So what am I facing?

Well, fuck. Stress again.

It's theatre, work and studying that don't go well hand in hand. I am really stressed about theatre and its schedules because they are increasingly tight and I fear I will not get everything done in time – or that if I do, it will consume all of my time and effort. This stress is new as it was created after some new stress factors concerning the schedule arose. I'm more tight on time, budget and material than I thought I was, and this is just a hobby – I have other stuff I want to do!

This is where I see I have been living contrary to myself. I have promised to do projects half-heartedly, and now I have to finish them. So when I remove the stress, all that is left is organizing, recruiting more hands and getting the job done.

But what do I stress about?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about this theatre project and all that I have to do for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not finish the music.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not finish the costumes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not finish the scenography.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will have to rush with my work and that the end result of the music, costumes and scenography will not be up to my standards - “not good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not accept the fact that the result will be what it will be, whether it has anything to do with my perfected visions or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the end result is a sum of each and every moment before the moment where the job is declared “finished” - and that these “finishing moments” as deadlines are chosen arbitrarily and are in fact just moments like any other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the “finishing moment” because it resembles death – “that's it, hands off, this is what you'll be judged upon” – not realizing that nothing actually ends with this moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I judge myself at the “finishing moment” based on how close I get to the preconceived idea/vision of the result, and that the judgement of others has nothing to do with this unless it serves as a validator for my self-judgement – and that even then it's just a trigger and I myself am the cause.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have a “vision” of what the result is going to be like and work according to this preconceived idea, not allowing myself to derail and do things differently if the situation so demands.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards doing things contrary to my original plans/vision/idea and thus make it harder for myself to make any progress within the project.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disempower myself by creating resistance towards the project because of preconceived ideas.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at all the work I have left and think “whoa, there's so much work left”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at all the work I have done so far and think “shit, I have only gotten so little done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make the work load seem bigger than it is by looking at it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at and assess my work load based on what is actually here and what is necessary to be done and instead look at it through fear and self-belittlement where everything I've done seems less than it is and everything that's not yet done seems more than it is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe this work load to be too much for me as I have looked at it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disempower myself to work on this task by looking at everything related to it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this – or any – work load is always manageable through delegating, organizing and prioritizing tasks; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make myself blind to this practical facet of organizing work as I have not honestly looked at my work load but always perceived it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this work load is what it is, and to solve the situation I need to look at what is necessary to be done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider “pushing myself harder” to be a solution, not realizing the self-compromise will bear its consequences on both me and the work I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will be judged as “not good enough” if I do not complete these tasks according to the idea I have set for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react whenever I am rushed with a certain task and take it personally when in fact it is just the other person expressing their concern over some aspect of the project, not a comment or an evaluation on me personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive myself to be “not qualified” to tackle “so much work” and thus project that self-definition back to me through other people as perceived judgement, not realizing this is all self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to prove my value through the work I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I prove my value by doing a lot of work, as this is what I learned as a child by looking at my environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that neither working nor not working holds any kind of a value, be it positive or negative – that working in itself is not good or bad, and that not working in itself is not good or bad.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the equation: work = positive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize I have value whether I work or not, and that the amount of my worth is not fixed to the amount of work I do or don't do – that my value or worth is in fact always the same and that it is the same as everyone's.

I am struggling with intense neck pain and a resulting migraine, which shows me just how extensive this point is and how much I've allowed it to accumulate. I will continue walking this point daily in writing as it is a most necessary self-support while I work for this project.

I commit myself to no longer accept and allow this stress to accumulate, and I will do this by writing about it every day while it lasts for as long as it takes for it to dissipate.

I commit myself to treat myself with kindness and care.

I commit myself to go through my work load to see what tasks I could give for others to complete and then assign these tasks to others.