{"id":517,"date":"2015-04-30T22:52:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T05:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/?p=517"},"modified":"2016-06-03T14:13:54","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T20:43:54","slug":"how-to-sit-yourself-down-when-your-brain-goes-bugfuck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/how-to-sit-yourself-down-when-your-brain-goes-bugfuck\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Sit Yourself Down When Your Brain Goes Bugfuck"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been bouncing off the walls all week, perhaps longer. I\u2019ve managed to get a lot done lately, but the panic sets in the moment I wonder if I\u2019ve been taking off in the right directions. It\u2019s hard to gauge, especially when the money\u2019s not coming in, seeing as it\u2019s modernity\u2019s primary indication of worth \u2013 and even though it\u2019s 100% shit, we\u2019re stuck wading in it. Anyway\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I tend to use this blog for motivational purposes, but it doesn\u2019t always fulfill that need because sometimes my writing gets more personal than I\u2019m comfortable sharing. Since deleting most of my ancient posts on Livejournal, I\u2019ve become more aware of when I shouldn\u2019t be exposing everything that dribbles out of my brain in public.<\/p>\n

Friends are a great sounding-board (because they can tell you when you\u2019ve gone stupid) but you can\u2019t rely on anyone to bend their ear every time you need. They have their own lives after all. So I started writing to myself in a conversational tone. Today I went over one I wrote months ago. It was more enlightening than when I first jotted it down, because I could see how far I\u2019d come and how far I still have to go.<\/p>\n

I ask myself questions: What am I not doing that I know I should? Why am I not doing it? Am I beating myself up? What\u2019s getting in the way? What goal is most reasonable right now compared to what I think my goals should be? By the time I\u2019m finished, I\u2019ve written up a plan \u2013 a realistic one that takes all my weaknesses into account and works with them, rather than drowning myself in unhelpful shame. I looked back on the plan I made months ago, and was relieved to find I\u2019m still on the right track, even though it doesn\u2019t feel that way.<\/p>\n

Writing resolves thoughts. Ann Patchett compares it to catching a butterfly<\/a> \u2013 always killing it in the process. It can end up either neatly pinned, a perfect specimen, or a mangled husk. But some thoughts are more like hornets. Swatting them down so they stop buzzing round your head is the goal, because goddamn are they ever annoying. A hornet can also be a useful specimen, examined closely to figure out what itches you, but you have to kill the buggers first. Stabbing them with your pen actually works sometimes.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been bouncing off the walls all week, perhaps longer. I\u2019ve managed to get a lot done lately, but the panic sets in the moment I wonder if I\u2019ve been taking off in the right directions. It\u2019s hard to gauge, especially when the money\u2019s not coming in, seeing as it\u2019s modernity\u2019s primary indication of worth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,19],"tags":[20,23,40],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living","category-writing","tag-advice","tag-health","tag-insanity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":909,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarahdimento.com\/~sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}