Cru’s Letter
My girlfriend’s dog is a real sweetheart. His name is Mark.
He’s full of energy, curiosity, and personality until…
He sees a dog he doesn’t know.
The growling starts and it doesn’t matter what you do, he can’t snap out of it. You can call his name, direct him to look at you, and that animal in him keeps him locked in on the “enemy.”
Whenever he does this, it makes me curious about how impermeable his mind can be when it perceives a threat and the real question is…
Are we any different?
I know when I play frisbee golf and I throw the disc right into a tree, the anger is all consuming… pretty stupid right?
Right.
And so are most of our impulses as humans navigating our emotions in a cushy world.
If you face resistance in your life at all, you’re gonna find yourself in that irrational tunnel vision at some point. It’s just natural.
That headspace captures you when you perceive danger but danger is relative. When my losing score at the frisbee golf course gets even worse, I suppose the only threat is that I’m gonna lose to my friends but for some reason, I’d love to take the damn frisbee and tear it to shreds in that moment. It’s kinda silly but I’ll be honest in saying that I hate to lose so maybe the danger isn’t physical but identity-oriented danger can feel just the same.
Maybe you experience this tunnel vision when it comes to the impulse to eat food that you said you wouldn’t or when you see the person that you want nothing to do with. Don’t ignore that feeling but also don’t hate yourself for it.
Awareness is everything.
That feeling gives us very important information. It’s just that the higher frequency mind takes that information in and acts from an abundant state instead of giving into it. When real danger comes around, it’s good to be prepared but treating non-threatening things like the end of the world makes operating out of fear your baseline.
Fear is a tough headspace to work with because acting out of fear makes it worlds more likely that the fear itself comes true.
When you’re afraid, you’re less confident, your mind is less clear, you’re physically nerfed, it simply makes you worse at everything so you can imagine how the related outcomes will almost always be worse too.
This animal-like tunnel vision will probably never fully go away but it’s your responsibility as someone trying to become your best self to bring some awareness into those moments so that your mind is an asset instead of an obstacle.
Interact with your thoughts in an honest and encouraging way.
Remind yourself that you don’t need to fight yourself when you can just exist above irrational imp
This kind of awareness and abundance-thinking is something I’ve been working on very intentionally and it’s done so much for me over the last few months.
I hope it does the same for you.
-Cru
P.S. Check out my recent youtube video:
