Existing day to day in the body of the version of me who’s already there. Not reaching, not performing, just existing in a state that I already occupy in the future. I’ve proven to myself that I don’t need to earn my place, my work doesn’t need to earn approval from anyone; it gets evaluated by the rubric I’ve built my life on and that’s my real time scorecard. It differentiates my former self from my current self, and that’s the only person I’m competing with. It’s a type of personality therapy and a true signal to my brain, with honest feedback.

I don’t need an answer for everything, especially not right now. I don’t have to resolve every thought the moment it shows up. Sometimes they untangle themselves if I stop pulling on them, sometimes they don’t and that’s okay. Nondoings isn’t laziness, it’s a trust I’ve built with myself and knowing my system is working when I’m not paying attention or forcing it by demanding why I’m thinking a certain way, looping what-ifs or comparisons. They don’t have to be mine, and the brain is a funny thing the way it can be trained even unintentionally. So I decide to not identify with every single thought I have. The awareness to realize where my mind is and how it’s acting - not why but how, is the muscle I choose to strengthen. Everything else cascades once I separate the thought from my self, I’m also careful not to let it get mixed up in my paradoxical hypervigilance otherwise it just becomes stress.

The brain knows before the body, before we feel anything or have words to describe anything, the brain has run a prediction schema based on the smallest thoughts, sensations, or feelings, and most importantly, past experiences. Internally and externally they manifest, and next thing I know I’m fighting my own self to feel how I want. It’s constantly predicting what’s about to happen and comparing that against the signals our bodies and minds perceive, so it’s not a raw signal I’m feeling it’s a corrected one; that’s the distress I feel because not a single thing has to confirm that, I already have by listening to the signal. It does not need to be engaged with, just noticed. Not solved or interrogated. In reality it feels as if the body notices first because while that’s subconscious the feeling manifests pretty quickly. For me it’s breathing issues, restlessness, shakiness, etc etc etc. That’s just what my body is conditioned to feel in response to any anxious prediction handed down from my brain. But the claim isn’t real, the feeling may be impossible to prevent, but labeling it differently and not engaging with it passes it and over time changes how my brain subconsciously responds to whatever inputs create certain reactions.

Anyways, I’m grateful for my body, my mind, my brain, they make up the vehicle that I navigate life with, that I build and feel and notice with. I trust it completely. I trust the version of me that’s already arrived, and I let them lead.