No Worries

Someone asked me how I got to a state of peace, and my mindset where nothing matters to me, unless I decide it matters. It required several stages of acceptance of epiphanies and revelations, that I've tried to sum up here, and at the bottom I've noted some online sources that have helped me on this journey. I hope this helps someone.

NOTE: If you're terminally ill or have some debilitating issue, you may not be able to do all of this, and I feel for you. This is mostly for people with social/anxiety issues, or who feel like they're living a life they aren't in control of, or who are confused about the meaning or purpose of their life.


1a. You need to let go of the past first, so you can accept yourself as you are.
Go through your past mistakes and trauma, learn what you can from them, forgive yourself for making the mistakes or neglecting yourself, set the memories down on the ground, and walk away from them. Be reasonable and logical about it. Some things (most trauma) were not your fault, especially things in your childhood, and in those cases, you need to relieve yourself of fault, find out who should have helped you at that time, and forgive them for not doing so. They are human, too, and probably had no idea you were suffering, or had problems or trauma of their own. Who knows? Is it important now? Once you've learned the lessons, these memories are of no more use to you. Let it all go. Walk away from them. Obviously, this is not easy, and you will need to process these things at least a couple of times each.

NOTE: I highly recommend seeing a therapist for this. Shop around until you feel like you've found one that can hear you like you need to be heard. I also recommend finding a friend who is up for having deep talks with you; be ready to also talk about their stuff, as it'll help you, as well.


1b. Inner child work.
As part of letting go of the past, you will need to consult your inner child and teenager, and see if they have topics they want you to address; fear, guilt, self-loathing, not fitting in, being lonely, etc.. Let them know that you are there for them, that you are now their parent, and that you will make sure that they are taken care of from now on. It may be weird and cringey the first time, but they do have things to tell you, so learn to talk to them and listen to them and acknowledge their/your feelings! I recommend doing this, while looking at a picture of yourself from back then.

NOTE: Inner child work is a massive topic, which you should explore on your own, preferably with a therapist, but there are also a ton of resources on Youtube. I can recommend Heidi Priebe on Youtube as a good coach for this. Go to her channel, click "Videos", and then search for "inner child".


2. Feelings aren't real.
Feelings are echoes of your past experiences and trauma, signaling to you what those experiences tell you about your current situation. Meditation can help you attain an outside perspective on your feelings and even your thoughts, so you can rationalize about them, without letting them get the better of you or letting them puppeteer you (I was a puppet for 40 years, and am finally free!). Use your feelings for what they are: signals from your subconscious trying to protect you and show you what it thinks you might want. Note that your subconscious does not know best, as it is extremely biased towards protection rather than progression. This is why you always have to overcome your thoughts and feelings, in order to challenge a fear of yours.

HOW?: I did this by meditating. You don't need to become a monk ^^ Just find a calm place, sit upright, let your thoughts flow, try to be open-minded, and just see what flows by and what peaks your interest most, and try to unpack it rationally; register your feelings, accept them and see them as a pointer about how this thing affects you, but don't let them steer you away from unpacking rationally. It may take several tries, so be patient.

NOTE: I ended up seeing my existence as a dystopian machine of large, rusty interwoven turning cogs (my feelings and the construct of my life as built by others and society for me to exist in), with me in the middle being pushed around and mangled by the cogs...until I ultimately climbed out of that machine. Now I can look at it from the outside, seeing my feelings and thoughts and the external factors as they turn in the machine, and I can rationalize about them, without feeling it all. The feelings aren't gone, but they don't define or puppeteer my existence anymore, and I can now change, replace or discard most of them at will. It feels like a superpower!


3. You as an individual are not important in the grand scheme of things.
If you daunt a large enough lens, humans aren't even important to the universe in the least. An individual human will be remembered by a handful of people for a maximum of 100 years, unless they change human history or become ultra-famous. Even your largest mistake will be forgotten, so don't dwell on it, just learn from it, set it down on the ground, and walk away from it. If you let it go, others will, too. Breathe a sigh of relief...it's not all that serious or important. You're just a human. You're about as important to the universe as a bush or a rabbit. Enjoy being unimportant; it's very freeing :)


4. The point of life is to live YOUR life.
This means finding out what you like, what's good for you, and what you're good at, and then trying to do that as much as possible. Don't live a life you didn't choose. Obviously, it's not all rainbows and cake, but hardships should be taking your somewhere you want to go, not take you deeper into neglect and suffering. And even though cake may be good in the now, your future self will be annoyed at the extra dieting or workout they have to do, so be mindful of future you ;) And remember that even a great relationship may enter a rough spot, but going through the hardship together, can teach you how to live better, even after you get through it, making it worth the struggle. Just make sure you don't struggle needlessly.


5. 99% of what you do in your life only impacts you, so it is only as important as it is to you.
Stop demanding things of yourself that are not important or impactful. This frees up time to do the important and impactful things ;) This could be about status things and such. If you can't afford the coolest new shoes to impress at school or at work, stop beating yourself up about it. Embrace it; embrace YOU. You don't need those shoes to be good enough, and the people who genuinely think you do, are not your real friends, so why are you giving them any time or energy at all? Own being you. Concentrate on the people who choose to be with you because you're you, not for some material thing or a specific opinion. Friends can have different opinions!


6. Stop being attached to outcomes.
You cannot predict the future. Stop trying! If you get attached to an outcome, you will nearly always be disappointed, and you will have blinders obscuring other potentially better avenues to take along the way. You can have a goal that you're going towards, and you can define the path you want to take towards it, but don't assume you know what the result or the prize will be. After all, at the beginning of a journey, how can you possibly know exactly where you'll end up and how you'll arrive there? Even when the goal is as simple as meeting up with a friend, your transport could break down, your friend could call to cancel or ask to meet somewhere else, you could get lost and find the love of your life as you're asking for directions. This act of "dreaming of a potential outcome" is also a major reason why relationships screw up, because you're seeing a warped image of the other person or YOURSELF or where the relationship is going. Do NOT fall in love with the POTENTIAL of a person or relationship. Exist in them as they are in the now.


7. External things can ONLY EVER impact you physically, unless you ALLOW them to impact you psychologically.
Obviously, traumatic events are somewhat beyond our control(!) In terms of self-worth and anxiety, though, this is usually due to allowing the validation of others to be our primary source of feeling good about ourselves. This can be due to trauma (which you should talk to a therapist about), but is also built into our society as status games, which are basically a bunch of people competing at playing pretend. Obviously, some have actual merits of status, but even then, the value of these merits is subjective and arbitrary at best, and can often change on a whim (beauty is fickle; bitcoin could fail tomorrow, leaving many rich people poor; people can get "cancelled" or outed at any time).

You could also just be trying to fit into a group (just simpler status games, really), where you kind of have to keep doing something to be a part of that group. If you have to do that thing to stay in the group, despite losing interest in the thing or not feeling like it's something for you, how strong is your bond really with these people, and why should you let them validate you? A skateboarder can break their knee, so they can never skate again. A grass-enjoyer could stop smoking, and now can't stand hanging out with their grass-friends anymore. Maybe you're allergic to the new lipstick you all need to wear to be fashionable and accepted.

The point is: What you think of yourself, has more value than anything anyone else says to you. You know who you are, and you are capable of valuing yourself AND telling yourself off when you're being an idiot, so you don't need anyone else to validate you. One person will think you're wrong in some way, while another will love and mirror that part of you. You cannot take the opinions of others personally, as they are only personal TO THEM.

Like your feelings, the opinions of others are just signals you can look at, interpret, and then YOU decide whether to take it in or let it go. You need to be you, not what anyone else tells you to be. Ironically, I'll now tell you what I would like you to be, so prepare to practice this "take in"/"let go" thing. Please, be good to yourself. You have the power within you to make your life great. Try to attain the magical feeling you get from being trustworthy, truthful, taking responsibility and being accountable, because those things give you a huge sense of being worthy of trust, which is also something you want to have for yourself. No matter what you do, you will have yourself for your whole life, so be good to yourself, and give yourself the best life you can.


8. Be good to yourself and your psyche.
You're likely to be the only person who will always be there for you, whether you like it or not, so be nice to you ;) Take walks, spend time in nature, start working out. I'm telling you, the second I started working out, I started feeling better about myself, because I did it FOR MYSELF. I did it so I could be healthier. After I started that, I automatically started making better choices in all sorts of areas. I started eating and drinking healthier. I stopped smoking after a while. I still fall back to unhealthy things sometimes, but it gets easier each time to pick myself back up. That's OK. You may feel weak falling back into a bad pattern, but the strength to be able to pick yourself back up again eclipses that weakness.


9. Be good to others. It always comes back around.
Yep, everyone says so, and it's true. Even if it doesn't come back from the person you're good to, someone else noticed, and if they didn't, YOU noticed and feel better about having been that way. Just don't EXPECT it to come back the way you thought it would. Remember: don't be attached to outcomes!


10. Talk to someone about difficult stuff.
Talk to a friend or family member. It strengthens your bond, and it'll encourage THEM to tell YOU about difficult stuff, as well, and you'll both end up having better lives. Go for some walks in nature to do this. It often gets stale when you sit at home. In the absence of these, do get a therapist.
NOTE: Talking to one of my friends, who is really good at having deep talks, was by far the most helpful thing for me. Sharing these things, hearing another perspective, and having another person react to your stories, really helps to ground you and correct your perspective. For example, it helps you identify your own emotional cover-ups, e.g., you think some action or situation from your childhood was totally normal, but this other person has an adverse reaction to it. Or they can spot when you've been overthinking the reasons why someone in your past did something to you, without you having anything to back up your reasoning. Therapists are good at this, but do not discount good friends!


11. Never give up on yourself!
Insert "Never Gonna Give You Up", but the lyrics are sung BY you TO you xD But really, there's always more you can do to better your life, and that's a GOOD thing! You don't have to "get all the achievements". The goal is just to be happy with yourself, maybe even a little proud, but with an equal amount of humility.


Conclusion.
So, the past doesn't matter. You cannot predict the future. Your existence isn't important. You can love yourself enough that you don't need others to love or validate you. You can mostly control which external things affect your mental state. You can relieve emotional weight by reaching out to someone who'll listen. So...now what? Well, life is just about living how you want to live, preferably without hurting other people unnecessarily (breaking up with someone is an acceptable hurt to them).

All this ended in the realization: Nothing really matters, unless you choose that it matters to you. If you have something that matters to you, and you want to get rid of its influence on you, find out what makes it matter to you, then find out why that thing matters, and so on, until you've found the root source of why it matters. Think about it and try to find a way to process it. Need a harsh word with a parent? Forgive and let go? If there is no solution to it, figure out how you can accept it or ignore it, while still being happy. Start over as many times as you need. I'm not saying it's easy, but you can do this with most things, and you'll end up knowing exactly what matters to you and why, so you can chase and cherish those things more intentionally, and THAT is a worthy pursuit.


BONUS: How to find your soulmate/partner:
Trying to find a partner is not about feeling infatuated by someone. That's just brain chemistry saying you think they're desirable. You want to find a person who wants to play the game of life in the same way you want to play it. So, figure out your own life. What do you like? What do you want? How many kids do you want, if any? What kind of parent do you want to be, if any? Dog or cat or chickens or no pets? What kind of relationship do you want to be in? What kind of responsibilities do you want to have? What do you require from a partner? What are your strengths and weaknesses and do you need to work on some of those before entering into a relationship? Basically, find out what kind of life you want to live, and get yourself ready to be the person who has that life.

Then, go meet and talk to people, ask them what they want from life, ask them about the things you've made choices about and whatever matters to you, and try to find someone who wants to have the same life as you do. To improve success with this, start living your life as you want it to be, and meet people while doing the things you like. This gives you a much higher probability of finding someone with the same interests and wishes as yours.


Good luck!


Professionals to seek out online who have helped me tremendously:
- Heidi Priebe (inner child and shadow work; very in-depth psychology stuff; Youtube channel: heidipriebe1)
- Dr. K (covers many psychology topics; Youtube channel: HealtyGamerGG)
- Julien Blanc (life, confidence and anxiety coach; Youtube channel: JulienHimself)
- Jillian Turecki (about relationship dynamics; Instagram: jillianturecki; Youtube channel: jillianturecki6536, but she has MUCH MUCH more on Instagram)