Why Am I Feeling This Way?
An exercise in self-analysis.
As I write this, I’m preparing for my annual vacation to southwestern Pennsylvania. I have attended an enormous medieval reenactment event every year since 1996 (save 2 years due to the COVID pandemic).
This draws 10,000 people or more, and we spend up to 2 weeks hanging out with friends, enjoying classes on all sorts of medieval topics, eating, and partaking in various forms of combat. I have been doing medieval rapier combat (fencing) with the organization for over 30 years, and there are lots of tournaments, melee combats, and chances for pick-up fights with friends.
(FYI, “medieval” in this context is a catch-all phrase. Given that the group’s time period spans from the Fall of Rome to the death of Elizabeth I of England and nearly every world culture, it’s well beyond medieval).
This is not camping, per se. It’s really glamping. I have a canvass pavilion, sleep in a tatami mat on a real bed frame, and my camp has a fairly extensive kitchen and hot-water showers. While the equipment the camp itself uses is stored on-site, I have to pack and transport my stuff.
As of this writing, I’ve done this 27 times, loaded up 8 different cars with an ever-growing amount of gear, and camped from 1 to 2 weeks (usually doing 9-10 days on average).
So why the hell am I feeling this way?
The current mental, emotional, and physical sensations
Mentally, I keep thinking I’m forgetting to pack something. Then I worry that even with the new roof rack on my car I won’t have enough room. What if I get on sight with insufficient time to set up everything before dark? If I run into that person I camp with whom I’m annoyed with presently, will I confront them inconveniently? What if the person I’m giving a ride to has more gear than I can add to my full loadout and is running horrifically late?
Emotionally, as much as I look forward to this most years, this year I have trepidation. I’m worried that the recent pain in my ankle is more than just a sprain and will impact how much I can do. What if there’s a problem with the locals due to the current state of fucked up politics in the US? Why am I feeling nervous, jittery, and out-of-sorts overall?
I feel physically like I’m going to jump out of my skin. There are butterflies in my stomach. I keep needing to take a deeper breath because it feels like the air is insufficient. The best word to describe this all-in-one would be tingly.
Why am I feeling this way? Where is the trepidation coming from? After all the times I’ve done this, where is this nervousness coming from?
Or is this what I go through every year?
Feeling this way is not me
Or, in other words, I am not my feelings. Feeling this way is not a sign that I’m in some sort of trouble, that anything is wrong, or that I’m somehow making a mistake here. Hell, my wife looks forward to the time she gets to herself (and I look forward to seeing people I only see once a year at this event).
Rather than let this drive me mad, I’m going to step back and examine this in the context of my life. My life, currently, is in the process of some pretty extensive shifts and changes.
Just before the pandemic hit, I started to focus more on my writing. In 2020 I published 3 novels. Then, in 2021 I published 6 more books. While I published none in 2022, I put another out in 2023. Before the end of this year, there will be 3 more books published and from 1-5 books published in 2025.
After living in the same place for 6 years, we’re likely moving in the Fall. Not far, though possibly across state lines. That’s a lot of uncertainty.
My wife has had a hell of a year. We lost her mom, she’s changed jobs, and she’s been working hard to cope with and overcome her anxiety.
On top of all this, I recently left one of the part-time jobs I’ve been doing since 2021 and increased how much I am giving to the other that I’ve worked with on and off since 2022.
Lastly, utterly outside of anything I can do jack shit about, the upcoming election situation is maddening.
I’m not feeling overwhelmed, you’re feeling overwhelmed. Okay, no, I think that it’s clear why I’m feeling this way. I’m overwhelmed.
However, despite being overwhelmed, I’m in control.
It’s all in my head
Why am I feeling this way? For all the above reasons and the overwhelm resulting from them. What can I do about this? Everything. Because it’s all in my head.
I alone can think these thoughts, feel these feelings, and control my intentions, actions, and all else. Nobody but me lives in my head, heart, and soul. All of this, however, is rooted in my head.
Feeling this way – or any way – is triggered by thought. Thoughts develop from happenings both inside and outside of me. While some are unbidden and spring up as a result of something else, others are focused on, ruminated on, and well-known.
Thoughts are a product of the conscious mind. However, they can tap into the subconscious mind and latch onto or work off of beliefs, values, memories, and habits. That thing that happened sparks a memory of a previous time a similar thing happened, which called into question a given belief, that in turn challenged a particular value, and so on.
All of that is in my head (and from there my heart and soul). None of this is written in stone or absolute. I can change and alter any, if not all of it.
This is where active conscious awareness – mindfulness – comes in.
Mindfulness and feeling this way
I pause. Take a deep, deep breath. Let it out again. Repeat. Consider what I’m thinking, what and how I’m feeling, and the impact that has on my intentions and actions. Calm. Center. Balance.
That’s mindfulness in action. By being present and in the now I can see what’s going in for what it is. The uncertainty is born of the overwhelm that’s attached to all the things that are or have been going on for the past year or more. All of this self-analysis has occurred in the half an hour since I began to write this.
Self-analysis is an ongoing process. You can totally do it on your own, alone. However, to go deeper into the subconscious, you sometimes need a therapist or other person or trained professional to offer guidance and insight. They can’t solve diddly squat for you but can help you find your solutions.
Now I have the answer to why am I feeling this way. And now I’m feeling more put-together, more ready to do everything I must before I hit the road. Then, as an added bonus, I’m feeling less trepidation about this trek and more excitement for the annual vacation that I love to take.
Thanks for reading this craziness. When you find you’re feeling a certain way, do you do self-analysis such as I’ve done here?
This is the six-hundred-fifty-eighth (658) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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