Where Your Demons Can’t Chase You

My Virginia commute in the Fall.

Every morning it’s the same.  I wake up, hit the shower, breakfast with some reading, kiss my wife and kids, say a prayer before I leave the house, and then I get on the road for my 30-40 minute commute to work.  And then it happens.  It’s subtle, but it happens every time – anxiety kicks in.  My mind usually wanders to future goals where fear and doubt start to slowly pour over me like cold maple syrup.  This has been happening for a few months straight now.  Sometimes it’s worse than other days.  But it’s almost always there, waiting for me on the road, causing my stomach to burn with anxious acid and causing my mind to hurt.  It has this weird affect later in the day where I suddenly feel like I’m walking on a slightly rocking ship.

This stress and anxiety make me imagine demons are waiting for me every morning.  They fill my head with undigestible amounts of anxiety and fear.  The kind of fear that comes from thinking I could put my family in danger because of upcoming choices.  I have huge entrepreneurial ideas and dreams.  But those demons always seem to be waiting for me in the same place every morning.  Once I get to work and get into my daily habits I’m fine, but that stupid drive, where my mind sits and dreams big and hopes for the future, that’s where those demons wait with their claws drawn to chase me and make my stomach burn.

A few months ago Srinivas Rao, an amazing blogger/writer/interviewer at The Unmistakable Creative Podcast, wrote something great on Facebook.  He talked about finding the place where your demons can’t chase you.  We all have demons of some kind that fill us with fear and doubt.  But not all of us have figured out how to escape them.  I believe we all have something in all our lives that can help us outrun those buggers.  For Srini, it’s surfing.  Getting wrapped up in the excitement and danger of surfing is an amazing experience and it puts distance between Srini and his doubts and fears, it helps him forget about it completely.  Where can you go where your demons can’t chase you?

I watched two great videos the other day on YouTube that helped me to think even more deeply about this idea of outrunning your demons.  One is from Elizabeth Gilbert and the other is from Kelly McGonigal.  Elizabeth wrote Eat, Pray, Love and has often talked about her fear of following up Eat, Pray, Love with something less successful.  The quote that stuck with me the most from her video, and I’m going to paraphrase this here, was, we have to fall in love with our work so deeply that the doing of it outweighs our fear of failure.  In other words, our ego is removed from our results because the doing of it makes us so happy, not the results.  Finding something you love to do so much is the place where the demons can’t chase you.

Kelly McGonigal added to my thoughts in her video because she talked about the way we think and handle stress.  People have a high rate of heart disease in general because of stress.  However, Kelly showed that recognizing what stress is, that it’s our body’s way of preparing us for something big and exciting instead of something to be afraid of, changes our body’s physical response.  Simply changing the way you mentally respond to stress/anxiety alters the impact the demons can have on you.  In other words, changing how we think about stress/anxiety changes the physical impact it can have on you.  To think anxiety is a positive indicator of greatness and opportunity instead of something to be afraid of sounds life altering – because it is according to McGonigal’s research.

I’ve tried different things to rid myself of the anxiety I experience on my commute.  I’ve listened to the radio, but I hate listening to the stupid celebrity and reality tv talk and find myself hoping they’ll just play something good.  I’ve tried silence to allow my mind to relax, but it turns into a planning mode and causes me more anxiety.  But this week I tried something new.  I remembered our old school iPod that has thousands of songs on it and countless albums that I’ve fallen in love with, but never have with me.  I took it with me for my commute and found myself in an epic battle against my demos.  I became the victor against the demons flying alongside my truck trying to fill me with fear and doubt.  They couldn’t get me because I was sucked back into doing what I love to do, where the doing of it outweighs any ego.  I was reminded of my love for great music and great stories.  I imagined giant speakers filled with punk rock hitting flying monkey like demons and keeping me safe along my drive.

That day on my commute I was the guy in a shirt and tie at the stop light, beating the crap out of his steering wheel to a double-time punk beat, singing at the top of his lungs while the mini van soccer mom stared holding her Starbucks.  I didn’t care.  I was safe from the demons and I wanted to stay there.

While I was in that place, I took a second to recognize that I still could feel the anxiety, but while rocking out, I chose to be excited about what it meant.  I chose to see the anxiety as my body preparing me for incredible things I hope to do in the future, things which are scary but possible.

So I encourage you to challenge your demons.  Know that stress and anxiety can be challenged when we first, find an activity where the doing of it matters more than the results and second, we recognize anxiety as indicators from our body that we’re being prepared to do something great.