Overcoming an Optimistic Sense of Doom

Some of us are born under a rainbow and the storms come to us in our adult years. But some of us were born in the storm and eventually experienced rainbows. That is me. I was born into a storm.

1970 was a time of chaos and upheaval with pendulum swings similar to today. We had landed on the moon the year prior. 1970 was an incredible year for music and art. But we were also mired in a war that was killing and maiming thousands and in year 2 of Nixon’s presidency - who until 2016, was considered the most morally depraved President. One year after the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, Jr. and then Robert Kennedy were murdered. The Boeing 747 made the world smaller. The breakup of the Beatles made it sadder.

I was also born into the storm of my parents’ situation. My mom, the daughter of alcoholism, abuse, violence, and poverty. My dad, the son of the giant shadow of his father and the unconditional love of his mother. They had a marriage stitched together by the unrealistic hope that one would provide safety and the other would provide an identity.

While many of my generation grew up in a split home, I grew up in a split life. I am the product of my mother’s darker views of life and my father’s sunny dreaming. Dichotomies were everywhere – mostly related to religion, lifestyle, and relationships. All of which led to a life of pretense and tension.

The greatest split of all was within me: a hyper-sensitive soul paired with an aggressive, combative personality; which became a dichotomous mixture of positivity and negativity.

I have had a blessed (a word I’m attempting to seize back from evangelicals) but difficult life. Some things came more easily than others, but everything has had some struggles. I carry within me the depths of despair and the heights of faith. I am like the weather in the Hill Country of Texas - from sunshine to flash floods in an instant. Someone once told me, “Justin, you are a stormy motherf**ker.” That is true. But I also have an unbreakable belief that all things work together for good.

In the past couple of years, I’ve become very aware of how almost every moment, experience, or decision was influenced by this split: the brightness of possibility tinged by smudges of negativity. Underlying negative narratives became a tax on joy; a thief of happiness.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius

As I’ve written about recently, one of my main objectives for 2024 is to train my brain to be more positive, of which unconditional self-love is the foundation. This work has focused primarily on changing my language using a reframing technique. A simple version is shifting from “I have to” to “I get to”. For me, this has meant replacing several mindsets and moods with a new mindset and new language:

• I wrote a Musing earlier this year that said “Hell is associations and expectations are its chains”. Like most ADHDers and childhood trauma survivors, I have done a lot of projecting of the future. I picture how I want a future experience to go and then picture all of the things that could go wrong. This creates a paradoxical set of expectations that can, at the highest level, only end in relief. And relief is not joy.

  
  Instead of expectations, I have been focusing on acceptance and gratitude. I will admit that I’m still a bit confused about the difference between acceptance and gratitude and settling. But I’m certain Wisdom will reveal the difference.
  

• Similar to the above, assumptions have also dominated my life, but more about people than experiences. I realize now that most assumptions are distorted judgments. I see that until recently, I had been bifurcating people into two groups: People who are threats and people who are not threats. In both cases, it was about who I could control to keep me from being hurt. Assumptions have robbed me of truly seeing people; of feeling compassion for their stories. They have robbed me of the gift of “Namaste”.
  
  Instead of assumptions, I’ve been focusing on positive anticipation (choosing to see the future through a lens of curiosity) and receptivity/openness. This includes dozens of small things, like my initial reaction to receiving a text message.
  

• Another dominant mindset has been around boredom - or more specifically, the thwarting of boredom. I realize now that this has been far more related to ADHD; to chasing dopamine. While boredom often encouraged curiosity, creativity, and imagination, it also led to impulsive and/or destructive behavior and stirring up unnecessary drama and conflict. Related to boredom, there has been a pervasive and insistent drumbeat of restlessness in my life. A need to be somewhere else, doing something else. Again, this caused me to miss out on a lot of life.
  
  Instead, I’ve been focusing on intentional attention. This is a sensorial form of presence. It is the practice of slowing down to look at the details; to see the intricacies of the tapestry of life. It is sometimes literally stopping to smell the flowers. It is discerning the myriad of flavors of food. It is elevated touch as if blind. It is sound bathing in life - even if the sounds are not pleasant.
  

• At the root of both ADHD and trauma is a dark sense of shame, which for me led to perfectionism, harsh self-judgment, and drill sergeant-level negative self-talk. In many ways, this negative mindset toward myself has been the root of all of the other negativity. I had believed that I was not worthy of joy and that the only way to be happy was to become someone of worth.
  
  Rather than self-shaming, I have been implementing a Kaizen mindset; a Japanese business philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement through small, incremental changes in processes, products, or services to enhance efficiency and quality over time. For me, this looks like a non-judgmental and kind look at the following areas:

  • Progress (Awareness, responsiveness, positivity)

  • Needs Improvement (discipline with my health-related choices, consistency of practices)

  • Holding Steady (momentum with Massive, productivity, creativity, gratitude)

  • New Experiences (joining a men’s group, collaborating with Virginia on our future)

I’m quite aware to not embrace toxic “positivity”, but rather than thinking negatively about positivity, I’m realizing that true positivity is the natural state of a centered and whole human who is connected to Reality. There is nothing toxic about that. I’m also aware that there will be sorrows, struggles, and losses and that is one of the roles of hope (spiritual positivity). I’m also aware that existential crises will crop up; and that maintenance of the “weeds” of the mind is just part of the gig. And even in those moments, I await to see what I will learn, how I will grow, and what new insights I will gain.