Old Habits Die Hard
Factory Settings are Outdated
I recorded my first introduction episode of the podcast and wanted to crawl into a hole and disassociate.
I rewrote the script a bunch of times, using the excuse that it wasn’t perfect as a reason for not recording.
I sat on the script for days, tweaking it each time I looked at it. Once I started speaking it out loud, I felt that same chest pressure that I did before my panic attack.
Today was different. I forced myself to record. I was doing one practice speak-through and decided to record it so I could time the length. Turns out, I recorded the actual episode with minimal *mistakes.*
At times I spoke a bit fast but considering how much I’ve slowed my diction those few blips weren’t enough for me to consider it a wash.
If there’s one thing I know it’s that the first practice is ALWAYS the best take, which is why I recorded it just in case.
I hate the sound of my voice which is weird because you can’t get me to shut the fuck up once I start talking.
I still need to edit the start and ending so that there is no empty space. I’m torn about doing an official intro with music because that’s more work which will likely mean a few more days or weeks before I click publish.
Once I was done, I went down my familiar rabbit hole of breaking something so I can fix it. In this case, it was my website. Surprise surprise.
I’m using Substack because it’s easy AF and frees me up from all of the busy work that comes with maintaining a website. It’s never “write it and forget it” like it is here.
On my website, I also *need* to create graphics that need formatting and to make it just right, I need to get cute with the layout.
That rabbit hole takes me down a path of test-driving plugins to replicate a setup I already have here. Then the guilt kicks in and I get emotionally overwhelmed.
Before you know it, I’m taking a nap at 4pm and getting up at 7:30pm to make up for the lost time from the nap.
It’s a cycle I can’t seem to break free from and I even mentioned it in the podcast episode. Since I like to point fingers, I am blaming my Libra moon.
Old habits are a recurring theme for my growth. The more I know about how to break them, the more I double down on protecting them.
Habits are like a weighted blanket. They keep us feeling safe and secure but too much of them and we can smother ourselves to the point of paralysis.
I go back and forth between gating this Substack and putting it behind the paywall because the way I want to write here makes me feel uneasy keeping it accessible to everyone.
If I am investing my own wounds to work through shit via journaling, why not ask for readers to reciprocate that energy?
But then the part of me I silence is the one that says this is exactly why I need to keep it open because gatekeeping my musings is another form of hiding.
In another lifetime, I was probably a lawyer since I am really good at twisting insight to align with a narrative that suits my ego.
That’s the thing about habits. The longer you hold on to the ones that don’t support your growth, the easier it is to believe that they matter.
I’m almost at the point of giving someone my login credentials to lock me out of my website and also leaving for the day without my laptop. If I can’t break the ways in which I self-sabotage, then micro-managing my daily workflow might be how it gets done.