ASK ABDI: SHOULD I LISTEN TO MYSELF?

QUESTION: I have been meditating every day, but my anxiety and anger seem to grow more and more. Needless to say, after a while I fell into drinking five beers and smoking a bunch of joints.

I have been asking everyone I know what to do with my life and where to live. I have moved in with my mother, which is pure torture. I overthink everything. I go from therapist to psychiatrist to family and friends for advice. Everybody is asking me, "What do you want to do? Where do you want to live?" They give me their judgment or advise on what to do, but always from their point of view! I am terribly insecure about what to do with my life and what kind of job I can do. I'm afraid of failing again.

I have been dreaming of wild animals that are running after me and giving me anxiety and fear. But they were not ferocious against me, just scary. I ask you to be honest, even if your advice is to stop jerking off. I know I am a mess and I would like only to find a way to approach myself. The point is, I don’t know anymore if I should listen to myself or not.

ANSWER: You need to keep sitting with yourself, 10 minutes a day, and LISTEN. All this running around and asking everyone else has not done you any good, correct? So, why do you keep doing it? The anger and anxiety IS the healing. It is old pain coming up to be released. You do not need to do anything with it, but just sit and feel it, even though it seems so overwhelming. That is what your dream of the animals was about, all that energy that is repressed. There is no escaping this part of your process.

These issues are not about where you live or what you do. It is about WHO you are. Don’t think that if you make a decision about these places, all your problems will be solved. Only you can help yourself. All other people can do is help you help yourself. They can not help you. When you are finished with suffering and creating more pain in your life (drinking, living with your mother, torturing yourself...) you will make the next move. In the meantime, stop overthinking everything and live.