{"id":300,"date":"2021-01-17T08:37:04","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T08:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/?p=300"},"modified":"2021-01-17T08:37:04","modified_gmt":"2021-01-17T08:37:04","slug":"the-anxiety-toolkit-jason-mraz-and-road-trips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"The Anxiety Toolkit: Jason Mraz and road trips"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve been struggling with a lot of anxiety the past week or so. I think it was triggered by the assault on the capitol, and then was amplified by the exponential rise in cases, which were clearly pointing to new lockdowns. I don&#8217;t actually mind the lockdowns that much once they&#8217;ve been announced. I work remotely, my child is pretty easy most of the time, and we have tons of outdoor space. Lockdowns aren&#8217;t a big thing for us. But it&#8217;s just the stress of watching the numbers go up, and wondering what&#8217;s going to happen. Same thing with the inauguration. I am feeling a lot of stress wondering what is going to happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I get that it doesn&#8217;t affect me personally, and there&#8217;s nothing I can really do to change it, other than making sure I&#8217;m happy in my own life, and throwing kindness and love around like glitter. But it&#8217;s still really difficult, and I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;m not the only one experiencing it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I make sure that I exercise each day, and try to meditate even just for 5 minutes a day, and that is the minimum self care I need in order to stay on top of my anxiety &#8211; in normal times. Right now, I really need to be doing more. And I haven&#8217;t kept up with it. So I was getting to the point where I was experiencing all my classic panic attack symptoms (and by this point in my life I know what they are). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Friday I drove down to the coast to take care of some errands before the lockdown measures were announced, and on that drive I remembered one of the most important tools in my Toolbox of Sanity &#8211; the long drive with music blasting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jason Mraz - The Remedy (I Won&#039;t Worry) [Official Video]\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BW17WAwMcoQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I started with Hamilton, but that was even a bit too anxiety-laced for my state of mind. So I switched over to Jason Mraz, who has the same effect on me as any antidepressant. And as soon as I got out of Ronda, and was on the mountain roads, looking out at the Mediterranean sparkling, and glimpses of the mountains of Morocco on the other side, as I twisted and turned the 25 miles down to Marbella, I felt all of the anxiety start to float away. By the time I was in Puerto Banus, life was back to being good, and I was centered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;ve always been a fan of road trips. When I was a teenager I drove from Pennsylvania to California. Just because I could. My dad and I took a cross country daddy-daughter trip in 2003. I&#8217;ve driven across the US probably 6 or 7 times &#8211; I&#8217;ve lost count. And those long trips were always a reset on my sanity. Me and Lyle Lovett on a road outside of Amarillo, and he would lead me back to sanity and calm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don&#8217;t get long solo road trips anymore. And that&#8217;s a serious detriment to my mental health. I get itchy feet. I need to be out exploring, with music blasting, the windows down. Feeling like I could just keep driving and wind up in Denmark, and that would be totally okay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now that I&#8217;ve remembered, I&#8217;m instituting a new Self Care Activity in my life &#8211; the solo long drives. It might not be a road trip across the country, and now that our municipal borders are closed it will be even shorter, but maybe I can just drive around in circles for an hour each week. Either way, I have remembered again just how much the Solo Road Trip is a necessity to my well being. Having Jason Mraz along for the ride just makes it all the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been struggling with a lot of anxiety the past week or so. I think it was triggered by the assault on the capitol, and then was amplified by the exponential rise in cases, which were clearly pointing to new lockdowns. I don&#8217;t actually mind the lockdowns that much once they&#8217;ve been announced. I work remotely, my child is pretty easy most of the time, and we have tons of outdoor space. Lockdowns aren&#8217;t a big thing for us. But it&#8217;s just the stress of watching the numbers go up, and wondering what&#8217;s going to happen. Same thing with the inauguration. I am feeling a lot of stress wondering what is going to happen. I get that it doesn&#8217;t affect me personally, and there&#8217;s nothing I can really do to change it, other than making sure I&#8217;m happy in my own life, and throwing kindness and love around like glitter. But it&#8217;s still really difficult, and I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;m not the only one experiencing it. I make sure that I exercise each day, and try to meditate even just for 5 minutes a day, and that is the minimum self care I need in order to stay on top of my anxiety &#8211; in normal times. Right now, I really need to be doing more. And I haven&#8217;t kept up with it. So I was getting to the point where I was experiencing all my classic panic attack symptoms (and by this point in my life I know what they are). On Friday I drove down to the coast to take care of some errands before the lockdown measures were announced, and on that drive I remembered one of the most important tools in my Toolbox of Sanity &#8211; the long drive with music blasting. I started with Hamilton, but that was even a bit too anxiety-laced for my state of mind. So I switched over to Jason Mraz, who has the same effect on me as any antidepressant. And as soon as I got out of Ronda, and was on the mountain roads, looking out at the Mediterranean sparkling, and glimpses of the mountains of Morocco on the other side, as I twisted and turned the 25 miles down to Marbella, I felt all of the anxiety start to float away. By the time I was in Puerto Banus, life was back to being good, and I was centered. I&#8217;ve always been a fan of road trips. When I was a teenager I drove from Pennsylvania to California. Just because I could. My dad and I took a cross country daddy-daughter trip in 2003. I&#8217;ve driven across the US probably 6 or 7 times &#8211; I&#8217;ve lost count. And those long trips were always a reset on my sanity. Me and Lyle Lovett on a road outside of Amarillo, and he would lead me back to sanity and calm. I don&#8217;t get long solo road trips anymore. And that&#8217;s a serious detriment to my mental health. I get itchy feet. I need to be out exploring, with music blasting, the windows down. Feeling like I could just keep driving and wind up in Denmark, and that would be totally okay. Now that I&#8217;ve remembered, I&#8217;m instituting a new Self Care Activity in my life &#8211; the solo long drives. It might not be a road trip across the country, and now that our municipal borders are closed it will be even shorter, but maybe I can just drive around in circles for an hour each week. Either way, I have remembered again just how much the Solo Road Trip is a necessity to my well being. Having Jason Mraz along for the ride just makes it all the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151],"tags":[155,46,156,152,154],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health","tag-jason-mraz","tag-mental-health","tag-road-trip","tag-self-care","tag-well-being"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theheatherproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}