Anxiety's favorite food

Hello,

Welcome to your Wednesday Love Note! Before we get started, here's what's happening int he BGV ecosystem:

Vital, Inspired, Peaceful 🌹 
A brand new way to work with me 1-1! If you’re busy AF, love an intentional sprint period, and want to fill your proverbial tank with cosmic jet fuel to power the next phase of work and personal growth, this 1-month VIP Intensive is for you.

Spring Rest & Digest 21-Day Challenge 🌱 
My friend & client Moni Rainbow Hawk is offering this 21-day challenge to support your gut and soothe your nervous system with the support of herbalism and timeless earth-based wisdom. I’ll be guest teaching, and the course includes a copy of my book “Eat Here Now”! Use the code BRITTA at checkout for 10% off. The final day to register is April 20th.

On the Pod 🎧 
I’m Bored of Heroics
‘Pedestal’ is a verb

Substack ✍️   
Read my newest transmission called “The Anti-Despair Toolkit.” Found exclusively on Frequency First, Strategy Second, my Substack publication.

Onto today's inspo!

Last week, my friend Jon sent me a screenshot of a Tweet from author Sahil Bloom, which said,

“Your entire life will change when you realize that stress and anxiety feed on idleness. When you take action, you starve them of the oxygen they need to survive. The answer is found in the action.”

Jon noted that he could not disagree more, and also, that this post made him think of me :)

I want to share a few of my thoughts—not only because Sahil’s narrative is nauseatingly pervasive, but also because he isn’t entirely wrong, albeit lacking important nuance and context.

To be fair, I think I know what he’s getting at.

He uses the word idleness—defined as “laziness; indolence” with etymological roots meaning empty or worthless.

I can easily get behind the view that if someone is lagging or altogether avoiding taking action when action is clearly the way forward, stress and anxiety would inevitably follow.

For example: You know you need to hire a new assistant but still feel disappointed that your prior rockstar VA had to move on, so you avoid making the job post.

In this case, I might suggest that the word choice is questionable. Perhaps some better options to capture this lack of taking action when it’s clearly the thing that’s needed might be “complacency” or “stagnancy.”

However, he still presents a very limited angle that doesn’t attempt to address the infinite and ancient scope of experience presented by Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and many other wisdom traditions built upon knowing the value and importance of stillness, contemplation, and conscious action that can only come from slowing down.

This unacknowledged blind spot is what I find troublesome.

I’m utterly turned off by the oversight that posting something like this in a hustle-grind-burnout era is not only ignorant, but irresponsible.

Do we really need another (male) influencer cautioning us away from idleness so that we can outrun our chaotic mindstates?

No, we do not.

Stress and anxiety do not feed on idleness. They feed on thoughts.

Most of the time, stress and anxiety are triggered by a single thought in our brain. What begins as thought forms—chitta vritti or mindstuff in the words of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras—which in turn activates our nervous system and floods our blood with hormones, causing uncomfortable sensations that we call stress and anxiety.

True enough, taking any action in that state may well distract your mind from whatever is causing stress or anxiety.

Keep yourself busy, so you don’t have to address what’s causing stress or anxiety in the first place.

Though I trust he means well with his bias towards action, I suspect most people will use this narrative to avoid facing the root of the anxiety. This is not a cure, but a band-aid.

I’ve worked hard to reexamine my own relationship with hustling, pushing, and forcing. There’s no finish line in sight. But as I’ve been learning how to rewire my brain for more peace and productivity, what’s crystal clear to me is this:

Idleness is not the problem. Our fearful thoughts which we do not know how to navigate, accept, manage, befriend or even feel fully, are the problem.

What do you think?

Is “idleness” a problem for you?

Or perhaps you feel like despite keeping yourself plenty busy, the anxiety + stress remain?

👉 Hit reply and let me know…. Because I geek out on this stuff.

In your corner,

PS. I have two ways I directly support people to feel more peaceful and gain more soverignty over their mindstate. 1) The Peaceful Mind Protocol is designed to help you obliterate your stress and anxiety at the root. Rooted in science-backed neuroplasticity techniques, my clients and students have said this system delivered a “gigantic transformation in a single session.” Learn the entire system in 2 hours, and feel better in the first 5 minutes. 2) My new Private 1-Month VIP Intensive is basically a private tutorial of The Protocol I just described, applied directly and precisely to what's happening in your life, right now. 4 glorious hours of session time to focus on projects, purpose and a more peaceful way of being and doing. 

PPS. I try to keep these Wednesday Notes under 500 words. This one went slightly over :)