I’m writing this edition of The Anxious Morning at 10:30 AM on a Thursday, but the origin of this edition came at about 10:30 PM one night last week. Before I go on, I have to give full credit to Waylon Jennings here. That’s right. Waylon Jennings. If you don’t know who that is, don’t even worry about it. You may simply be far too young to know, or far too interested in anything other than old school country music to care.
To be totally honest, I’m not in any way interested in old school country music. When I was a kid, one of my uncles used to listen to WHN 1050 AM. This was New York City in the 1970s, but WHN was a country music station. It was really out there, man. It was my only exposure to that kind of music. Sadly for the likes of Tammy Wynette, it did not spark my interest at all, so I’ve largely ignored classic country music - really ALL country music - for pretty much my whole life.
So why was I sitting on the floor with my dog with my headphones on listening intently to the entire Waylon Jennings “Honky Tonk Heroes” album? Just because. I wanted to try something new, so I put my phone down and actually listened to the whole thing. All the songs. Beginning to end. The verdict? Not bad. Would I return to good old Waylon for more? Probably not but I guess now that I’ve done that, if for some unknown reason I was forced to listen to more of his music I would not call it a disaster. I guess I have that going for me.
Why am I telling you this story on a Friday morning? I’m telling you because recovery is more than just exposure and trying to feel better. Last week on The Anxious Morning we talked about the common “recovery identity crisis” issue. That thing where we’re not really sure who we are if we’re not anxious people. That can be part of the recovery process, and part of addressing that identity crisis is to literally just try new things, sometimes at random and just for the sake of trying them.
When we spend so much of our time trying to stay calm, controlled, and on an even keel, we often shrink life so that it contains very few if any new experiences. New experiences can be scary. We don’t know how they will turn out. We don’t know if we will like or hate them. We don’t know … OH MY GOD … if they will make us feel bad when we engage with them. Struggling with anxiety can mean that we develop an aversion to anything new or unknown.
Well, part of the recovery process is normalizing the experience of having new experiences! Sometimes that means doing things you avoid like the plague because you know they will make you feel afraid. Sometimes it means tiptoeing your way back into enjoying the coffee you’ve missed so much but have avoided. Sometimes it’s something as silly and seemingly inconsequential as listening to a country music record that you’d otherwise never listen to.
But is that really as inconsequential as it seems? When you are not really sure what you like any more because anxiety has controlled so much of your life so long, you can’t just decide to like things. You have to try things to see what you like and don’t like. You might find that you like new things now and have no interest in some of the old stuff that used to excite you. You might find yourself drawn to things you never imagined would interest you. Some of that process might be uncomfortable or might raise even more questions. But you have no chance of getting through that process and finding the life you want if you don’t start practicing trying new things, even if they’re small things to start.
Pick something you feel like you have no interest in. Maybe music, or art, or a type of movie, or a book. Maybe a food you never thought of trying. Then … give it a shot. You never know what can come out of that. Your little experiment may have no benefit for the country music industry, but it might lead to all kinds of benefit for you down the road.
“Piano rolled blues, danced holes in my shoes
There weren't another other way to be
For lovable losers, no account boozers
And honky tonk heroes like me (hey, hey)”
- Honky Tonk Heroes, Waylon Jennings
202. Honky Tonk Heroes