- Hi, my name is Sharon Van Etten,
I'm a musician and an actor and this is my Thrive Diary.
(light music)
Right now, I'm really inspired by my son.
There's no filter with him.
He looks at the world with the most innocent eyes ever.
He appreciates everything so much.
He helps me realize what's really important in my life.
When I feel overwhelmed, I go to a room by myself
and I slow my thoughts down and I breathe.
I might write, I might call somebody,
I might just close my eyes and think about
the things that overwhelm me and why.
For me, slowing down is like a form of meditation
but everybody can find it at their own pace.
If you slow things down, you can do it by breathing,
by closing your eyes, by visualizing your day
and walking through the moments
that led you up unto that moment.
Even just writing out what happened,
that's a form of meditation,
just the act of writing slows down your thoughts
because you can't write as fast as you think.
I have experienced impostor syndrome
and I still feel it all the time.
But I have have mantras on my refrigerator
from this book called The Four Agreements
and I even put it in the artwork of my last record.
One of the mantras is,
expressing who you are is taking action.
Another one is, I belong here, this is what I do,
this is who I am.
Another one is don't take anything personally,
because everyone is on their own journey
and you can't control what they went through that day.
All you can control is yourself
and all you have is right now.
I think the common thread is that everybody works too much
and that there's never enough time in the day
to even answer emails and most people
are on their phones constantly.
You're tricking your body into thinking
that everything's an emergency so that when you're
not looking at your phone,
it's like you're misfiring all the time
and so it creates this anxiety
and this need to keep doing more,
when really what your body needs is to relax
and take it slower.