What I Think About While I Pluck My Eyebrows

Like most childhood overachievers, I have an acute case of anxious perfectionism. I’ve often been told to try grounding exercises. Name five things you can see, four you can hear, three you can touch, two you can smell, and one you can taste. Notice your surroundings. List what you’re grateful for. Do box breathing. But sitting there, simply taking stock of the world, envelops me in my own helplessness. The world is overwhelming. Forcing me to passively focus on it only overwhelms me more. When typical advice makes you feel worse, it can seem like there’s no helping you. Your problems are unsolvable, outside the scope of modern medicine and conventional wisdom. You are broken. Or maybe… you just need to get a little unconventional.

Meditate. Have a bath. Do a cold plunge. Every day, we are inundated with self-care tips and tricks. Friends, family, and influencers think they know what’s best for us. Take up running. Eat clean. Talk to someone. We are told how to keep our minds and bodies healthy. Again and again, I’ve been told the same things. My entire life has felt like the target of a clandestine operation to make me take up mindfulness. And frankly, I am starting to get sick of run-of-the-mill brochure advice. It’s reductively simple, clinically apathetic, and — worst of all — entirely unreasonable.

They’re right, of course, all those well-meaning mouthpieces telling you how to feel better. Their advice does work. Well … sort of. If you’re looking for a way to cope with life’s natural stresses, then yes, it works. But what about the days that feel like the plug’s been pulled out of your heart, and every drop of life has been drained out of your body? Or the days when happiness feels like an eternal impossibility? When going outside seems as achievable as getting a booth in the library, conventional advice fails.

One day, sick of my own forlornness, I decided to stop listening to other people. Clearly, their nuggets of wisdom weren’t helping me. I had no choice but to get slightly wacky with my coping mechanisms. It’s strange, but I can’t deny that it works. When I’m in that pit of despair, I turn to the only thing that actually calms my anxiety-induced stomach aches: plucking my eyebrows.

All my concentration focuses on a single hair. The bright light of my lamp illuminates it just so. The silence of my room. The small pinch of pain as it dislodges. And what do I think about, I hear you ask? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I never understood how to meditate. I thought I must be genetically predisposed to have a busy mind. Constantly rushing through thoughts, reliving every conversation, making endless to-do lists. My attempts at meditation made me feel worse. It gave every bad thought my undivided attention, while I desperately tried to ‘clear the mind.’ Doing my eyebrows, working with my hands, channeling all my energy into a simple, physical activity, completely silences my thoughts. It’s meditation for beginners, a wave of calm for those struggling to get out of bed. It’s a low-stakes act of self-care that requires no thought and little commitment. Of course, I’m biased. I say whip out those tweezers! But you could shave, brush your hair, clip your nails, anything really. I think it works because these kinds of tasks require your full attention. You are quite literally absorbed in caring for yourself. So much so that anxious thoughts can’t slip their way in; self-care is the shield that protects our minds from themselves.

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons