Anxiety Anxiety - Written August, 2016
What is all the angst about anxiety, anyway. Anxiety is energy. The angst is because it sometimes makes us uncomfortable. Transmitting energy, too much energy at the wrong time in the wrong way, through the combination of human physical/emotional/mental bodies and the human psyche, amidst the experiences that humans undertake in physical life, is anxiety. Anxious energy can seem not so bad if it is in anticipation of something desirable, like going on a trip, or a holiday, or meeting a friend after a long time apart. There is still a kind of restlessness because the attentive focus is on something other than the present, but it is usually viewed as a positive kind of energy.
What happens, however, when the anticipation which takes the focus out of the present, now, moment is upon something dreaded, or just really unwanted in some way? That is what we call anxiety. The restless energy combined with fear of the unwanted. Whether positive anticipation or dreadful anxiety, both types of energy situations are related in that energy is overflowing the human capacity for process, for some reason, and the focus of the psyche is other than the present moment.
Furthermore, the whole situation is compounded because there is rarely only one thing, and the anxiety feeling is making the rounds to produce some complex mixture of feeling states that all brew together to emerge this big anxiety state which leaves you in a quandary to figure out what the heck to do about it.
So, what the heck can you do about it? The first thing to realize is that our habitual tendency is to pin it on something. I am worried about my kids, and I am feeling anxiety; therefore I have anxiety about my kids. Or, I am worried about money and paying bills, or getting sick, or someone who is close to me being sick, etc. The thing is, though, that it is not the 'thing' we think the anxiety is about that is the issue, it is the anxiety itself. Although this alone, by itself, does not totally position us to combat the anxiety feeling, it is a big first step to realize, and integrating this knowledge into the psyche goes a long way to shift the fundamental form in which anxiety operates. This frees our feeling states from what we perceive as circumstances out of our control.
The next thing to realize is that our feeling states are in our control. Skill is involved in learning how this is so, and how we can effect our feeling states, but it is true. Whatever you are feeling is because of your sole responsibility in getting it there.
My recommendation is that when anxiety arises, get out of the mode of trying to sort it all out and figure it out and solve all of the problems that you think are causing it. Trying to do that is like fixing the leak in a dam by plugging one hole, and finding three more holes open up to leak. If one ostensible source of anxiety is solved, the anxiety energy finds another channel to showcase its talents.
Even being all the wiser to thinking the source of anxiety is within myself rather than the circumstances that seem to be disturbing, sometimes it is just there, impatiently waiting to attach to some worldly issues. Without knowing the whys and wherefores, you can go on a process to shift the energy of your feeling states. Personal preference plays into how to do it, but I will tell you what has been working for me tremendously, lately. I wrote about something which I call the Alchemy Resonance Meditation. You can read about it in the meditations writings, in the Alchemy Resonance Meditation essay.
This method basically takes everything and flushes it through your own internal energy center, surviving only that which resonates with your internal energy and burning off what doesn't. Anything to do with anxiety does not resonate! Just realize that when you do something like this, it may take a little while for the effects to show up in your feeling states, and for that reason it is best to just do it and move on, without scrutinizing too soon for results. Why? Well... doing that creates anxiety. ;)
Another approach you can take is to direct the anxiety energy into a more positive direction. Knowing that it is energy, and you are in the driver's seat to influence how it channels into yourself, you can make a directed will to shift it toward things that you anxiously anticipate, which you would welcome. I readily acknowledge that this can be a tall order when the anxiety has dug in its claws to get you into a seemingly inescapable worry state, but what have you got to lose? Worried about losing your job and the economy and pending doom? Thoughts like "maybe it isn't so bad; there are lots of jobs out there; the economy always has its ups and downs and people love to talk about it; pending doom is a relative thing, and the infinite energy source is impervious to it", immediately start to shift your internal viewpoint of it all, even if there is a time delay before you notice that you are feeling better. The important thing is that it is always your choice what to settle your thoughts onto thinking about.
For me, even when I can't find an avenue in this world that seems like it would be uplifting, there is always the underlying forces of energy which form the basis of all life - the Infinite Universal Energy of Oneness. Bringing in more and more of the awareness of what is beyond this physical world dilutes the effects of the harsh in this world, which can seem monstrous.
More generally, to gain some understanding of anxiety itself, you can read about the answers that were given when I asked about anxiety during Weekly Channel Message #30.
Hang in there! This dense world moves slowly, but things do change, and all of us are the orchestrators of our own change, much more so than it may seem on the surface.
-Christopher