Quote of the day: “Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.”
― Paulo Coelho, Manuscrito encontrado em Accra
Icicle View
Back home from my winter walk-about in Hawaii, I slipped easily into my old routines and thought patterns, even the ones that I’ve worked hard to change.
While I was in Hawaii, I became aware of how anxious and fearful I am about little things. Returning home to my well-known routines and life, I momentarily forgot about that part of my journey.
Then, as I was planning to drive downtown to an evening meditation class in Minneapolis, I ran smack dab into a wall of anxiety.
Driving often makes me anxious. Driving downtown in Minneapolis always makes me anxious. And driving downtown in the wintertime, to a place I’ve never driven before at night, creates a very similar anxiety state to what I experienced oftentimes when I first arrived in Hawaii.
My first response to anxiety is unconscious. I start making excuses or I put off or I rationalize. That’s what I did this time too. But fortunately, I woke up to my behaviors and asked myself, two questions I learned in Hawaii, “What can happen?” and “If not now, when?”
My experiences in Hawaii are a beacon for me about how to work with and through anxiety.
One experience in Hawaii was a catalyst for the two questions I’ve learned to ask myself. As I was riding (and hanging on for dear life) in an ATV on a coffee and cacao farm, over rough, steep terrain, I asked the woman who was driving the ATV how long it took her to get comfortable driving it on their mountain farm. She replied blithely, “Oh, this is only my third time driving it.”
I replied with surprise, “You’re certainly braver than I am!”
Her response was “What’s to be brave about? What can happen anyway?”
Now at that precise moment as we were barreling up a steep, rough incline, I could think of any number of things which could happen. But clearly, her mind followed different tracks. It was an epiphany for me. Not everyone experiences life as a high anxiety sport, like I do.
Hmmm…what CAN happen anyway? And if I don’t do this thing I want to do now, when will I work up the courage to do it?
There is no question that bad things DO happen some of the time. But I would rather live life fully, even though anxiety is a challenge, than let amorphous anxiety stop me.
Mindfulness and presence helps me in the following ways.
- Until I recognize and name anxiety consciously, I am unable to make thoughtful choices. Naming it – “this is anxiety,” helps create enough distance to allow other questions to surface.
- Once I name it, I tune into what the physical sensations in my body are. “What am I experiencing?… tightness here, heart pounding, stomach clenched.” And I notice how just noticing shifts the intensity of the sensations.
- Then I breathe slowly and mindfully and remind myself that it is my brain and my thoughts creating the anxiety – “It’s just thoughts,” I tell myself.
- Finally, I ask myself my two questions: What can happen? If not now, when?
Usually if I wake up enough to notice that I am anxious and follow this process, I will escape from the chasm of equivocation and excuses and make a choice to do whatever it was that I was avoiding because of fear or anxiety. Usually I’m glad that I did.
Happy Buddha Statue
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