Hey there friend,
Thanks for hitting play today.
I want to share with you a quick personal story and message about anxiety and uncomfortable feelings in general that maybe can offer you a new perspective on how to approach these challenging emotions when they arise.
For a long time,
I struggled with anxiety during large group settings.
And a while back I attended a dinner party for a friend of a friend's birthday at a restaurant.
It was a large table of about 18 people or so,
Most of whom I didn't know.
It was a perfect recipe to flare up any old feelings of anxiety.
At various points throughout the night,
Some of those old feelings surfaced.
Feeling antsy,
Self-conscious,
Wanting to leave my seat and get away,
Fear of saying something stupid,
Etc.
I started to become highly conscious of myself feeling uncomfortable.
Getting distracted,
Gazing off,
And reaching for my phone.
At one point,
When I grabbed my phone to mindlessly scroll,
Something came over me.
I became highly observant.
As I began to remove my phone from my pocket,
I noticed exactly what I was doing,
Conscious of every intricate move I was making,
As if I was in slow motion.
I took a breath and shifted my gaze from looking down at my phone to what was directly in front of me.
It was like something nudged me to say,
What are you doing?
For a split second,
I wondered,
What is the need driving this seemingly insignificant action of checking my phone?
But was it insignificant?
I took another breath.
Then I looked out into the large dining room and observed my surroundings.
The other patrons,
The servers,
The trays of food being ushered in and out of the kitchen,
The sounds of people chatting.
And suddenly,
That urge to distract myself from my anxiety passed.
I was now no longer immersed in my discomfort,
But in something far more interesting and delightful.
The experience of experience itself.
And the offer that moment was presenting me.
So I put my phone away and made the choice to stay,
Accepting the gift despite the urge to resist it.
While it didn't completely put an end to the energies of anxiety,
But like all energies,
It bubbled up,
Passed through,
And dissolved.
Awareness was the conduit.
This is the big promise of mindfulness.
And why we meditate.
And why we come to platforms like Insight Timer.
This is the power and its promise of wisdom by staying with our uncomfortable feelings that all the great spiritual teachers have told us.
The end of suffering is through suffering.
And the end of the discomfort is through the discomfort.
So I guess my message for you that I want to leave you with to reflect on is to think about the challenging moments in your life that push you to escape.
What uncomfortable feelings or situations do you habitually reject or avoid?
What is your ongoing pattern of resistance?
Now,
What if you no longer resisted and just allowed the experience to unfold,
With no interference?
What if you became super present,
Aware of exactly what's in front of you,
And immersed yourself in it?
What might happen if you did that?
What would happen if you chose just one uncomfortable moment to do this in?
What would happen if you simply decided to breathe into that moment and wholeheartedly made the choice to stay?
It's a profound challenge.
But these are our marching orders on the spiritual path.
This is what all of us in every moment is essentially being confronted with.
To make the choice to stay with life or escape from it.
Think about it.
May we choose wisely more often than not.
Thanks for listening today.
Enjoy yourself.
And make the choice to stay.
