Anxiety Tools

A dharma talk that gives some tools and practices and reflections for healing anxiety. Includes cognitive tools, insights, and reflections on the nature of anxiety and trauma. May this help all beings. Sorry the sound quality isn't the best due to the old technology in a public arena.

Transcript

So today we're talking about mindfulness and anxiety. And what I'm going to be talking about is how to find the right relationship to anxiety with mindfulness. One way and another way is how to leave anxiety alone. It's not about getting rid of it, But how to leave it alone, Not pick it up. Also how to refocus when there's anxiety. And how to increase other behaviors and how to decrease the behaviors that aren't working for you. The first thing about anxiety to remember is that anxiety makes sense. It's important because often we're at war with anxiety. We're at war with trauma feelings, Anxiety feelings, Depression feelings. We're really at war with most of our emotions that we don't like. But in particular anxiety, We fight the anxiety. So the first step is to see it makes sense somehow, Anxiety. At one point you adopted anxiety as a coping mechanism because it served you. So you might just reflect right now, Like what was it maybe when you were a kid. It was easier to feel anxious and feel like there was something that you were doing wrong that you could control rather than feeling the sense of hopelessness. If you were stuck in a crazy family, Feeling like there was something you could do and getting hyper-vigilant gave you something to do rather than just feeling like, Oh, I'm stuck in a crazy family for 20 years. So originally when anxiety, Your psyche adopted anxiety, It was for a good reason. And I think the first thing to do is acknowledge that, Whatever that reason was. Now unfortunately our emotions are meant to self-destruct. And this is the floor noble truths. Something that starts out as a good thing, If it's not truly who you are, If it's not really something that's genuine, It's going to self-destruct eventually. People start drinking because it helps them relax. Eventually that backfires, Doesn't it? We start anxiety as a coping mechanism. Eventually that backfires and it becomes, It snowballs. And the other thing is there's no point in the mind when the mind knows when to stop these behaviors. So as a kid you started doing anxiety and there wasn't a point where you turned 18, You left home and it was like, Oh, Okay, We can stop being anxious now. It just doesn't work that way. If anything it gets worse, Doesn't it? I just want to point out too that as a culture, Our culture nurtures anxiety. We're a culture about speed versus quality more and more. We're a culture that's about doing versus being more and more. I was reading a research study the other day that was saying that they were doing the anxiety test scores for kids in schools. And kids that are taking tests now are scoring at anxiety levels that kids in the 1950s would have been hospitalized for this level of anxiety. And this is considered normal anxiety level now in kids. So 40, 50 years ago these kids with this level of anxiety that we consider normal now, These kids would have been in institutions. As a culture our tolerance for anxiety is getting higher and higher. And you see that. I have some people that I work with, Younger clients, They tell me since I was in third grade I was having to do extracurricular activities and be preparing for college and all the things I should take and do and be perfect and had to have the perfect scores and the perfect number of sports activities. Since third grade. Some of us that are older, We didn't, You know, Myself, I didn't have that pressure probably until high school. But now it's starting earlier. You have to do more, Be more. My godson was telling me the other day about he's trying to brand himself. I said, Branding sounds like a cow. He's like, No, Really, You don't understand. You have to create a name for yourself. Starting in high school, College. And he says, Everything I write on the internet is going to follow me forever. Yeah, And that creates anxiety, Doesn't it? So one thing to look at to start is anxiety, I'm saying anxiety meets a need, Right? It met a need when you were a kid. It's still meeting a need somehow. So you might take just a minute and look at right now, What is the benefit of anxiety for you in your life? There's some small benefit somehow. I know there's lots of negatives. But what might be the need that it's meeting? What might be the things that the way that anxiety is helpful to you? You don't have to say out loud, Just reflecting on it right now, What might be the benefit for you? And connecting with and just acknowledging that benefit. Oh, Yeah, Anxiety, It kind of does this for me. Gives me a reason to leave things early. I talked to a couple people and one person says, Well, If I wasn't anxious, Something could come that would be worse. An emotion could come that would be worse. So there's that. It's a way to always feel like you have a problem. It gives you something to do all the time. We feel oftentimes if we go over and over and rehearse something and we get anxious, It will keep us safe. So maybe the need it meets is that you feel in some way, It gives you something to do to make you feel like you're safe. Keeps the ego busy. Gives the ego a job. Don't underestimate the power of that. So one thing is to start to think about, All right, If you're able to find something that the need, The anxiety is meeting, See if you can maybe start to consider meeting that need in another way. If you need a job to do, If your ego needs a job to do, If you're afraid of another emotion coming that might be worse, Maybe be willing to face that. Behavior won't go away until the need that it's meeting becomes obsolete. So find out what the need is that anxiety meets and see if you can gently explore meeting that need in another way. Okay, So right relationship to anxiety. Mindfulness is all about finding the right relationship. We're not talking about getting rid of anxiety. If you wait for your anxiety, Depression, Whatever emotion it is that's bothering you, You wait for anxiety to go away before you become happy, Before you become enlightened. You will wait forever. You will wait forever. You'll be still waiting when you're 90 years old sitting on the cushion. So don't wait. You can wake up. You can be happy through the anxiety with anxiety alongside of it. This is a big mistake people make is thinking, Waiting for their emotions to settle down and for their thoughts to settle down. It's not the nature of emotions or thoughts to settle down. But you can find something that co-exists that's already settled down. It's not about the anxiety. So you don't have to spend a lot of time getting rid of this smokescreen. Find out what's really true about yourself. Spend time nurturing that, And this thing will just become unimportant. It's like clothes in your closet that you don't take out and wear anymore. They're still there. They still happen, But you cannot be involved with it. The Dalai Lama told a story. A reporter asked him what was his biggest regret ever, And he said that I guess a number of years ago a monk came to him for some advice, And he gave this monk some advice, And the monk mistook the advice and killed himself. And this caused anxiety for the Dalai Lama. It caused regret. But he told the reporter, He said, I never forget this. It never leaves me, But I don't get involved with it. So whatever issue you have anxiety-wise, It's probably never going to leave you, But you don't have to be involved with it. You can leave it, Start to learn to leave it alone, Like leaving those clothes, Those hand-be-downs in your closet that don't fit you anymore. You don't have to wear the clothes that don't fit. It's having the anxiety without being consumed by it. Acharya Chah said it's not about getting rid of anger and anxiety. He said it's just that anger is no more me than this window. So this window is in this room. It exists. It's here. It doesn't have to be any more you than the window. So starting to think about anxiety in that way. Yes, We can get very involved with the window sometimes. It's allowing it to coexist with you. One thing that impedes us from leaving anxiety alone is we get mesmerized. Mesmerized is an important word. We get mesmerized by our stories. We develop scare stories, The what-ifs, The oh my God, The future, Da-da-da, A scare story. And one thing to do is start to label. Are you in scare stories? Are you in shame stories? We get these constellations of stories, And then we repeat them over and over and over again. And we get mesmerized by our idea of something which creates the anxiety, Creates like a hamster wheel. So the first thing to start doing in leaving it alone, Get up and write, Is so first thing is labeling. Most of you, If you're mindfulness students, You've heard this before. So labeling, Scare stories, Labeling, Shame. Labeling the anxiety itself. Oh, This is anxiety mind. Or you can even get more fun. One person I work with, She calls it busy brain. There's different versions of anxiety. You know, There's busy brain, There's frantic, There's panic. I label that. I'll label obsession. That often precedes anxiety when you notice your mind becoming obsessed. It's good to get a word that kind of fits, And just so you can just know it, Label it. Nervous Nelly, Busy brain, Scare stories, Panic, Obsession, Whatever your particular label is. The purpose of labeling is twofold. One, And there's an article out there that describes this. They did a research study where they found that when you actually label your emotion, It moves it from the brain stem to the prefrontal cortex. It moves it from a reptilian place, Brain scans prove this, To a place where higher order processing, You can actually get a clear sense of it. It's like the difference between being down in turbulent water and up on the bridge looking down on it. When you're in the water, It's hard to do anything when you're in anxiety. The labeling puts you on the bridge above, Able to see it. Oh, There's frantic. Now it might just be for a second you're on the bridge and then, Bam, You're back down in the water again. That's okay. You know, One moment outside, One moment of labeling, You're not in it. When you can't label something and be in it totally at the same time, It might just be a half a second, But it's conditioning you to pull out of it and go to the witness versus down in the soup of that turbulent water. Another thing to label is sometimes you can have anxiety about the anxiety. Maybe any of you guys had that? It's going to get worse. What if I lose my mind? That's often a very common fear. We get anxious about the anxiousness. And so to label that, Too, Oh, I'm anxious about the anxiousness, Or I'm in this I'm going to lose my mind story, Just to label that also. And again, This analogy of we're not getting rid of it. So what happens is it's like a train pulls up and the anxiety train with your story, You get on that train and you might ride it from here all the way to Chicago for most of your life, And then you start practicing mindfulness and you only ride it to somewhere like Cleveland. And then you get a little better and you only ride it to Worcester or someplace. And then once after a while you see the train and you just get on it for a few seconds. You know where the train goes. You're very familiar with where anxiety goes. And one day the train comes up and you're like, I don't need to get on that train. It goes by. That doesn't happen every time. The train keeps going by. Again, We're not getting rid of it. We just decide whether we want to get on the train or not. So part of labeling then is just going to the witness itself. It's a little bit different, So I'm going to mention this just because it's a little different thing. That which knows the anxiety is not the anxiety. That which knows the anxiety is not the anxiety. So the thing that can know that you're anxious is actually not anxious. It's not affected by it. It's like a camera taking a picture. A camera is not affected by what it takes. You just the witness, The pure witness, And you've always got consciousness and an object, Consciousness and an object. It's basic Buddhist psychology. So the consciousness itself is not affected by the object, I. E. The anxiety. Consciousness just takes a picture. It just knows. So to the extent that you can go, Where's the witness? Where's the witness? The witness itself, Not in the anxiety. I was telling one of my clients the other day about he's a Coke addict, A recovering Coke addict, And we were talking about how he'd be in a state of complete high, Right? High, Coke high. And yet he knew he was high. He could know he was high. Because the consciousness itself, The witness itself, Even when your brain is dysfunctional from a drug, It knows it. It's not affected by any of that. So somebody can do it on drugs, Certainly when we're on anxiety, When we're on the drug of anxiety, We can move back and be with the witness itself. You're not your anxiety. And if you have to even do that label, I am not my anxiety. Okay, So there's labeling, There's the witness, Moving to the witness. There's tell the truth. Tell the truth. Really tell the truth. Whatever story your mind says, Can I absolutely know it's true? It's too hot in here. You know, We get anxious about that. Can we absolutely know that's true? Is it unbearable? Hot compared to what? I can't do this. I can't stand another minute. Our mind lies. We do stand another minute. What mind often is saying, I can't stand, Da da da, Or it's going to be too much. But then we do stand it. So just to start to see, You know, Your mind doesn't tell the truth. Most of the time it doesn't tell the truth. Tell the truth. Does the anxiety really work? Hey, I'm all for people using something if it works. But does it really work? Other than that need you found that it met early on? One of my friends, He has anxiety about flying. And in the middle of a flight, He all of a sudden realized, Is my fear keeping the plane aloft? And he's like, No. I was like, Well, Maybe. And at that moment, The fear just disappeared, And he hasn't had a fear of flying since. And he really faced the truth. His fear was not keeping the plane aloft. His fear, He also found later, His fear about his teenage son and drug and drinking and all that stuff. He said, My fear with my son is not keeping my son safe. Now, A certain amount of wisdom keeps him safe, But the fear was not keeping his son safe. So the basic untruth of anxiety is that we can think our way to safety. So if there's anything like a little seed I plant, You can't think your way to safety. It's a basic assumption that we have that keeps the anxiety going, That somehow we can think our way to safety. So if that's not true, Then it gives this, It just begs this question of what can we trust. The mind can't think its way to safety because we're looking for safety. We're doing the anxiety to find safety somehow. We're looking for safety. What can we trust? What truly is going to bring us safety? Let's tell the truth. It's not the mind, Not ultimately the mind. The mind's a part of it. Anxiety is a little bit like when it rules your life. It's like a finger in front of your eye. It blocks everything. All you can see is the finger. Everything's tempered by this anxiety. Mindfulness, Starting to see what's true, Labeling. It's bringing the finger out. Then you see, Oh, Anxiety is just one of many things happening. The finger moves from here to here. You get rid of anything. You just started to put anxiety in its proper perspective. One of many things. You get to see everybody in the room this way. It's just one thing. Sometimes not, Most of the time not necessarily even true. We don't have to get rid of the finger if it's not true. It's just like, Okay. Shanti Deva said, If there is a solution, What's the use of worry? If there isn't a solution, What's the use of worry? A young man I was working with the other day, He said, He realized with his anxiety, He said, I can rehearse or review something once, Or I can rehearse or review it a thousand times. It's up to me. He started to realize, I don't really want to review it a thousand times. Once is enough. Once is enough. So let yourself do it once and have that be enough. Another untruth of anxiety is we think it's so prevalent, Right, But look around you right now. Does anxiety exist anywhere outside of yourself? Can you find it in this chair, In this Buddha? Can you find it anywhere outside of yourself? No. Externally, You can't find anxiety anywhere when you look. So the only place it is is in here. So it's created. Where will your anxiety be after you die? What are you anxious about right now? It's all consuming. Where will it be after you die? Nowhere. So just starting to poke a few holes and just this thing that feels so solid. Okay, So these are some of the mindfulness ways, Labeling, Going to the witness itself, Telling the truth. Another way is to refocus on something that is what is true. So let's talk about refocusing on the truth. Channel changers. Tools to pick up instead of the anxiety. And we talked about the anxiety meaning need. Well, Let's find other things to do besides the anxiety, Other coping strategies. Anxiety was, Is a good coping strategy, But there's ones that are better. One way is metta or loving kindness. Meta for or loving kindness for the anxiety itself. We're not just talking about for you. Yes, You as a person, Many of you have done meta, But meta and loving kindness for the actual anxiety. We hate it so much. We pushed it away our whole life. We wanted it to go away. We've tried to beat it down. Just try saying, All right, Acceptance. It is what it is. It's okay. My therapist the other day told me, She said, I need to just admit you're obsessive and controlling and anxious person. I'm like, It's really that obvious? And then it was just like, Okay, So she said it, I am, It's true. I had to admit it when she said all those things. And then it was like, It could be worse. I mean, She didn't say you're a homicidal maniac. It's like, Okay, I'm an obsessive, Anxious, Controlling person. Okay, Let's get on with it. It's all right. Just to accept that. So to refocus, We have to find things to help us be safe. And one way is to start to accept the anxiety. And in one of the articles I put out about, It's called the Lizard Practice, He says that for our reptilian brain, We need to do many, Many repetitions because the reptilian brain, I. E. Where your anxiety is, It needs a lot of support to relearn things because it's really old material. So he talks about stroking, Petting the lizard like a hundred, Maybe that's bad image for some of you, But a hundred times. And staying with something so it goes to implicit memory, Not just once, But lingering with a tool. And we're going to do a few tools this morning. I want to just make a quick note about medications before I forget that I'm very in support of medications as skillful means, As good medicine when it's needed. Once somebody goes into a state of panic, It's very hard to get out. And medication can be a useful tool to be able to get your mind in a state where it can start using mindfulness. If you're too overwhelmed, If the water line is drowning you, The anxiety is so high you're drowning, You're not going to be able to use many tools. So medication can be useful medicine depending on what your need is, Especially if you get panic. So another way to refocus is body focused breathing. I don't know how many of you have done breath awareness meditation, But just like right now, It's just paying really close attention to the breath. You might notice some anxiety right now. Just feeling the rising and falling of the breath in the abdomen. Just feeling it from beginning to end, One breath. See if you can notice the nuances of breathing. It's paying very close attention to the movement of breath in the belly, Abdomen area. Paying really close attention to the breathing, It can refocus the mind off of the anxiety or anything. Another thing you can pay close attention to is there's a neutral place in your body. So like right now, It might be the hair on your head, Your fingernails, The bottoms of your feet, Your hands. Go there and feel that, That neutral place in the body right now. Stick with one place and just feel it. Feel what are the sensations of that neutral place. And ground your connection here. So there might still be anxiety happening. It might be there, But coming to your neutral place and just resting in that neutral place. Again, It's not getting rid of the anxiety, But it's ability to go to an alternate focus, The breath, Your neutral object in the body, The neutral place in the body. And sometimes you can actually pendulate back and forth. You can go and touch the anxiety for a little bit, Then move back to the neutral place. Just touch it for a second. Touch the edge of it. Come back and just feel the neutral place. So the refocusing is on the body, Whether it's the breath or the neutral. There's also a refocusing mantra. Am I okay now? Not a demand. Okay now, Okay now. It's a question. Am I okay now? Now is actually okay. Have you ever noticed? Fear needs a future. Anxiety needs a future. So if there's any one practice you take away, You really can't, If you're totally in the present moment, Anxiety really, It needs a future to coalesce. Somebody gave me the analogy the other day of like, When you're driving at night in the dark and your headlights, They only go like 100, 200 feet. You don't need to know more than just the 200 feet of headlights. You don't need to know like how far it is in the dark. It works just to know now. When you're driving a car, It really works. So notice right now, You can't go to your thoughts about something. Is there any anxiety? If you can't go to your thoughts about what you're anxious about, There's no anxiety. If you're just in the now, Right now, Just being present, Is there anything to be anxious about that's life-threatening, That doesn't involve your thoughts? Somebody was saying that the analogy from the scriptures about our daily bread, We're just meant to have enough for today, For now. It's not like, Hey, Will you back up, Will the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha back up a truck and put enough loaves of bread for the week? Or when you retire, They'll give you enough loaves of bread for five years. No, Your daily bread is just now. And it really works to stay in this present moment. About a week or two ago, My sister, She's become very suicidal. And this is a big trigger for me because several members of my family have taken their life. And I started to get quite anxious about it. And then I realized that I just need to know right now. I can't prevent her from taking her life, The future. And I could drive myself nuts, Worrying about when and if, Especially since two other members of my family have taken their life. And it was so calming to just realize, She's alive right now. That's all I need to know. And then I'll know the next moment and the next moment. And whatever happens, It'll be like that headlights, I'll deal with what I need to when I do. So this stuff really works. Just a couple more things and then we'll take a break. You only have to do a half moment at a time. It's kind of a similar thing. One of my clients is very anxious in parties. And his wife really likes to socialize a lot. So he would tell himself, I'll just go in to the party for five minutes. He started doing that. And then he got up to like hours and now he doesn't really have a phobia of the parties. Just taking that five minutes. And you always get, Okay, Five more minutes if you need it. It doesn't have to be, Don't try and do the whole hour. What do you take refuge in? This is important. When we're obsessed with the anxiety, We're taking refuge in the mind. So again, Refocusing is about refocusing to the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and what you can trust. We've already established that the mind lies. I mentioned that earlier. So taking refuge in something greater than your own mind. This is a really important piece that it really, The ramifications of this are endless. I mean, In some 12-step traditions they talk about higher power. It's just this sense of something that you can trust that's not about your thinking that's bigger than your thinking, Than that which contains your thinking. Maybe it's life itself that you can trust. Often when we're anxious, We don't trust life itself. We don't trust the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. We just trust this, Which is dangerous. Dangerous and limited. How about trusting the we? You know, This lecture, It's happening because of all of you guys. We're all here together. All of our wisdoms coming here together. It's not just me. Trusting the we, Trusting the bigger picture, Trusting the Dharma. You know when you get worried about something happening and you realize you've taken control? Move out, Move into the bigger, What can I trust? You can even ask yourself, What can I trust? The World Trade Center, You know, Hit by a plane. What can you trust? I'm sure a lot of people went through an anxiety at that. That situation can be a catalyst to go deeper. What can you trust? What can you trust when you lose your job? Yeah, You could trust worry. What goals can you trust? Another thing that you can trust is to remind yourself of your previous abilities. Just write remind there. Athletes, When they're trying to run a race, Do something new, They say, Well, I've done it, Mostly this before, I can probably do it again. They remind themselves of their previous accomplishments. When I worry about money, I say, You know, I've been okay so far, It's probably likely that it will continue to be fine. It's going on past experience to a certain degree. So the last piece is strengthening the witness, Which I somewhat talked about already. One way, And we can just do a short exercise on this, To go to the witness is, So just being in your body if you want to close your eyes for a minute. And you might notice different feelings, Maybe some uncomfortableness because of the heat or maybe some anxiety or fear. And then just take two steps to the right. So just moving in your mind, Moving two steps to the right, Maybe out of your body, Just two steps to the right, Looking back on whatever that uncomfortableness is. And if you're still in it at two steps to the right, Take two more steps to the right. Get over to the right. And from this place of witness, See what it's like here. See what it's like to be in the place of witness, Two or four steps to the right. Is there any problem here? The body might still be feeling anxiety, Heat, Different things. But see what's happening with the witness. See if it's okay now. See if there's a problem or if it really needs anything to change. Just taking a few seconds to really feel and be present with that witness itself off to the right, At nose and sees and feels. That just is. Knowing that this is always present is not something you have to conjure up. It's always here, This witness. And when you're ready, Opening your eyes. Actually, We're going to take a walking break. And when we come back, We're going to do a sitting practice, Just 30 minutes. We actually work with the witness inside the center. It's called the center of the wheel practice, Where often the anxiety can be like the outside of a wheel. Follow yourself into the center. And the center of a wheel is still, Isn't it? And to find this witness inside, Not necessarily out. Just different ways for you guys to have something else that you can start to practice to refocus. So labeling the anxiety, Witnessing it, Telling the truth, Meta and acceptance for the anxiety, Coming back to the body, The neutral place, The nuances of the breathing, Seeing if you're okay now, Finding what you can take refuge in that's bigger than the mind. So I just wanted to close with a story about using all these techniques. They come in handy. Mindfulness is a great tool to have in your pocket. You never know when you can use it. So I go swimming a lot where I live. You're not supposed to, But sometimes I swim alone because I'm fanatical, Obsessed and controlling. So there are certain places I swim that are somewhat far out, And one day I swim a little bit far out, And then I got kind of carried away. I looked up and all of a sudden I realized that the currents had changed and the winds had changed. Things can really change on a dime in the ocean. And I realized I was actually quite far out, Maybe half a mile, Quarter of a mile out. And the winds were blowing really strong and there was a current, And as I was trying to swim it was pushing me back out farther. And I started to panic, And I thought, I'm going to drown. I can't get back. And then all of a sudden my mindfulness practice just said, Okay, That's panic. It was like it just labeled it, There's panic, And panic doesn't work. Panic is not going to help you. And then this other thing of reminding myself, It's like you've swum into shore before, You had experience with this, You can do it. And then I refocused on the body, And I just said, I don't care how slowly I go, Even if it's three-quarters of a stroke forward, Half a stroke back, It doesn't matter. I said, I'm just going to keep focusing on one stroke, Another stroke, Another stroke. And I just hyper-focused on the body and just doing one stroke at a time. And eventually I was able to get back into safety. But it's a good example of how this practice really works. And if it hadn't been for mindfulness, And that moment of panic, And I hadn't said, Okay, That's panic, It would have been the end of being able to get back. So you can use it any time, Have these tools like in your back pocket. You just need enough headlights to see 200 feet ahead and stay present. So that's all for now. Oh, Perfect, It's almost 10. 30. So why don't we take a little break, Do a little walking period, And then we'll come back at 10. 45 for the sitting meditation. That's the center of the wheel when we do the sitting. I just want to announce for the bathroom tour, There's a lot of new people here. If you step out that doorway, Take a right. Thank you for listening. To learn how you can support the teachers and Dharma Seed, Please visit dharmaseed. Org slash donate.

Reviews

Impressive presentation. The tools you present are well explained, practical and effective. Thank you very much and I look forward to listening to more of your talks.

Incredibly helpful. Presented with deep compassion, wisdom and humor. Thank you 🙏