I love this phrase,
Anxiety is the place where anxiety ends,
Because it really speaks to just going straight into experience,
Full immersion,
Full curiosity,
Fully just going right into what feels most alive in that moment,
Whatever is right here,
Whatever appears to be the biggest thing in the room,
The biggest thing in our experience in this moment,
Going straight into it.
And of course,
When it's something that the mind is labeling anxiety,
That's the last thing we want to do.
There's so much conceptual runaround.
I know what this is,
It's a thing called anxiety,
I have memories of how it feels and I don't want those again.
There's just so much that the mind brings,
That thought seems to bring,
So much that we think we know when it's full of concepts and labels and memories and all of that.
But just see that those are concepts that's there to give us the sense of familiarity and continuity and all of that,
But that's not what's actually here.
And we can only know that by going straight into it and checking it out ourselves,
Going into it from that dumb,
Curious place and feeling our way through it.
From this place of like,
I don't know,
I don't know,
Yes,
It feels like a lot of energy here,
A lot of sensation,
My mind is telling me it's anxiety,
But what is that and where is it?
Where's the anxiety here?
Where's the center of that anxiety?
Look for it,
Look for it and see what you see.
It's this very weird thing of it's so obvious,
Our experience,
Whatever is showing up for us is so real and so obvious and so self-evident.
But when we get closer and look,
It gets more and more elusive.
And then we often come to see,
Wow,
I don't even know what this is.
This thing I'm running around avoiding,
I don't even know what it is.
So go straight into anxiety.
The mind says,
No way,
I want to learn what my triggers are so I can avoid anxiety.
I want to have an insight so that I'm okay with anxiety.
There's all this run around.
Going straight through the middle of it is not an option or it doesn't feel like an option to the mind.
And that's what I love about this phrase,
Anxiety,
Right in the middle of this thing called anxiety is where anxiety ends.
It feels very counterintuitive,
Yet it also feels very true and very real and maybe kind of courageous.
I don't know how it feels,
But you can sense how all the conceptual run around of let me have this insight first or see this first or avoid that,
It's all very avoidant.
And I don't know,
To me,
Avoidant kind of feels like anxiety and I don't know what either of those are.
It has this real feel like that to it.
So I would just have you look at this and consider it's not even the way out is through because it's not about finding a way out.
It's just like,
Just go in,
Just go in.
We're already in,
We already are all of this,
We really cannot separate and hold ourselves apart from it.
But what if the attempts to do that are what really hurt and what really feel avoidant and anxious is trying to hold ourselves back.
So it's like freedom is in,
Reality is going in,
Going right into this and see what you see.
You have to play with this yourself,
But what is often seen in is something like,
Wow,
That's not at all what my mind said it was.
I don't know what it will be.
Usually for me,
I never know anything.
The more I explore and try to go right to the center of experience,
The more I see,
I don't know what that is,
But it sure isn't what my mind told me it was.
My mind said,
No way,
Don't go there.
You can't feel that.
You can't handle that.
Run in the other direction.
And running straight into it was not at all what my mind said it would be.
So you know,
Become it.
You are it.
When it isn't something that feels like it's happening to you because we're full in,
Full immersion,
It definitely has a chance to surprise you.
