Transforming Anxiety Some say anxiety is the form of suffering that marks being human in the modern age.
The dis-ease of anxiety is a cause of,
And causes,
The restless and relentless pace of daily living.
The basic facts of existence haven't changed,
Yet because of media,
We are aware of,
And connected to,
More human suffering than any previous era.
It may be more knowledge of suffering than we have evolved the capacity to hold.
But none of this is to say that anxiety is an unchangeable fixture of our lives.
Concern about the future,
Which we have to have,
Is not the same as anxiety.
Anxiety is tied up with a pessimistic assumption about what will come our way.
Anxiety is an amplified and distorted version of concern,
In that it takes its fearful assumption to be grounded in truth.
The good news is we can be responsibly concerned,
Yet work with anxiety,
Understanding it intimately,
And seeing into its roots.
Now,
On one hand,
Anxiety is a natural nervous system response to potential threats to our safety,
To our success,
To the well-being of ourselves and our loved ones.
The body-mind communicates directly that we should be on alert,
And gives us energy to respond with enhanced alertness.
But on the other hand,
We inherit habits of mind and attitudes towards life that create anxiety even in situations of relative security and support.
This kind of anxiety is essentially caused by the mind wandering away from the present moment.
Worrying about the future tends to put us up in our heads,
Leading to a disembodied condition.
And that disembodied condition disconnects us from our stable grounding on the earth,
And thereby creates a self-reinforcing loop,
A self-reinforcing loop of instability and anxiety.
We respond to unfolding events most skillfully,
Most gracefully,
From a basis of present moment awareness.
From present moment awareness,
We can meet the unfolding moment as it is,
Less distorted by fear,
With our energy not as bound up in anxious thinking.
I will offer you a guided meditation on present moment awareness as an antidote to anxiety.
So beginning by releasing tension in your body and mind,
By breathing deep,
Breathing to the apex of your lung capacity,
And exhaling all the way to the bottom of the breath.
Doing this a few times,
Inhaling to maximum capacity,
And exhaling as thoroughly as feels comfortable.
As you breathe in this manner,
Release tension of body or mind as if it was carried away with the exhalation like leaves carried away downstream.
Inhaling to maximum capacity,
Exhaling as completely as you can.
While doing this,
Notice if any tension doesn't want to release,
And accept that,
Not trying to force a quality of relaxation.
Inhaling to the apex of your lung capacity,
And exhaling all the way to the bottom.
Now,
Feeling the place where your body meets,
Contacts,
What you are sitting,
Lying,
Or standing on.
Feeling this connection,
Whether it's with a chair,
Or a cushion,
Or the earth itself,
Feeling,
Feeling the place where your body touches it.
Feeling that place of contact.
Feeling any qualities of firmness or stability.
As if you had roots like a tree,
Or a solid basis like a mountain,
Feeling into this area where your body meets what supports it.
Relaxing into this place of contact.
Connected in this way,
Noticing now the quality of now-ness,
Now-ness that you are alive here and now.
The past is the past.
You are here and alive now.
The future has not come.
Your life is only happening now.
This moment,
This moment.
Feeling the relief of this present moment awareness.
Feeling the relief of existing here and now.
Feeling the steady support of the earth,
Of the stability of wherever your body sits,
Or lies,
Or walks.
Living in this now-ness,
Connected to the present moment,
Is how we begin to transform anxiety.
Because the future is ultimately unknown.
The potential to slide into an anxious orientation towards that unknown is powerful.
But gradually,
With practice,
We increase our trust in present moment awareness.
And we increase our trust that we can respond from that present moment awareness.
And the anxiety we carry,
We can carry a little bit less of it.
We trust what will flow from our connection to now-ness.
