Anxiety Relief: Letting Thoughts Flow By

Twenty minutes before recording this, a delivery arrived that I failed to check for damage — and the anxiety that followed became the perfect real-life illustration for this talk.

Most anxiety comes from the silent movie we play in our heads, not reality. In this talk, I explore a simple way to understand why fighting our thoughts makes them stick, and how to let the natural current of our mind clear itself.

If you've ever noticed that trying not to be anxious only makes things worse, this talk is for you.

Transcript

Hello and welcome. So I want to look at anxiety today through the lens of a personal example, A real life example and hopefully demonstrate through that example that anxiety is not about an event or a situation, Something in the future that is making us anxious, But rather it's about the relationship we have with our thinking. So just 20 minutes ago, Two delivery men delivered a shower base, A shower tube that will be used to replace a shower unit in my parents' apartment. So I received it and I was supposed to check it. If there's any flaws, Any defects, I need to check it when I receive it. And I didn't because it's well packed and the guys seem to be in a hurry. And I just honestly didn't have the tools to open it right there. It's in a sturdy looking box. So they left. My parents got somewhat upset because if there is any defect, That means we can't claim it. And that got me worried as well. So I started imagining that what if there is some defect, What if there is some flaw and I didn't check it. And that made me anxious. I tried to not be anxious. That made me even more anxious. And I think this is a spiral that many of us can relate regardless of what is the concrete situation that's making us anxious. So at that point, I had a few options. One option would be, And this is a useful option, Would be to imagine the worst case scenario. Basically imagine my parents coming in a few days and then we are all of us opening the box and there is a few scratches or even the tube is broken. What's the worst thing that can happen? Well, The worst thing is that we can't return it. We need to buy a new one. I may need to buy a new one. So basically, No big deal. Long story short, Some money that I'll need to spend. No big deal. This would help, Presumably, To lower the anxiety. So in this case, We're dealing with our thinking. We're dealing with the cause of anxiety, With the situation in the future that seems very real and that is the cause of anxiety. But another way we can deal with it is to notice that it's not the fact, It's not what we're thinking, But it's the fact that we're thinking. So anxiety in that situation comes from my thoughts. Thoughts about the future. If I isolated that thought, There would be some form of a silent movie I'm playing in my head about what can happen and that makes me feel anxious. When I try to change that, That makes me even more anxious. But when I notice that I'm essentially reacting to my own thinking, I'm essentially reacting to a thought in this silent movie that's playing in my head. And it's not the reality. Even though it feels very real, It's not the reality. I'm not looking into the future. I'm not fortune telling. It's just I'm playing a movie in my head and I'm reacting by feeling anxious. When I realize that, That's another way to deal with it. I realize that I'm reacting to a movie, To a succession of thoughts in my head. And another piece that I want to share is that instead of trying to calm myself down, Instead of trying to think about something else or telling myself I shouldn't be thinking that, Which only makes it worse, And I think many people can relate. What I need to remember and what helped me, What I remembered is that our thinking is like a river. In its healthy, Natural state, That river flows and brings us new thoughts all the time. When we try to battle, When we try to resist some thought, We're essentially creating an eddy in the river. And our thinking starts to spiral around that thought, Which only makes it stronger. It doesn't really help it to move. So when I remember that the healthy psychological state of the thinking, The fact of the thinking is that it always flows, It always moves. And basically if I just let myself go, If I let go of that trying to change my thinking and I just go do something else, I know and I notice that my thinking eventually clears up. That I just stop thinking about that scenario, I stop playing it in my head and consequently I stop feeling anxious about it. So these are the two mechanisms from this very specific real life example that could be useful for you. So the next time you notice yourself dwelling on some thoughts about the future or feeling anxious about them, Just notice those two things. Number one is that it's not the future that you're feeling anxious about. It's your own thinking. It's an image or a bit of language in your mind that when you believe in it, When you react to it as if it's the truth, Is creating this feeling of anxiety. And number two, You don't have to do anything about it. You don't have to change it. You don't have to fight it. You just need to remember that the nature of our thinking, Of our psychology is that it always flows. It always moves. When we meditate, For example, We notice that thoughts they come and go. We don't notice that one thought comes and then it stays and never leaves. It's like the river. It never freezes. It keeps on flowing. It keeps on moving. The same with our thinking. It will move. If we just let it be, If we just switch our attention to something else, I know it feels very, Very, Very important when we feel anxious to deal with that movie that the cause of our anxiety. But if we just let it be and we do something else, It will even out. It will clear itself by itself. It will kind of undo itself if we just switch to something else because that's how thinking works. So I hope it's helpful and until next time, Bye-bye.