Ironically, we escape anxiety when we stop trying to escape it and allow ourselves to feel it instead. We are conditioned to resist our feelings in order to cope with them, but it’s when we feel them that they pass through us.
When we’re anxious we feel an overwhelming sense of urgency, panic, lack of safety. And it normally doubles on itself. The mind, in a state of panic and threat, far removed from rational thought, is racing, cataloguing all we’re worried about, all that’s out of our control, further inundating our nervous system.
Our feelings are like magnets. They snowball. Anxiety attracts more anxiety. Happiness attracts more happiness. Stress attracts more stress. That’s why when we’re in the grip of a strong emotion, it’s so difficult to transcend it, because like attracts like, and we get deeper and deeper into the emotion. And anxiety is perhaps most challenging in that regard, as it undermines our most basic human need—the need for safety.
I believe that safety is what we optimise for, on the deepest level. It’s our strongest need. All of our other basic needs—the need for love, belonging, acceptance, status, prestige—add to our feeling of safety. One could argue that we seek to satisfy them in order to feel safer.
Paradoxically, the obstacle to overcoming anxiety is our desire to overcome it. When we’re swamped by the intensity of the anxiety, we want it to cease. We push against it, we resist it and try not to feel it. This only makes it stronger. The more intense the feeling, the more we want to escape it, but the more we run from it, the stronger it gets. What we resist not only persists, it intensifies.
So what can we do? How can we get out of the quicksand of anxiety?
These are some of the distinctions and practices that I have found most helpful:
Allow it and feel it. The main, and most important thing, is to allow yourself to feel the feeling. Do the opposite of what your instincts push for (ie. resistance) and let yourself feel the anxiety.
Investigate it. Locate it in your body. Where do you feel it? How does it feel? Does it have a shape? A colour? A sound? How does it feel? Pulsating? Burning? Shaking? What’s in the centre of it?
Stay present. When we are in fear, our thoughts are always in the past or future—ruminating or dramatizing. But anything we can experience, we can only experience now. The sense of safety we so long for when we’re anxious can’t be felt in the future. It can only be felt in the present moment.
Ever so gently steer your mind back to the here and now whenever it races into future projections, doubts and fears. Grounding in the present moment instantly reduces the feeling of anxiety.
Nondual thinking. The reason we resist some feelings is because we think of them as bad. The reason we want other feelings is because we think of them as good. In reality, however, feelings are. Your anxiety is neither good nor bad. It is. Let it be what it is, without qualify it.