Anxiety is a mental feedback loop.
It's thinking about,
Thinking about,
Thinking about,
Thinking about,
Thinking about,
Thinking about,
Thinking.
And this can go on indefinitely,
Or it might be worrying about,
Worrying about,
Worrying about,
Worrying about,
Worrying.
Or being guilty about,
Being guilty about,
Being guilty about being guilty.
And so you see anxiety compounds our mental hindrances,
The negative thoughts that we might have going on in the mind.
Something will come up to the level of consciousness from the subconscious,
The lower brain centers.
And anxiety is something that we do with it.
Good news,
If it's something that we're doing with it,
Then it's something that we can stop doing with it.
And all we need to do to come out of anxiety is break the chain of thinking about thinking about thinking.
Oh,
Ah,
I see you,
Mr.
Anxiety.
And right there,
You've broken that pattern.
It's really as simple as that.
Now,
This doesn't mean that you're immediately gonna feel blissful and free and energetic and all those wonderful things.
This is practice,
This is training.
What it does though is it certainly makes you feel better in the moment.
And I'm a big fan of better,
Not interested in best.
I'm after better in each moment.
When we break that chain of anxiety,
We're gonna feel better because continuing on down that path is a road to nowhere.
We twist ourselves up,
We've become very good at this.
We're trained to do this in our culture.
And we can do something else.
The means for doing that is to spot anxiety when it arises as anxiety.
When we see it as anxiety,
We see that it's not me.
It's not me,
It's now an object,
It's anxiety.
I'm no longer identified with that anxiety.
I see it as an object,
Just like I see anything else that I don't like.
When I see something else that I don't like,
I take whatever steps I can to distance myself from it or to not bring it about again.
And that's what this practice is about.
When we see anxiety,
That is successful mindfulness practice.
We then give ourselves the power to do something else in that moment.
We can take a nice deep breath,
Smile,
And let it go.
Should anxiety arrive in the next moment,
I see you,
Mr.
Anxiety.
I'm gonna do something else instead.
And every single time we do this is successful practice.
And as we put forth this effort,
As much effort as is required and no more,
As we put forth this effort,
We become more skilled.
Just like anything else that we do,
Just like learning the piano,
Learning the drums,
Learning to dance,
Learning to skate,
Just like any other skill that we do,
Which of course all starts in the mind.
If we're doing music or we're doing sport or dance,
These are all movements which start in the mind.
They start with thought.
Now,
The kinds of things that we're speaking about,
Like anxiety,
Don't have a physical,
Well,
Actually sometimes anxiety does have a physical component if it gets bad enough.
But even that can be worked with in the sense that if we're in a state of deep anxiety,
Then normally our breathing is gonna be shallow.
This is because we're in fight or flight response.
By breathing deeply,
We tell the reptile brain,
No predators here,
It's safe,
It's okay.
This may be a little bit of a challenge,
But it's okay.
This may feel like the last thing that you want to do,
And this is where that effort comes in,
Just as much as is required and no more.
And I also recommend an experimental attitude here.
You don't have to know that this is gonna work before you try it.
But if you don't like anxiety,
Which I assume you don't,
And you certainly don't,
Then why not run an experiment to see it when it comes up,
Take that nice deep breath and smile,
Even if you don't feel like smiling.
And again,
If anxiety comes up in the next moment,
The strategy is the same.
See the anxiety,
Nice deep breath,
And smile.
