It’s been getting easier… to let myself feel fully, to let myself be happy without fear. Sometimes I almost even forget it’s there. There’s moments where I’m just fully here, without worry or doubt about what I’m supposed to be doing or how I’m doing it or whether what I’m doing is right. Some days it’s just the small stuff and things are relatively okay.
When I’m feeling good, I start to forget about the power it has, the way it has of consuming everything else and its ability to fill me with such irrational thoughts. Sometimes I even forget it’s there, but it always comes back to remind me. It has this way of making itself known just as soon as things seem to be going well. It seems to project this black cloud over everything, turning anything and everything – the positive, negative, and neutral circumstances – into something negative and usually much worse than it actually is. There is this overpowering sense of fear that it seems to project. If there’s any possible opportunity it can get to transform my experiences or my ideas about myself into something negative, it is certain to take it.
The One Thing We Can’t Escape
I can clearly remember the moment I knew it had become too much. My anxiety and depression had almost completely taken control and I didn’t know how to cope. I knew that I couldn’t maintain the way I was living and the way I was thinking.
It was some time after the end of my first long-term relationship, a relationship which had become unhealthy and had gotten quite messy. Going through the pain of heartbreak and simultaneously discovering – or maybe finally facing – the fact that I had absolutely no idea who I was or who I wanted to be proved to be one of the hardest times in my life. I felt like I had hit my breaking point.
There were a lot of painful moments, but most of all I remember how utterly alone I felt. I remember the moment when all my usual vices or “remedies” for dealing with my anxiety seemed to stop working. This may have been the first time I truly identified and acknowledged just how powerful my anxiety was in shaping the way I perceived everything in my life.
The worst part was realizing that nothing that I did could possibly make me feel better. I knew that I was doing things that most people do to cope – finding means to distracting myself however I could – but even in the process of doing those things I knew it wasn’t enough and that it wasn’t sustainable. I figured that this was what hitting rock bottom felt like. All I wanted was to escape – from my mind, my thoughts, this uneasy feeling consuming every inch of my being. Yet that seemed to be the only thing I could not do. No matter how much I tried or what I tried to do, I knew that there was no way to escape myself. Being in that headspace is a scary place to be.
At some point I came to the realization that trying to escape from my mind was never going to work. Maybe I could temporarily distract myself time and time again, but it was never going to be a long-term solution. I had to come to terms with the fact that that this is who I am and this is the mind that I was going to live with for quite a long time. I couldn’t simply disconnect from it. Maybe instead of trying to escape from it, I could try to understand it and just be there with it. Instead of running away from my fears, I could stay with them and get to the root of all these unpleasant feelings.
Comfortable Suffering or Uncertain Happiness?
Many of us associate anxiety with these overblown panic attacks and not being able to sleep at night. For me, it’s always been much subtler than that. It’s kind of this lingering feeling in the background that never fully goes away.
It’s this constant ongoing force which for a long time was so deeply embedded into my life and my way of thinking that I didn’t even recognize what it was I was feeling and just how much it clouded my experience of life.
For some the idea of anxiety comes up when they are worried about something – an upcoming presentation or performance, a difficult confrontation, a dramatic life-changing moment. Of course, these are normal things that we would expect to feel nervous or anxious about. These are typical things that people feel uncomfortable doing so it’s only natural to feel a little anxious.
For me, the worst anxiety comes when there’s absolutely nothing wrong. It’s the terrifying uncertainty of everything being okay, the ominous feeling that comes when everything starts to feel right.
I remember describing to my first boyfriend that I was afraid of being happy. That might have been the first time I realized that wasn’t a normal feeling, and that not everyone felt that way or could understand that mindset. It might have been the first time I acknowledged that.
Maybe it’s the fact that it’s too easy to just exist in that feeling of happiness. If nothing is wrong that means there’s still the potential for something to go wrong. If I’m simply happy with how things are now, I won’t be as prepared for it when they inevitably fall apart again.
That’s why its always easy to hold on to things even when we know they aren’t what’s best for us. Maybe we make changes in our lives or make resolutions for ourselves. We might even stick with them for a little while. Yet soon enough we slip right back into our bad habits – whether it’s eating too much junk food or drinking too much. We continually make bad decisions for ourselves – going back to a toxic partner, continuing to work at a job we despise – because it’s what we know. Deep down, we know these things are ultimately not going to make us feel too great. We can’t possibly achieve happiness by doing things that are unhealthy for us. Too many of us are afraid of that pure kind of happiness. It just seems too simple. We’ve gotten comfortable with a certain level of suffering – simply because it’s familiar. Somehow that makes it seem more manageable to us and it gives us some false sense of control over our lives.
In actuality, there’s only so much power we have. Bad things are going to continue to happen and we can’t always predict them. However, we do have the power to make choices that will benefit us in the long-term. Most of the time, we know deep down what is and what is not good for us. Trying to make the bad things become predictable or expected isn’t going to stop them from happening or hurting us, it’s only going to make us more miserable in the process.
The Power of Mindfulness
For me, facing my anxiety made me realize how much of my life I spent not being in the moment. I realized how much of the time I spent caught up in the past and anticipating the future.
If we’re anxious, we’re in a constant state of fear about things we can’t control. It feels like being constantly on the edge of your seat waiting for something bad to happen. It means we are holding on too tightly to some fixed ideas or thoughts about things that actually have no substance. Doing this means we can’t fully enjoy or appreciate the moment or the beautiful things we have right around us. It’s like this force that keeps taking away from our ability to fully experience our lives. When you’re in that state of mind sometimes it feels impossible to get out.
After concluding that I was never going to be able to escape from my mind, I figured maybe I just needed to get to know it a little better. Coming out of that dark place, I somehow found a light. Having heard a lot about the benefits of meditation, I figured I’d try it. It was time to start dealing with my emotions and figuring out who I was, so I started reading books on Buddhism and started practicing meditation regularly. I started observing my habits and changing them to be healthier and more productive. I wanted to feel more present in my life and be more mindful in my daily activities – so I started reading, exercising, and eating healthier. Making that effort to understand my mind and just sit with some of the powerful emotions which were overwhelming me drastically changed everything. Just being with those scary emotions made them lose their power.
One of the core concepts taught in Buddhism is impermanence. When we think about impermanence, typically we first associate this with the fact that we are all born and will inevitably die. Beyond this simple fact, impermanence can be applied in a much deeper context and associated with every aspect of our lives. Particularly in approaching anxiety or fear of any sort, this concept of impermanence is very applicable.
Anxiety basically stems from a need to have some control over things, because we hold on to things and ideas as solid and fixed. We create a plan in our heads of how things are supposed to look, we fear that it might go differently, thus anxiety is born. We are all terribly afraid of the unknown. Change is a necessary part of our lives – a crucial component in the natural progression of all things. Change is a means for growth and it’s not something we should fear. As soon as we recognize this and understand its association with all the things that bring us anxiety, the power of our anxious thoughts start to diminish.
Realizing that there’s only so much that we can actually control helps us loosen our grip. We become less attached to our fixed ideas and our possessions and start to become more open to the world. It’s not an easy or simple process to change our entire way of thinking and adapt but it is one that is surely worth the challenge.
An Ongoing Journey
Through incorporating mindfulness practices in my life, I started to become more present than I could ever remember. Instead of running and hiding, I learned to face my fears and examine my own mental roadblocks. Doing normal tasks started to feel drastically different and more meaningful simply because I was that much more present and aware. Seeing that difference made it clear to me why so many people commended the benefits of meditation and mindfulness. In the scarier times – the moments where I wanted to be anywhere but inside my head – I made the effort to sit with myself. Being able to sit with all the uneasy feelings and just observe them made me feel empowered. In the good times, I remember for the first time experiencing this pervasive feeling of contentment, fulfillment, even bliss. It was a feeling that I felt like no one could take away from me – not even myself. I knew that this practice was something that would continue to serve me. It wasn’t a quick fix or a temporary distraction. Through this practice, I was able to face anything – the positive moments and terrifying ones. I didn’t feel quite so overwhelmed by little things and plagued by irrational fear.
Five years later, I’m meditating every day and make an effort to incorporate mindfulness practices in every aspect of my life. It’s not always easy. In fact, it’s usually still a challenge to keep showing up and sitting with yourself. In some ways, it gets easier but in many ways time makes it more of a challenge to maintain these practices.
I haven’t always had a consistent practice, but I’ve been more aware and conscious of my choices and how those choices affect me – not just in the present moment but in the long-term. I’m lucky enough to be living in an intentional community at a retreat center, where I have a good space to meditate and practice healthy lifestyle habits regularly. Although I still struggle with anxiety, I feel more in tune with my emotions and can recognize them much more easily when they come up. There were many stops along the road that led me here, many challenges and struggles during this process. There were moments of joy, clarity, and love, but there were also a lot of moments of pain and confusion – as there continue to be.
My anxiety still knows how to test me. Even though I know better, even though I always recognize it as soon as it shows up, it still knows how to get into my head and irritate me to no end. The difference is that my practice of mindfulness is always here too. I’ve learned how to deal with difficult emotions when they come up, and I’m not quite so afraid of them. I’m aware that they are not going to last. I’m sure we all know from experience how quickly our feelings, our moods, and our thoughts about things or people can change. The moment we realize this and really recognize it in ourselves our lives will change.
I’m still moving through this journey and ongoing process of life, but here’s where I’m at right now. Simply allowing ourselves to come back to the present moment and sit with ourselves and all the confusing, restless, painful feelings that we’re experiencing can be a pretty powerful thing.
There’s only so long we can keep running away and distracting ourselves.
So let’s just stay. Right here. In the midst of all this confusion and uncertainty.
We can learn to be okay right here.
Making Mindful 