Anxiety

Anxiety: lurking, deep, swirling, gripping, pervasive. Hard to get at. Hard to eliminate. Seems to be ever-present. So much in the background we hardly can say it’s a “thing” separate from us.

And that, of course, is its secret to lingering – far beyond its welcome.

As we deepen in our devotion to the Inner state, many notice a tidepool of anxiety lurking deep within. Far beneath the surface of self assurance and busyness is this place where we are scurrying around trying to make sure we never sink in too deep. It’s just too scary and uncomfortable there.

This anxiety has many faces, names and nuances. But it exists for all of us. Many would deny this. The busyness of their lives keeps them occupied enough that they haven’t really noticed it, yet.

But nearly everyone I know who has begun the Inner Journey stumbles into this pit sooner or later.

It is so intensely uncomfortable it feels like we’d do ANY thing to get out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

What I notice is that – right where we feel anxiety welling up --- this is the place to go. To open. To be curious. Willing to see our own selves there.
It is good.

All of us – every single one of us – learned in some way in our lives that we are not completely OK just as we are. In some way – in some small or big way – we had to change to fit in, to meet our parents’ expectations or needs or deficiencies. We had to fit in to our culture or – gads – we would be a “misfit”. That statement, unto itself is terrifying. If we don’t fit in to society it spells not surviving. By whatever primitive means our minds operate around this principle, it speaks to the most basic of Garden of Eden scenarios. Being banned. Excommunicated. Removed from the garden of our most basic sustenance. Forever.

Very, very terrifying.

Underlying all this programming is a deep societal fear that IT (society) won’t survive if individuals are allowed to be different. And – this is more than fear. It is a recognition of a truth. Society, as it is, WON’T survive if individuals learn they don’t have to meld and mold themselves to the norm of the general trend.

The basic fear of all this devolves from the most basic lack of trust. A lack of trust in an inherent sense of order that might reveal itself and evolve if we each were allowed to follow the bliss of our hearts – rather than strive and struggle to conform to the norms defined for us by the society that already exists. Bound by traditions, religions, parents and corporations. It reflects a belief that somehow we are, at our base, not OK. Not OK. We have to be defined by some external standard to bring ourselves up to an idea of acceptability. Unlike forests, animals, stars and all other acts of nature – we are somehow deformed at birth and base. We don’t trust the basic goodness of life as it moves through US. Our minds believe we have to DO something – something different – in order to be “allowed” to live. To survive.

Forget the “lilies of the field” malarkey. We humans are different. We need cars and cell phones and designer jeans.

Really?

Stop here. Pause and take the time – right now – to just open in to the question: “What, in me, says ’No way!’ to the idea that I am perfectly, wonderfully fine – right now – just as I am?”

The answer to this question – and I encourage you to ask it often – will deliver you from such deep anxiety. It is worth the pause.

What is our responsibility?

From a beloved reader:

“I have no trouble loving and feeling compassion for and ONE with those who are victims or activists or even clue less where I get stuck is attempting to even think about sexually abusing and making sex slaves of little children/girls, raping, torturing, murdering WAR etc. If I am ONE with that too how do I sleep at night or even think about the horrible suffering being caused etc. ???”

Sometimes the heart of man gets confused.  Some reach out in violence in an attempt to connect.  They have become so angry, they lash out in venomous spite of their own hurt.

I’ve noticed that if I accept at base that there are those on the planet who, thrashing around in their own roiling pain inflict pain on others, it allows me a different space of understanding and possibility. When I fully realize that this, too, is present here, I open to what is possible for ME, in it all.   

We do not have to feel at one with such things to open our heart in compassion.  There is a deeper responsibility in matters of the heart than sentiments can possibly evoke.  The compassion of which we speak here is of stronger stuff than that.  Our responsibility in these things goes far beyond feelings.  When we get caught in the dynamic of that which is happening, we are lost in the suffering, itself.  When we, instead, drop into a deeper matrix – that space from which we have all originated before we began to get confused – we can find the sustenance we need to effect change that is more kind.

Our true responsibility is to attend to the sacred heart of kindness, which does not have sentiment as part of either its evocation or its delivery.  The responsibility of kindness is firm, steadfast and solid and ever looks within for the guidance and the strength to follow through on its path.

Maintaining our own intention to do no harm, and to allow for the healing possible to, for and through us in any given moment happens here – in this moment.  In this.  No matter what this “this” is.  And no matter how the pain of the moment is being expressed or inflicted.  Sometimes the compassionate expression of our heart in the moment of need is a forceful directive for change.  To love those who are hurting is not to condone or support hurtful behavior, but rather to seek the skillful means by which EACH person in that dynamic is set free from the knot of recurring pain.

Since the details of this dynamic will vary according to the circumstance, we remain open to approach each specific situation simply with this intention:  that we be available to the action needed in THIS moment for what we find – here.  Reconfiguring what compassion looks like (or feels like) gives us greater bandwidth to do what is really needed.  Skillful means sometimes looks harsh on the outside; but if our intention remains clear to reduce suffering; to do no harm, we will be cutting away the chaff not the heart of that which needs attention.

So, the point of all this is to focus less on feeling at one with a hurtful dynamic, and to utter the prayer of “what is needed here?” when we meet it.  Then, to act courageously in the way to which we are called.