Anxiety Happens, page 7
The mantra may change in different ways. That’s okay. It can get faster or slower, louder or softer, clearer or fainter, or it may not appear to change at all. Don’t try to make a rhythm of the mantra or align it with your breathing. In every case, just take it as it comes, neither anticipating nor resisting change, approaching the whole exercise with ease.
Continue this process for the next ten to twenty minutes.
Then stop thinking the mantra and take a little time to rest in the stillness and silence of your meditation. Continue to sit with eyes closed for the next two to three minutes. Then open your eyes and resume your regular activities.
We suggest that you practice the I Am Mantra Meditation twice a day. Committing to a regular practice of daily meditation is one of the most important and powerful steps you can take toward healing and transformation. We know this from our own personal experience, and there is also much scientific research supporting this conclusion. This meditation will help you create space between your true self and your thoughts and emotions that have kept you stuck and struggling. In the beginning, be sure to reread the brief instructions first before you start your meditation.
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Behavior Matters!
Behavior is anything you can do with your mouth, hands, and feet. When anxiety and fear show up, you likely respond with behavior to reduce them, make them go away, or get away from them. You may not realize that you have the power to control your behavior and how you respond to anxiety and fear. Learning to act differently is the key to getting unstuck.
Let’s say you’re in the mall and feel a panic attack coming on. Then you act on it. Perhaps you take one of the pills you carry with you at all times and then head for the exit. These are both behaviors.
But you could do something else. Instead of leaving, you could stay in the mall, use the skills in this book, and focus on doing what really matters to you. If you’re really shaky, you could sit down or lean against a wall, observe what’s going on in your body and what your mind is telling you, and then ride out the storm as you did in Chapter 22. Then you’d get up and buy your daughter the shoes you promised her.
In both scenarios, you’re doing something. And your choice of actions, in a very real sense, helps define who you are and what your life is about. The next imagery exercise will help you connect with this basic truth.
The Power to Choose
Imagine you’re driving through life on a long road toward a mountain—let’s call it your “value mountain.” It stands for everything you care about in life, and what you want to be about as a person. This is where you want to go.
So there you are, driving happily along, and suddenly anxiety jumps out and blocks the road. You hit the brakes and quickly turn right to avoid a collision. But now you find yourself on the emotional “control-and-avoidance” detour. This detour has its own road. Like a roundabout or a rotary, it goes in circles. So you go round and round, waiting, hoping for anxiety to pass. Meanwhile, your life ticks by.
This is what happens when you struggle with your unpleasant thoughts and feelings. You feel stuck, going in circles, and far from the life you really want. You don’t want your life to be about driving on the control-and-avoidance detour. And yet it’s so easy to get stuck there. Many people do.
But you don’t have to remain there. You can change how you respond to anxiety and fear. Instead of turning away, you can stay on the road toward your values and bring anxiety and fear along with you. No longer reacting or struggling, you choose to drive forward with them because choosing the old alternative costs you.
The first and most important task is to make a choice to move forward when anxiety tries to block your path. The second is to be willing to take what you’re thinking and feeling with you as you move forward. Unless you do both, you’ll continue to remain stuck.
The cumulative effect of your choices and your actions determines what your life will become. Everything you do from here on out adds up to that. How you choose and what you do creates your destiny and legacy. This is the prize!
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Discover Your Passions
What matters to you? Do you really know? If not, now is the time to find out.
We all have a finite amount of time on this earth. Sadly, many of us plow through each day on autopilot, never stopping to take a good hard look at what we’re spending our time doing or asking ourselves, “Is this truly what I want to be about?” Most people don’t think about it until it’s too late to do something about it. Don’t let that happen to you.
We all know that death is inevitable. Most of us have no control over when or how we’ll die. But we can control how we live from this day forward.
Firsthand accounts teach us that something profound happens when people have been near death and have survived to live another day. Facing death forces people to wake up and take stock. Priorities are rearranged. Old habits and activities that once seemed so important become trivial. Instead, time, energy, and resources are poured into doing things that really matter. These activities are what they (and you) will be remembered for.
The following are two related journaling exercises that’ll help you connect with what you want your life to stand for. The exercises may seem a bit strange and scary, but they’re also very powerful. Take your time with them.
Anxiety-Management Epitaph
Your task here is to write your epitaph (the inscription on your gravestone) as it would be written if you were to die today. What would it say if it was about what you’ve been doing to manage your anxiety? What have you become by living in service of your anxiety? Bring to mind all of the coping and management strategies you use to keep anxiety and fear at bay. Be mindful of how they’ve gotten in the way of what you want to do. Think of all the things you say aloud, think to yourself, or do with your hands or feet before, during, or after anxiety shows up. If you like, you can get out a piece of paper and list them all.
This exercise asks you to face squarely what your life has become in service of not being anxious or afraid. We understand that this exercise is probably difficult, perhaps even a bit depressing to do. But the next exercise should be more uplifting.
We’d like you to write another epitaph, but this time as you’d really like it to read, without the stains of anxiety and fear having taken up all of your time and energy. This epitaph embodies everything you truly care about and wish to be known for. This is your Valued Life Epitaph!
Valued Life Epitaph
Imagine that you could live your life free of any struggle with worry, anxiety, or fear. Wouldn’t that be something? What would you do? What would you want to be about?
As you connect with this, imagine that you’re standing in front of the headstone on your grave. Right away you notice it’s blank. Your epitaph (words describing your life) hasn’t been written yet. What inscription would you like to see on your headstone?
Think of a phrase or series of brief statements that would capture the essence of the life you want to lead. What do you want to be remembered for? What would you be doing with your time and energy?
Give yourself some time to think about these really important questions. If you find an answer—or more than one—write them down. There are no limits to what you can be remembered for. Think big.
This isn’t a hypothetical exercise, either. What you’ll be remembered for, what defines your life, is up to you. It depends on what you do now. It depends on the actions you take. This is how you determine the wording of your epitaph.
When you’re finished, compare your Valued Life Epitaph with your Anxiety-Management Epitaph. Which epitaph do you want to be known for? Which one is more life affirming and true to the person you want to be?
We understand that getting a handle on anxiety is important to you, but do you really want your tombstone to read, “Here lies [your name]—who finally got rid of anxiety”? If that inscription doesn’t excite you, you’re in good company. We’ve done this exercise with countless people just like you. And we’ve never seen anyone write something like that.
What does it mean when people never mention anxiety on tombstones or eulogies? Perhaps getting rid of your anxiety—a goal you’ve been working so hard to achieve—isn’t going to matter much in the grand scheme of things. Every sixty seconds you spend trying to get a handle on your anxiety is a minute taken away from doing something that matters to you.
In short, the anxiety struggle pulls you out of your life. If you’re not doing things to be the type of person you want to be, now is the time to live the life you want and do the things that are most important to you. It’s time to choose your valued life.
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Finding Your North Star
For thousands of years, navigators have relied on the North Star to help guide them on their journeys. They’ve been taught how to locate it easily in the night sky and to use it wisely. And many still rely on the North Star to this very day.
Instead of looking upward to the stars for guidance, you can learn to bring your awareness back to earth, relying on your values to guide you. Just as the night sky appears to rotate around the North Star, your values are the point around which your life turns. Values offer each one of us a sense of direction, meaning, and purpose. When life appears stormy and difficult, your values will help you navigate a way forward. Without a clear sense of what matters, you’ll end up making choices that leave you feeling directionless, lost, and without hope.
So knowing your values is an important step in creating the kind of life you wish to live and the kind of person you wish to become. Once you get clear about what truly matters, then you can draw on your values and turn to them as your abiding North Star, always pointing you to what’s truly important in your life.
My North Star(s)
Imagine you could spend your time doing anything. In your mind, ask yourself, “If [insert anxiety- or fear-related concern, or anything else you struggle with here] wasn’t such a problem for me, then what would I be doing? [insert your answer here].
When you’ve determined what you’d be doing, open your eyes and write it down in a word or two.
What does this activity represent for you? Perhaps it’s freedom? Or a greater sense of connection with other people? Or maybe it’s creativity, family, expression, learning, growth, and so on. Listen to your heart for the answer!
Capture the essence of the activity in a single word. This is your North Star.
Repeat the exercise as often as you like, but five to ten times usually works well. Come back to it on another day if you like. Each time you repeat the exercise, think about something new you would be doing with your time, and then a new word or two that captures the essence of that activity in terms of your values. Once you’ve cycled through this exercise several times, you’ll end up with a list of your values. No need to rush. It’s better to linger with this one and listen to your heart, your deepest longings and desires.
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Opening the Right Doors
When we speak of valuing, we’re talking about two things. First, what matters to you and only you! And second, what you do to express this in your life. The second piece is critical, because your values find expression in your actions—in what you do with your mouth, hands, and feet.
So, for example, you may believe that you should be a good parent, but without any actions, your belief is just that—a bunch of thoughts swirling around in your head. If you want to bring your values to life, then you’ll need to look at your actions in your role as a parent. You might even ask, “What do I want to be about as a parent? What does that look like?” Likewise, if you’re someone who believes in helping others, you need to act in ways that are helpful. If you don’t act out your values, they’re just empty beliefs. Beliefs or morality without action are empty vessels. They may look good, but otherwise they are of no consequence.
As you consider your own values, you’ll need to allow yourself time to think about areas of your life that are deeply important to you, and what you want to be about as a person. These are the qualities of expression that make your life worth living, that you want to cherish and nurture, and that you’d act to defend if necessary.
Homing In on Important Values
Refer to the North Stars you identified in the previous chapter. You’ll know when you’re homing in on an important value of yours if you can answer yes to each of the following questions:
Do I care about [insert North Star word]?
Am I doing this for me? If nobody knew, would I still care about it? Or, am I doing this because I’m supposed to, or because that’s what others want me to do, or so people approve of me?
Can I control and do this—take action—myself? (Keep in mind that what other people say and do is not in your control.)
Does it have the potential to bring me joy, contentment, and a sense of vitality and satisfaction? (Values ought be rewarding at some level, even if you encounter difficulties along the way.)
Is this something that I cannot put on a to-do list and be done with it? (Values are more like a journey, not a destination where you arrive and that’s the end of it.)
Am I willing to act in ways to express my values, even knowing that I may not always get what I want?
Life is energy—and this energy is a precious gift. You can choose to focus that energy on whatever is important to you. Or you can squander it on things that, in the end, pull you out of your life. Your values will help guide you here. So take time to reflect on what matters to you and the kind of life you wish to lead from this point onward. As you do, keep this question in mind: How can I use my time and energy wisely? This is something you can do!
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Making Wise Choices
The serenity creed reminds us to accept what cannot be changed while at the same time encouraging us to change what can be changed. The only prerequisite is that we be willing to experience what is. There is enormous wisdom in this teaching. That is why people love it so much. But it also contains the seeds of enormous frustration. How can we know what can and cannot be changed?
By now, you’re probably coming to the realization that you don’t have a great deal of control over anxiety. Your experience tells you as much. And your experience is right on.
But you can choose what you do with anxiety. You can choose to open up and soften to your experience of anxiety, or any other inner experience that you tend to struggle with. You can choose willingness, because willingness is what you can control and change. It is the key that will unlock many doors, opening you to the possibility of living a vital and meaningful life more fearlessly and without fear controlling you. The next imagery exercise will help you connect with this truth.
Willingness Creates Possibilities
Imagine you have two switches in front of you. They look like light switches; each appears to have an on-off setting. One switch is called “anxiety” and the other is called “willingness.” When you started reading this book, you were probably hoping to find a way to turn off the anxiety switch, but this turned out to be a false hope. The on-off toggle of the anxiety switch isn’t working—it never has and probably never will. And you don’t have to trust us. Just look at your experience. Nobody has the power to flip the anxiety switch off, whether temporarily or permanently.
Here we’d like to share a secret with you. The willingness switch is really the more important of the two, because it’s the one that will make a difference in your life. Unlike the anxiety switch, the willingness switch actually works, and you can and do control this switch. Your emotions will rise and fall more or less on their own. But regardless of your emotional weather, you can always decide to turn on your willingness switch.
When it comes to willingness, you’re not a helpless victim, because that switch is controlled by your actions, your behavior. This is the place where you are response-able, or able to do something. It’s your choice to flip the willingness switch on or off.
We’re not sure what would happen with your anxiety if you switched willingness on. But we do know this: You really can switch it on if you make a choice to do so. And then things might start to happen in your life. You could start doing what you really want to do and start moving in the direction of your Valued Life Epitaph.
Please be mindful that we’re not talking about ignoring anxiety with the willingness switch. We’re simply encouraging you to shift your attention from what you cannot control to what you can control.
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Do, No Trying
“I’ll try” is one of the first things people tell us when they talk about choosing willingness. But this is a recipe for staying stuck. You may even tell yourself “I’ll try” too when thinking about the next time you’re anxious. You may think, “I’ll really try to be willing and not do what I usually do.” And when things don’t work out, you may tell yourself, “I tried to go to work. I tried really hard, but I just couldn’t do it. My anxiety was just too strong. So I stayed home.”
The following brief exercise is a powerful way for you to connect with the fact that willingness is an all-or-nothing action. Either you do it or you don’t. There’s no trying to do something. There’s no trying to be willing either.
The Trying Pen
