Tag: anxiety

Grow Through Fear

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I had developed a fear of flying after spending one year abroad. The anxiety never seemed to leave me before and during take off. Those long minutes are tricky, challenging and I always, always have the worse case scenario overplaying in my head even before the wheels leave the tarmac. It usually involves me panicking and clawing for the door, begging staff to let me off. I was determined to figure out how to handle it.

turning-into-your-fear
‘What you resist, persists.’ – Carl Jung

These particular thoughts and feelings are unpleasant to say the least. But hours before I was to travel by plane, I decided a meditation session could help my nerves and the result was that it put things in perspective.

I focused on the details that made me feel panicky the most – the height the plane would be travelling at, the enclosure of a small space with lots of people with no option to leave and the fear I would lose control of myself and have some kind of panic attack. At first it was very difficult and uncomfortable to look at each of them – and that’s when I realised that was exactly my problem. I wouldn’t look at them or acknowledge their existence. The fact I kept resisting them and pushing them away was what increased them in size. It’s like with any phobia or disorder – it starts off small and is then avoided and feared to the point of extremity. I saw how I was contributing to the fear by fearing what would happen (assuming the future), and secondly by trying to deny or push these fears down. Because of this, it festered.

Resistance to fear entangles us.

In order to give peace to myself and to take a first step to transcending these fears, I needed to acknowledge them in a friendly way. I needed to make space for them within myself and house them. I learned that we need to make friends with our fears just as easily as we find it easy to make friends with feelings of happiness.

I travelled to the airport that day in a state of peace that I hadn’t felt in a while, and it made me realise that adversity forces us to rise to higher standards of resilience and courage that we never realise we possessed. These fearful situations not only call for our approaching wisdom, but also acceptance of the uncomfortable. Because for all those long minutes during take off, I was proud of myself for facing it and the holiday I received for a few moments of discomfort was worth it.

Resisting the negative only seems to double its efforts, accepting them helps us move through them more quickly and experience positivity again.

Fears are the dirty underside of the coin that most of us do not want to look at. But we give them power when we refuse their presence, and treat them as an inconvenience for us; but what if we could work with them to relinquish them? Having fear teaches us courage, being sad makes us appreciate the moments when we are happy. The negative and positive compliment each other in the same way as Ying Yang do. I believe if I give my fears their space within long enough, I may eventually find that space unoccupied.

The experience can be almost perfectly encapsulated by the famous poem by Rumi:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

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To Embrace the New, We Must Let Go of the Old

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New brings challenge and untested waters and calls on us to act and behave in certain ways we may not have done before. They can collide with closely held beliefs about the self and the world which can see an individual struggling with a transition from a previous situation into a new one. A person in this phase is essentially building new neural pathways in their brain and it takes much more work to lay down bricks by oneself as opposed to old ones that may have been laid down by our family, friends and other people we have experienced over the course of our lives. Embracing the new means rewiring our brains. And that’s hard.

To-Embrace-the-New

Challenging closely held beliefs takes extra effort and a good scoop of bravery. For me, it’s a course I’m doing at the moment in starting your own business. I’ve always worked for employers so it demands of me a completely new perspective on risk, acquiring essential skills never practiced before e.g. team building, leadership and weathering through a series of emotional hurdles (e.g. anxiety) that I never expected.

Through all of this, I’ve had to teach myself self-compassion and patience for myself and others. I’ve had to try new techniques to manage my anxiety and maintain an open mind towards the other people on my course.

I’ve found that once I started to let go of a variety of issues that have arose as a result of being on the course, I had Feng Shuied the clutter in my mind and had more space within to allow for new information and ways of outlook. I then began to practice something called ‘Bracketing’, a term referenced in a book called The Road Less Travelled.

‘Bracketing’ refers to whenever someone is experiencing something new for the first time, that they practice a self-disciplining technique of leaving their past experiences, prejudices and other experiences at the door so there is no room for comparison and observe whatever is going on in a non-judgemental way. This leaves ample room for more learning and seeing things/people as they really are.

Another interesting approach is what Buddhists call The Beginner’s Mind. It’s a state of mind where there is no mental attachment to achievements or the self and all possibilities are accepted. The mind is empty and filled with compassion.

I’ve personally found these kinds of practices difficult, as my mind always wants to race off on it’s own tangent and switch back to default mode. But what I’ve gained from using approaches has been unreal. Your perspective on yourself and the world completely changes you, and you are altered permanently. I have by no means mastered them and my mind still runs on it’s default Grand Prix race most of the time. But I’ve had glimpses and insight enough to know they are worth attaining and you take this with you everywhere.

You find on this kind of journey that choices you made previously on your life are non-nonsensical and you begin to become the master of your own life. You eventually move to a place where you are totally in control of your life. Certainly, not all events and people that are in it but insofar as within the capacity of yourself and actions.

Once you move to that final stage people will be naturally drawn to you, unconsciously moving towards you because your way of life is what they want themselves, whether they know it or not.