Thoughts of anxiety - How to not fall into them?

[Javfly33]

 

You can let them go/not attach to them as any other type of thought. But here's what I find tricky about this. And is that the mere thought of anxiety comes with the subconscious message that not attaching to that thought or letting go of it, it's dangerous 

In other words, it seems the thought comes with a subconscious message that itself is there to protect you. So letting go of it would be stupid isn't it?

That's why I always say, all fear is fear of death. Because of thoughts anxiety are survival oriented. So when you let go of them you are basically choosing your peace of mind Now Vs your survival. Which I guess that's the essence of spirituality. But Damn the price to pay for that peace is high!! Isn't this reckless behaviour actually?

The problem probably is that some survival mechanisms are way too active and over exagerated, and that's what we would call pathological anxiety.

But again, how do you know what is pathological and what is actually saving your ass.

If I have thoughts of anxiety most of the time it's because my body or mind has learned to trigger them because it thinks are useful to keep me alive. And it seems it works because I'm alive.

So when you ask to let go of thoughts of anxiety you basically asking " just don't trust your body survival mechanism".

Which ...I can for some time, but at some point I end up listening again to the fear because...hey it keeps me alive. Maybe it works.

It's tricky stuff really.

It seems nobody actually trascends their anxiety. People recommending you about your anxiety being exagerated is just because their body and mind from childhood learned a different mechanism which maybe doesn't trigger so many thoughts of anxiety/fear. That's it. 

Please tell me where I might be wrong. My view is kind of nihilistic but honestly I am losing hope with my mind. Everything seems very deterministic.

[BlackMaze]

You must understand that being anxious is not helpful at all. If you can let go of your anxiety then do it. You lose literally nothing. That said having experienced extreme anxiety i understand that in some cases it is impossible to let go. Usually something external needs to change. What helped me survive extreme anxiety was mindfullness meditation with labeling everyday plus focusing all of my attention in the body, what i do and how i move. I was working focusing on my work. I overworked but it helped me cope. Focus on the now and body. 

[kag101]

Anxiety is a natural and important emotion.

Pathological = out of proportion, paralyzing & last way too long

Normal = proportional, don't prevent you do stuff that matter & last for the proper amount of time.

[Farnaby]

On 20/3/2021 at 9:47 PM, Javfly33 said:

If I have thoughts of anxiety most of the time it's because my body or mind has learned to trigger them because it thinks are useful to keep me alive. And it seems it works because I'm alive.

Actually, you can't know if you are alive because of those thoughts. 

How do you know that being on high alert without an objective threat (which is what anxiety basically is) provides you with a higher survival chance?

Many martial arts demonstrate how being tense leads to a worse performance. And anxiety = tense body.

However, it's true that the fight/flight/freeze response is a survival mechanism and a moderate amount of that response helps you react in case of a threat. 

So, in a sense, you don't need to get rid of anxiety completely, because it can be useful. 

In my experience, rationalizing doesn't help much with anxious thoughts, because there will always be another "yeah, but what if this ____(insert scary thing) happens". It's better to learn grounding techniques (you can try those that help you focus on external stuff you can see, hear, touch, smell and those that focus on internal stuff such as your breath, but those can trigger more anxiety in the beginning) and to relax your nervous system. 

Basically, don't reason with anxious/intrusive thoughts. Work with your body and nervous system and seek therapy to explore your fears and trauma in depth  

Edited March 21, 2021 by Farnaby

[tatsumaru]

On 3/20/2021 at 10:47 PM, Javfly33 said:

Please tell me where I might be wrong. My view is kind of nihilistic but honestly I am losing hope with my mind. Everything seems very deterministic.

I know exactly how you feel. Around 6 years ago I suffered from terrible anxiety. It was so bad that I thought my brain wouldn't be able to handle it and I will descend into madness, which of course only made me more afraid because I didn't want to go mad. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't work, I couldn't talk to people it was hell. At one point it got so bad that I was more afraid of the anxiety than of actually dying so I contemplated suicide to stop the fear. I think this is the moment when I slowly started to realize that this wasn't really about survival but about my mind trying to figure out what's the absolute worst thing that can happen so that I could give it permission to rest. So I kept getting better and better and producing horror movies in my head. What if this, what if that. But how do I know this, how do I know that. How can I trust my senses, how can I trust my thoughts, what to trust bla bla bla. Absolute paranoia... Suffice it to say that this period of my life left me with hardcore trauma that I am still recovering from (successfully). The good news is that the anxiety is gone completely and guess what I am still alive. I don't remember the exact journey I had to go through to solve this but I remember a few cornerstone events which dissolved the problem.
1. I started taking magnesium and ashwagandha (this doesn't address the cause of the problem but helps the brain calm down as you work through your issues - it really works)
2. I met this psychotherapist/spiritual teacher and I told him how I am completely uncertain of what's real and what's not and how I can't stop doubting everything and he told me this: "If you are going to doubt everything you should also doubt your doubting as well." This was the first Eureka moment I had. I had been so immersed in my doubting that I had become incapable of actually observing what I was doing in my mind. It was now doubting for doubting sake. I had convinced myself that just because I am capable of conceptualizing a doubt in my mind this must be somehow valuable, but this was no longer rooted in my direct experience of reality, it was just me creating horror movies in my mind. His advice was so powerful to me that I felt instant relief.
3. I realized that doubts are simply the byproducts of beliefs. Whenever we adopt a certain worldview that's not based on our direct and honest experience but on some belief system, doubt starts creeping in because deep down we know we have never experienced that particular information that we've put there and we become afraid that we might be delusional. As we start letting go of those core beliefs, the corresponding doubts fade away as well. You see doubts aren't really capable of proving the belief true, only experience is. Doubts are just alarms that something is "fishy" in our world view. At the time I was a big Buddhist nerd and I had filled my head with all kinds of beliefs about what reality is, what the senses are, what experience is, what the mind is yada yada yada, but it was all doctrine not experience but I was clinging to it because I had invested so much time researching it that I didn't want to let it go. One day I just got sick and tired of believing shit that wasn't in my experience and I started letting go of that whole nonsense. I decided that I am no longer interested in other people telling me what the world is, but instead I was interested in directly experiencing what the world is for myself through honest inquiry based on experience, not fantasies, concepts and belief systems. I completely let Buddhism go and released another layer of mental instability.
4. I decided I wanted to visit this spiritual master in India that I had resonated with, so I did. I went on a solo trip to India for 40 days. We did satsang every day except for weekends. It was a direct experience inquiry as you go method that allowed me to uncover the awareness behind the thoughts and feelings - something many people report to have discovered after long years of meditation. Essentially I experienced this facet of my mind that was always the same regarding of what else was happening - whether I was afraid, or depressed, whether I was happy or sad it didn't really matter, there was this "silent awareness" place in my mind where thoughts and emotions had no foothold. It wasn't nothingness either, it was simply awareness. And it provided massive relief for me because the experience of it was of something really healthy, really stable, really reliable as opposed to the volatile storm of doubts, fears and madness that the lower facets of mind were. I could go there whenever I wanted and knowing that I no longer had to be a slave of my thoughts this alone deleted a massive portion of my anxiety. Once I came back home from India my mom said I was a completely transformed person. And I knew it because I never had a panic attack since then, and trust me it wasn't for lack of problems in my life.
5. Transcendental meditation - A really simple technique that you do twice a day that allows you to release stress, restore a harmonious state of mind, and give yourself a break. This teaches you that you don't need a reason to give yourself permission to let go and relax which is one of the reasons why we are so attached to fear - the belief that we need something else to give us permission to let it go. Don't cling to logic, logic is just a tool. You are more than your logic you can give yourself permission to relax for no reason, don't diminish yourself to just one of your faculties.
6. Watch Sadhguru and Eckhart Tolle on YouTube, They are cool guys who will gently guide you to a more harmonious state of mind which transcends this fear based living.

So to summarize - I am still capable of fear but I never have generalized anxiety or panic attacks anymore. The good healthy fear somehow knows when to come on its own and protect me when I need protection - it doesn't require me bringing it up through my thoughts. I am not too concerned with survival either because I am not even sure that's a thing to be honest. I have discovered higher dimensions of experience such as inspiration and purpose which have become more important to me than survival. Ironically enough I am not acting in any reckless or self-destructive ways at all. I am embracing harmony in everything that I do and that's way more effective than being afraid. Don't resist the fear, don't resist the anxiety allow yourself to feel the fully. If you are afraid you will die, don't resist it, don't try to hide from it or suppress it, just be afraid you will die and see what happens it just flows through you like a jolt of electricity and disappears into the nothingness it came from. You realize it was never substantial, just some radio noise your brain picks up and lets go. It's liberating in fact it even becomes exhilarating the fear of death is completely transmuted into a little bit of excitement that flows through you. If you are really stuck in madness right now, don't despair, no matter how bleak it seems it really is you causing it, no matter how much you want to believe that your situation in life justifies your suffering it's really you causing it. Keep at it and soon you will transcend the need to hurt yourself this way.
And most importantly remember this: Just because you have a thought, doesn't mean you have to believe it. You are the master not the slave.

Cheers and good luck.

Edited March 21, 2021 by tatsumaru

[EternalDream]

I don't know if i can contribute anything, but I wish you all the luck, love and success you need to handle that psychological pain.

[Hen Zuhe]

You can practice SUNGAZING, it will help you to minimize anxiety. I minimize it at all.

GREAT experience.

Prove it. You feel the results after 3 - 6 monts practicing it.

NAMASTE

 

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/61719-sungazing-free-healing-100-phisical-mental-and-spirituality/