Fear and Anxiety

Last modified on: 08/08/06

Hanging Over the Abyss

From "Courage, The Joy of Living Dangerously" by Osho:

A man walking in the night slipped from a rock. Afraid that he would fall down thousands of feet, because he knew that place was a very deep valley he took hold of a branch that was hanging over the rock. In the night all he could see was a bottomless abyss. He shouted; his own shout reflected back - there was nobody to hear.

You can imagine that man and his whole night of torture. Every moment there was death, his hands were becoming cold, he was losing his grip... and as the sun came out he looked down and he laughed; there was no abyss. Just six inches down there was a rock. He could have rested the whole night, slept well - the rock was big enough - but the whole night was a nightmare. I say to you that fear is only six inches deep. Now it is up to you whether you want to go on clinging to the branch and turn your life into a nightmare, or whether you would love to leave the branch and stand on your feet.

There is nothing to fear.

Construction

Once anxiety takes its hold, it's difficult to relax. Waking up in the middle of the night, I'm too tired to calm my thoughts but not tired enough to go back to sleep. And even if I did go back to sleep, I don't feel like I was sleeping at all. My dreams were full of anxiety, and I tossed and turned as if awake. My whole body is tense and shaky, my stomach is upset, and I feel like I can't breath. The anxiety has become so physical that mental consolation is a weak opponent.

The root of my anxiety is a feeling that things are coming apart... destruction. Destruction of my life, of my body, myself. But when I turn my mind to thinking about what I can do, not about the problem itself but about the anxiety, this constructive thinking seems to turn things around. With a renewed purpose, I decide to get out of bed and write. I will write about anxiety, look for ways to calm the nervousness in my body, and wake up enough to think more clearly. It helps to find something I can do even if I can't find a solution to my problem. It doesn't matter what I do as long as I'm doing something. I feel whole again, and my life looks like it's in one piece again. I don't know what I'm building, but the act itself is very calming.

Exercise

Once emotions become physically rooted, they may need a physical solution. Sometimes a spark of anxiety runs out of control and gets my whole nervous system revved up. The spark becomes a fire and my body explodes with fear. Over something relatively small and resolvable, my body fills with acid (so it feels, but I'm probably not too far off on what really happens). My muscles are so tense, they feel like they're going to snap. I shake all over. I try to think to myself how little I have to be worried about, but the strength of my thoughts pales against the power of this physical chemical reaction. I wish I had a magic pill. (Unfortunately there's a lot of not-so-magical pills out there that can work but not without a price I'm personally unwilling to pay.) When my body goes haywire like this, getting up and moving around helps. Taking a walk, jogging in place, stretching. Maybe I'm using up the fuel that feeds the fire, or maybe I just wasn't getting enough exercise, and it threw my emotional system out of whack.

Nightmares Can Do No Harm

Nightmares, one of the symptoms of posttraumatic stress, represent a continuing attempt to cope with the uncopable, to escape an event for which there was no escape, and so to find release from terrible fear. Past events triggered a long series of nightmares for me that did not respond easily to strategies I employed while awake, so a different tactic was necessary. In my nightmares, my fundamental belief was that an approaching enemy was capable of harming me. Only when I was awake was it clear that I was safe, because of course 'it was only a dream.' The key was to retain this knowledge within my nightmare. I was able to do so to some extent even without becoming lucid (knowing that I am dreaming). Before I fell asleep, I imagined that I was in a dream, and I repeated to myself, "My nightmare's only power is the power I give it. Nothing can hurt me." One night, I dreamed that I was trying to hide from a horrible creature. I ran through a neighborhood before finding an open gate to a backyard. Huddling in the corner, I realized the creature knew my location. He was on his way, and I could not run. But then I remembered what I tried teaching myself while awake. This creature could not hurt me unless I believed he could hurt me. I was ready to confront him. Just as he approached, the creature became two small children, harmless and innocent. I looked down at them, patted one on the head, and woke up.

Uncertainty vs. Expecting the Worst

Uncertainty is terrifying, but only when I expect the worst, which is ironic, because that is not technically a state of uncertainty. Uncertainty can be very exciting when I really don't have any idea of what to expect, because the outcome could be wonderful; things could be just fine. When I feel uncertain in this way, I'm full of enthusiasm, curiosity, and energy. I feel prepared, poised, in a good way, as if I'm ready to dodge a ball and win the game. Perhaps anxiety is simply this same energy turned inside-out and pointed in the wrong direction.

Fear is just excitement in need of an attitude adjustment. -- Russ Quaglia and Doug Hall in San Jose Mercury News

Go straight to the heart of danger, for there you will find safety. -- Ancient Chinese proverb

Air

Stage fright, social anxiety, embarrassment, and nervousness: for each one I experience the same incredible physiological reaction, which consists of cotton mouth and a slight, uncontrollable shaking, as though I were attached to a giant paint-mixing machine. Despite the stubborness of this reaction, it lies at the mercy of one simple physiological regulator: breathing. I take in just the amount of air that feels good and let it out slowly. I repeat this with the image that my body is getting what it needs, and my body calms down considerably. The shaking ceases almost immediately. Even more, in the process of focusing on my breathing, my frenetic thinking slows down to a mellow crawl, and I make it just fine.

Worry is an abuse of God's gift of imagination. -- Corrine Lajeunesse

Comic Relief When Things Are Bad

Stand-up comedy on television and jokes on the internet are good sources of comic relief from the stress of life. No matter how worried I am or how distraught, humor can distract me. It reminds me that most of my problems are really rather trivial and temporary, and that the problems that are actually very big and horrible... well, for the love, yeah, they're horrible, but sometimes being really horrible is kind of funny. Humor reminds me that I can still laugh and feel joy even when I feel like pouting.

Having Control Over Not Having Control

A friend told me that she felt intensely afraid to drive in traffic, because when she gets stuck, she feels trapped and enters a state of incapacitating panic. She feels trapped, because she feels out of control, because she cannot control the situation to get out of it if she so desired. She's also afraid of flying for the same reason. When I fly, however, I don't feel trapped at all. In fact, I feel even more free and more powerful. With this in mind, I suggested that when she finds herself in traffic, she think of the situation as an extension of herself. I think of a plane as something I hired to take me in the air, not something that is taking me in the air against my will. Nearly every time I have been stuck in traffic, I knew it was coming. I got on the road anyway because my travel was that important, so instead of being out of control, I am really completely in control, from a broader perspective. We put ourselves in situations over which we are powerless, but we had the power to put ourselves there in the first place.

Enjoying Happiness

Too worried that I would fail to enjoy myself, sometimes joy has slipped through my fingers. I've sabatoged moments of happiness trying to extract all the happiness out of itself and consume it all, an irritating irony and arguably ridiculous. But it doesn't take any work to experience happiness when it arises. It's possible to create or build happiness but not to restrain and imprison it. Like the song of a bird in the wild, happiness flows effortlessly when allowed but dissolves with attempts to capture it. And can you experience the pleasure of one of those big, fluffy, candy-scented irises any more by clipping it? The urge to grasp at happiness fades away with acceptance that it can't be bottled and faith that there's an infinite supply.

Stability

We live through each day by centering ourselves on an emotional anchor. This anchor might be a job, a relationship, or just something to do. With it, we feel secure that we'll survive another day and continue to be happy. When an anchor is present throughout life, it's seldom noticed and often taken for granted. Consequently, when an anchor is lost, the world seems to shatter as if it were turned upside-down and inside-out. Such a loss is usually very unexpected, and the result is extreme shock.

It seems obvious, but stability does not have to come from a material object, an accomplishment, a goal, or a paycheck. Although these things are basic to survival, emotions can be regulated in alternate ways.

True stability, I think, comes from faith in the future and faith in oneself, not on personal qualities, talents, or even strengths, but the commitment one makes to always be there for oneself, even if everyone else has left, even if it hurts. In this commitment is a kind of stability that can withstand any loss.