A Few Things About Beating Anxiety

“Everyone around seems to be anxious about the future these days. What can they do to beat the anxiety?” is a question I asked to one of my friends who is deep into spirituality. A question that led to a deep conversation.

A few things became clear in my mind:

Anxiety happens when we think about outcome without thinking about the process
A deep commitment to process of learning can help beat anxiety
Deep commitment to learning means we need to be ready to fail and disregard failures
When our commitment to the process is strong, it is easy to reframe failures as a step in the journey – a learning opportunity to iterate and do better next time.
When anxious, take some action – however tiny it may be. Action creates momentum where overthinking creates resistance. Take the minimally viable small action quickly to get past anxiety.
Finally cultivating faith in something larger than yourself helps. One of my mentors once expressed that while your focus in on your next immediate step, the Universe (or the Higher Power) has your path figured out. The belief that we will be taken care of, that what’s happening with us now is leading you to what’s best for you, to faithfully act and leave the rest for the Universe to figure out – that is the ultimate hack.

Cultivating faith isn’t about religion – it is about taking action with conviction, even when outcomes are not guaranteed. It is about doing your part really well (your circle of control) and then surrendering to the higher power.

There’s no formula to build this resilience when everything around us is constantly shifting. But once we cultivate faith and be stoic about our circle of action, we are anchored, much like a small boat experiences the ocean, but doesn’t get carried away by the waves because it is anchored to the shore.

(Image courtesy: Dangelie Perez, Pexels.com)

Limitless

Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm,
Without looking for the traces I may have left;
A cuckoo’s song beckons me to return home;
Hearing this, I tilt my head to see
Who has told me to turn back;
But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.

– Lao Tzu

Be

Always we hope
someone else has the answer,
some other place will be better,
some other time,
it will turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer,
no other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.

At the center of your being,
you have the answer:
you know who you are and
you know what you want.

There is no need to run outside
for better seeing,
nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being:
for the more you leave it,
the less you learn.

Search your heart and see
the way to do is to be.

– Lao Tzu

Selfie World

I love selfies. It is my chance to focus on myself for a moment and take a picture.

But “selfie” is also a hallmark of the culture we are seeing increasingly – people excessively focusing only on their selves. When we start putting ourselves before others all the time, it impairs our ability to serve others which is so vital in the collaborative and networked world we now live in.

I am reminded of a wonderful quote in Huffington Post article titled “Selfie World” by Michael Rosenblum quite aptly sums up what we really need to focus on:

As the sage Maimonides wrote, “If I am not for me, who will be?” But he also followed with “If I am only for me, what am I?”

We sure have the first part down.

Maybe it’s time to focus on the second?

What do you think?

The Summer Day

Listening to the “On Being” episode with one of the greatest living poets Mary Oliver truly made my day, especially the following poem.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Swan and black bear represent the good and the bad. Grasshopper represents us, the indecisive human beings.

Life seems to be fleeting by and being present and mindful in the moment is perhaps the best gift we can give to ourselves.