Today’s post, Letting Go of Anxiety, was a talk given to us at KMC on New Years Day 2018. It was so wonderful and helpful. In fact, it’s helped me remain in a really good place throughout my entire pregnancy. These are my notes from that talk.
Letting Go of Anxiety
Today, anxiety is more prevalent than depression. The main purpose of mediation is to gain wisdom. Insight to reality, how things actually work. The point of meditation isn’t to “just relax” because it’s good for you. It’s to pinpoint negative emotions so they don’t come back again.
In order to let go of anxiety, we need to understand:
- Where it come from
- What are the states of mind that create impending doom — the “what if’s”
Need to establish a place of refuge in our mind. A mental space in which we feel peaceful, confident, relaxed, inspired. How to do this?
THE BREATH
For starters, focus on breathing in and out. Focus on the sensations of the breath in your nostrils. Pushing thoughts that arise and not getting distracted, becoming extremelly peaceful. Even if it’s only 20 seconds. A deep and happy contentment will naturally arise. Inner peace by simply letting go of distracting thoughts. We’re always following our distracted thoughts. But if we stop and focus on the breath — it’s a single pointed focus. Breath is a vessel to our peaceful place.
Have your own source of peace that can be found internally. Let go of distracting and agitating thoughts and BOOM! There it is, peace.
INSIDE THE MIND
Both happiness and suffering are states of mind. Main causes of both are inside the mind. We must learn to control our mind. If our mind is peaceful, we’ll be happy all the time.
Authentic happiness is a peaceful mind. We all have easy access. Just let go of distracting thoughts. Tell yourself, “I always have access to a peaceful mind.” We need to go there, and go there literally everyday.
We learn to be absorbed in it, in the peace. When you focus on the peace (or virtuous mind) it expands. The same thing happens when you focus on a painful memory. It’s up to you which you decide to give your attention to.
WHAT IS HAVING A MOMENT OF PANIC?
Honing in on situations. Awareness is not physical. We get anxious when we fear what we want won’t come our way, or lose something. Because we have a false sense that happiness comes externally.
Establish a place of peace in the heart which we can go to. We can always go there when the mind gets anxious. Let go, go in that place. We’re carrying it from within. Try it for 10 minutes every day. Our internal nuggets of gold are right there, below the surface.
When anxiety arrises, it sucks us in. The “what if’s” begin going again. The anxiety doesn’t contribute to anything positive. A butchered version of my favorite quote:
if there’s something you can do about it — why worry?
if there’s nothing you can do about it — why worry?”
THE RUMBLE STRIPS
Mental agitation contributes nothing. You know you’re off course when you veer off, like the rumble strips of a road. When a painful feeling arrises, there’s your rumble strip. Thanks for the reminder! Go back. What can we control? Nothing, except our own mind. After all, it’s the thing that determines our experiences.
If you couldn’t guess by the main photo from this post, my calm and happy place is back in Yamanouchi, Japan. Specifically at the Jigokudani Monkey Park. Anyway, I hope next time you feel overwhelmed or ridden with anxiety you take a moment to close your eyes and focus on your breath for 20 seconds. See if it makes a difference.