Sometimes, it’s all just too much. Or you wonder, what will they think? Or you begin to question things and the meaning behind them. Depending on where you are in life, you might be contending with a very natural response: anxiety.
There’s a whole cohort of fine and logical people who will tell you how to get rid of this anxiety. From phrases next to swooshes to business buzzwords, their sure-fire plan can rid you of this inconvenient feeling so you can get back to doing what you need.
This isn’t going to be that.
The real problem isn’t that we have anxiety. The real problem is that we feel pressured to somehow find a a way to eliminate it, which only adds to the anxiety we already have and makes things worse.
The best answer that I’ve found is this: we can’t.
We can’t because we can never eliminate fear.
This icy blast of reality is not meant to extinguish all hope for a better way to live. It is meant to soothe the raging fires of despair, to relieve you of the constant-but-never-fulfilled expectation that there’s a cure if only you’d try harder, that there will somehow come a time when you will be rid of anxiety altogether and finally, finally feel at peace.
Much of our struggles arise from avoiding the painful constraints of reality. Modern culture is quick to point to strategies that promise definitive solutions, concrete and measurable results or neat and tidy answers to rational and material problems, because they often work.
But where it stumbles and falls is when it attempts to do the same for our human and intangible but still very real issues, adding to the illusion that we can control what is rarely ever under our control.
This plays right into our ego. Our ego wants us to always be in control, which of course is not possible. So when it is inevitably threatened, anxiety is one of the ways we respond. It is the ego trying to seek protection.
When the ego fails to find protection, when it feels helpless, it is more likely to succumb to depression, addiction, neuroses, or worse.
When it feels protected, when it has a place of refuge, and feels reassured, it can deal with whatever obstacle it’s facing, and we can make it through.
We can find this reassurance, this protection by becoming strong.
When we become stronger, we feel bigger, and it reassures our fragile egos. We still have to deal with anxiety, but now it is less likely to overpower us.
This kind of strength is not an intrinsic talent, but something you can cultivate by drawing from three resources:
- Moral strength – by making the right decisions based on honesty, kindness, integrity; by living life with a good moral and ethical code
- Divine strength – by having faith in a higher power, by believing in something greater that yourself, whether in religion or outside of it
- Spiritual strength – by looking inward, drawing strength from deep within your core, from your true nature
These are not mutually exclusive, but one might resonate more than others. However, all help guide your self to assert itself to its fullness.
So what does all this mean, or lead to? It leads to the version of yourself that is best equipped and most willing to face reality, to face things as they are in the moment you are in, and therefore the best way to deal with anxiety—or any challenge—that comes your way.
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