Chaeedy asks…
“I’ve been practicing the meditation 5 days a week (weekends are tough) in the morning, and it seems to be making a difference. Was feeling better, living in the ‘Now’, and to be honest, much fewer thoughts (in fact, very few).
But over the last 2-3 weeks I’m fine during the day, but when I turn off my light at night, I get this overwhelming anxiety/dread/terror feeling. It’s nothing specific, just the feeling. I don’t let my mind dwell/race on some concerning thought (staying in the now) so it’s not that. But it’s brutal! It just doesn’t seem to make sense… Any ideas/suggestions?”
I assume your soul is tidy?
i.e. you aren’t viewing your life in any way as unacceptable or stressful, and you see that a thing only matters inasmuch as it moves you towards or away from health and peace of mind…
So, assuming you aren’t fueling the fire with insane thoughts about success, and that your good health habits are in place, then we’re left with old conditioning.
You’ve been giving your mind fight, danger and stress thoughts for a long time, and even when we make a different choice, the old pattern continues for a while.
You need to simply not care that it’s there and see it for what it is… old stuff playing out. Then focus on Happy Guide’s relaxation method when you get into bed and do it every night…
Don’t worry about the anxiety coming. See it like an annoying song on the radio… it’s there, you can’t do anything about it but if you get annoyed, give it attention, give it meaning, analyze it, make it a problem, resist it, try to hold it down, engage in any way, then it just make it bigger in your awareness. Always with things we don’t want is to allow (let it be), not care (let it go), remove attention.
So don’t care about the anxiety. This tells your unconscious mind that there is a new situation, the old thing no longer serves and it will die away gradually. It tells your mind “I see you, thank you but no thanks.” Your mind is giving you what you asked for years.
By consistently not caring and removing attention, we reprogram the old trigger/association and auto-redirect the energy to what now serves us best. Soon this new habit will play out instead.
So put your effort and focus behind relaxation… moving your awareness through your body, stopping at each part for 20-30 seconds and leave the anxiety alone.
You may also find that if you remove all attention from old worries, that they appear vividly in dreams. That’s all okay and normal. It takes time for your mind to adjust to the new you and the new way but if you are consistent in new decisions, in new ways of being, your mind will quickly settle down.
The clearer you see what is and what to do, the firmer your decision, the more unshakable your resolve, the more consistently you apply it, the faster you can change.
Oh, and the fact that it’s just a feeling and is not triggering thoughts means great progress!
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Michael Kinnaird is the author of Happy Guide, the result of a 20 year exploration into what works for health and happiness.
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Well said. One can tell that you are speaking from experience! Thanks again (again!), and have a great weekend!
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Crazy is a good word for it :-)
Insane is the word I usually use for all the nonsense we get up to when the ego rules because we believe our thinking is us, when we get confused about what matters by giving meaning to things that don’t mean anything. Traditionally, in spiritual circles they call it “dreaming” which is a bit nicer :-)
What a relief when we REAL-ize what we’ve been doing and then it seems soooo crazy.
And of course, all repeated thinking, (and ideas we give meaning to easily repeat), become habits. So we seek but never find because the very seeking becomes habit and the seeking is based on a falsehood. In Happy Guide I call it chasing after rainbows.
It doesn’t mean we can’t have goals but “stuff” can’t make you happy. You have to be happy first and then creating is fun… not from a sense of lack, not to complete a false sense of identity, not to fulfill a false premise about yourself.
And the realization you’ve had is the important thing… to SEE it, not just as an idea but to see right through it. The idea can be a start… the idea of having a tidy soul, the idea that success can’t make you happy. Then it takes time for the idea to cause an inner resonance and become realization. When we hear a the truth, it resonates in us, something stirs in us, awakens, because we all know the complete truth deep down.
You’ve had many of these a-ha moments and it’s important to focus on the new realizations–to KEEP IT REAL, perhaps write them down under your lifestyle blueprint, so that the old way of thinking and the old beliefs don’t come and swamp the new clarity.
Then as the realizations become dominant, you WILL line up your actions.
Thoughts aren’t true Chaeedy… they have whatever meaning we give. And most people give meaning to crazy stuff and create a nightmare. That’s what happens when we believe ideas that aren’t true.
So as you LISTEN and it becomes habit — the best habit, you start to see through, more and more, all the BS thinking you’ve been doing and see the nightmare you’ve created.
You still have these thoughts like “I’ve GOT to do something” and other stressful thoughts that mean now is unsatisfactory. As I’ve said many times, thoughts like these are creating misery and anxiety. The fact is you have an inner war due to competing beliefs.
So drop the whole thing, just listen, keep alert and notice every single thought. Don’t let even one of those pesky critters suck you in. See what happens.
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One thing I forgot to mention; I’ve finally realized what you’ve been talking about. With me always looking, searching, striving for the “ultimate goal/finish line”, I’ve inadvertently put myself in this constant “alert” state.
That in turn leads to anxiety, which is what fuels irrational fears in the first place. And if you are never able to alleviate that state, you likely can never alleviate the thoughts as well.
Crazy, eh? :-)
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Hi Chaeedy,
Your habitual thought loops are just a mental conundrum that keep you stuck between a rock and a hard place. They seem important but aren’t really. Is there REALLY a problem here? If I hard wired your brain so that you could never think all these thoughts what would happen? Imagine.
This is the difficulty with problem solving on a mental level only. It’s only when you can SEE the truth that you can act on it. I know that mentally you can see that the best things in life are free, that you only need simple basics to keep a healthy body, that what you are doing is creating unhappiness by this constant mental war. But you are afraid to let the problem go.
What happens if you just stop thinking about it? I say that only then, something deeper, a deeper truth may be able to function through you, and only then will you actions begin to line up with your core values.
You have many unquestioned beliefs that your father and peers conditioned in you that are at serious odds with your core values. This is why you are afraid to let go, because that would go against these unquestioned beliefs, and the values of your peers.
As I said to you once, in your situation I would simply walk away. But why can’t you? Because you have competing belief systems, you don’t fully trust your own heart.
So what to do?
I say leave it alone, drop the problem and just let everything settle. Simply focusing on the Happy Guide lifestyle is all you need to do. Everything lines up ON ITS OWN.
By leaving it all alone, you allow KNOWING to function in you. Not mental battles and problem solving but just clear and bright feelings that arise in you with absolute clarity about what to do.
Your current way is constantly projecting your happiness into some future scenario when you finally have it all figured out. It’s just doesn’t work that way. Give yourself a break!
So… in your situation I would do this… Focus on living right, focus on the moment which means just always listening. This leads to auto-disidentification with thoughts, it lead to auto-questioning of beliefs and so auto-deconstruction of old beliefs that do not re-present you.
Just be CURIOUS. Always. See what arrives in your mental field and view it with curiosity but engage with nothing. Just witness it all.
Then you will see amazing shifts in you. Feelings which represent your deeper truths begin to function and you begin to act on them and their clarity.
Continue as you did that night in bed where anxiety was there but you were simply curious, distant, not engaging. Continue for weeks and months and you will see everything line up.
Now you are quite “mental” in the way you think you must deal with life. Problems to be solved mentally. So this new way takes faith and faith is rewarded with results and that leads to trust.
But it can be scary so a good thing to do is try out the new way for a limited time… dip your toe in the water. Say for one month, you withdraw from all problem-making and only listen to what enters your mental field with curiosity. Of course, you carry on with your life as normal, only all the mental sparring stops.
Do it for a month, committed, enthusiastic. See what happens.
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Hi Mike, thanks for this. And very good advice; I’ll both remember it and apply it going forward.
Funny, but after I wrote to you, I kept thinking about one thing, “tidy your soul”. I am much better than before, but to be honest, my soul still isn’t tidy. That’s the hardest thing I find. I’ve realized how silly/crazy it is to compare yourself to others (although I still do it now and then), and worrying about stuff. But financial security IS important stuff…
Plus, I STILL find myself saying I’VE GOT to do something else with my life, or I’ll wake up one day 7 years from now and realized I’ve wasted it doing something I really haven’t enjoyed for the last several years. Is that really wrong?
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