The need to escape... [Archive]

shannabanna

27-05-14, 16:43

Today I was sitting as the passenger in the car, the rain was pelting down as the traffic ground to a halt on the motorway. I felt that familiar feeling of panic and anxiety fill my body as I knew I was trapped, with no way out.

I have come to realise that most of my anxiety stems from feeling trapped, whether it be on a train, in a meeting even if I am tied up in a conversation, I need to be able to run away.

It's not just physical situations that stiffle me but also mentally and emotionally I can feel closed in. For example if I am bored or lonely and I especially feel trapped by expectations I place on myself. It all leads to anxiety. I sometimes feel like a tethered pony looking longingly at a lovely lush meadow that I can never reach because of being bound by my own fears

inCOGnito

27-05-14, 18:06

This is what I have been working on too. It comes down to control. The mind (thoughts) are always trying to control experience. Mind thinks it's in charge. Mind tries to live life and the great big dirty secret is that it can't.

Have you noticed how the mind wants to do EVERYTHING? It want's to interpret everything, label everything, think about everything, analyse everything, and solve everything. Truth is it can't. It can't solve your anxiety (not surprising since it created it!). So when difficult memories, feelings, or emotions come up, the mind senses it's own limitation. It recognises that it can't solve it. It tries everything, distraction, self-talk, analysis, problem-solving, imagination, and most of all, avoidance. It convinces you to run because it knows it can't truly control the experience.

so what to do about it? this is where we need to learn to live life how it is MEANT to be lived. Through the heart rather than through thought. Don't get put off by the word 'heart'. It's not literal. If you let your mind and thoughts subside for a moment, heart is what remains. It's what you really are behind all the thinking. It's openness. It's what the activity of the mind isn't.

Living from the heart means not turning to thoughts as the source of solution. How long have you sailed that boat? Where has it got you? Thoughts won't get you out of this because they got you in it.

There are many examples to see the difference between thinking and experiencing from the heart. Go run your hand under some lukewarm water. Let the water run over your hand and then use words to describe the experience. Mind will say, this is water, its wet, it feels nice, what's the point, this is dumb, I like this, etc. Then let thoughts just stop, let them slide off like clouds in the sky, and experience the water running over your hand, the raw sensations of it. Don't refer to thoughts about it. what you will find is just the simple experience of it. And you'll realise that thoughts just weren't required.

It's the same as describing the taste and texture of peanut butter and actually experiencing it. You could use descriptors like , chewy, soft, sticky, etc. But is the description the taste? you can have the taste without the description.

so what was the point of that? Dealing with anxiety is the same thing. Thoughts can't solve this. If they could we would all be cured by now. no-one ever solved anxiety by thinking about it. Quite the opposite. It's about facing the symptoms with the heart rather than the head. That means opening up to the experience rather than thoughts ABOUT the experience. Just like eating peanut butter or running your hand under the tap. You need to meet the experience of symptoms openly. Just putting your attention on something can really really help. It can be scary, opening up to something you've been running from your whole life aint going to be a picnic. But it's all the running and thinking about it that CAUSES and perpetuates the fear. Opening the heart is a whole new way of living life, it isn't necessarily something you do as a technique to feel better.

There is a fantastic introduction to what I'm talking about here -> http://www.openheartmeditation.org/open_heart_meditation.do

The sentiment here is something echoed everywhere, but it's explained very nicely here, and I really recommend anyone to have a listen. Doesn't really matter if you like meditation or not. It's the principal. and that principal is that this is how life was meant to be lived. Not from the head, but from the heart.