Since I can remember I have struggled with anxiety. As I sift through the last 55 years or so (before which I have scant memories), I can find anxiety right from the start. Not that getting scared of things is bad, but my kind of anxiety is baseless and generalized, not just in response to some sort of danger. It is kind of shocking, in a way, that it has taken me into my sixties to understand that this is not actually normal--normal being, as always, a relative word. But frankly, it explains a lot. I mean, when you can get anxious about being anxious...???
One of the few times that I feel free of anxiety is when I find myself locked into a somewhat spiritual plane, or in deep meditation. Since I am not particularly religious, I do not see this as the presence of God, per se, but more as a balance of my positive spirit against the force of my anxiety. I have to admit that I do not exactly know what this means, except to say that it is always a relief to have something overwhelm my unease. It's like taking aspirin for a headache.
Ironically, I dive headlong into things that scare me. And often, when other people are claiming fear, like on a high ropes course or something, I have readily taken the first slot so that I can confront my fear directly, get it out of the way and move on.
This general angst is different. I wake up with it. I find it in the most mundane of situations, and when there is NO situation at all. It is just a presence--unconfrontable because it has no form, no substance--it just is. Another one of those f-ing mysteries, in this case probably of biology, that I may never solve.
But what is important here is not solving the mystery of why I experience anxiety, but just knowing that it is in me. It is the recognition of "what is" triumphing over the resistance to reality. That is never a bad thing.
One of the few times that I feel free of anxiety is when I find myself locked into a somewhat spiritual plane, or in deep meditation. Since I am not particularly religious, I do not see this as the presence of God, per se, but more as a balance of my positive spirit against the force of my anxiety. I have to admit that I do not exactly know what this means, except to say that it is always a relief to have something overwhelm my unease. It's like taking aspirin for a headache.
Ironically, I dive headlong into things that scare me. And often, when other people are claiming fear, like on a high ropes course or something, I have readily taken the first slot so that I can confront my fear directly, get it out of the way and move on.
This general angst is different. I wake up with it. I find it in the most mundane of situations, and when there is NO situation at all. It is just a presence--unconfrontable because it has no form, no substance--it just is. Another one of those f-ing mysteries, in this case probably of biology, that I may never solve.
But what is important here is not solving the mystery of why I experience anxiety, but just knowing that it is in me. It is the recognition of "what is" triumphing over the resistance to reality. That is never a bad thing.
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