The Perspective That’s Changing My Relationship with Anxiety
Researched and Written by Katy Wicks - Happy Citta Founder
The past few weeks have significantly tested me. On the other hand, they have given me a useful opportunity to begin testing a common theory that has limited scientific support.
Last week, I wrote about how the word experiment is changing my relationship with mental health. This week, I am delving further into a very specific thought experiment which may support an improved relationship with anxiety.
If you’ve been following along with the journey lately, you may well know that I am currently both selling my house and leaving my job, ready for a new adventure.
The decision to blow my life up was a surprisingly easy one and even though it’s taken me a few years of feeling unsure about leaving either my house or my job, suddenly a great pressure was lifted in my mind when I decided to do both at the same time. Many people who have heard about my plan have responded with “ooh, you’re brave”, or “wow, that’s scary”, but I honestly felt an immediate wave of relief the second I made the decision, which stayed with me for about six weeks after putting both decisions in motion. I’ve felt a strange sense of knowing that everything will be alright, that this decision is the right one for me and that whatever happens, things will fall into place just the way they need to.
The last time I recall feeling such an immediate sense of relief (no toilet jokes, thanks) was after a difficult period at work when I cried through the night after a tough working week and came to a decision in the early hours of that Saturday morning to visit the doctor for a sick note. It was the decision being made that lifted the weight off me, before I’d acted on it at all.
This feeling was the same, as I sat in front of my garden firepit earlier this year and realised the time has come. I needed to leave this version of my life behind.
I can’t attribute this to any particular knowledge or intelligence I’m tapping into, except that my breathing feels easier, my jaw more relaxed and every time I’ve thought positively about it all summer, a feather seems to float down from the sky right in front of my eyes. I doubt science would consider this evidence, but the timing has been far too significant, day after day, week after week, for a while now.
The past few weeks though have been a challenge, to say the least. I recently accepted an offer on my house, which I was really excited about, but the nervousness of a survey, which could put an end to that sale agreement, has left me overcome with anxiety.
On top of this, a particularly complicated week at work gave me a number of moments of doubt in my own ability to do the job and left me questioning whether I could even continue with my notice period.
The level of stress I put my mind and body through, just ruminating on both of these situations over the week was draining almost to the point of tears in certain moments.
As an aside (and do with this information what you choose), not a single new feather crossed my path while spiralling into this anxious little rabbit hole.
So, why am I writing as though I’m coming to you with the solution? As though I’m some sort of authority on this?
Allow me to explain further…
It’s not to say I don’t experience anxiety. As I’ve described here, it still shows up in situations where it’s so deeply ingrained in my habitual responses that sometimes I forget that it has an element of choice. But that’s the key. I know now that there is, in fact, a choice.
I don’t say this to diminish the feeling or the experiences of those living with diagnosed mental health conditions. A situational anxiety response is not the same as a persistent anxiety disorder, and the ability to recognise an element of choice will vary greatly depending on the person, the circumstances and the severity of what they are experiencing.
It doesn’t feel like it in many situations for many people and I certainly spent a lot of my life responding in ways that felt automatic. I’ve made plenty of excuses for my actions and behaviours that justify them because of how a person or situation made me feel. But years ago, Vipassana (a meditation technique, taught via 10 days of silence at a retreat) taught me that the way I feel and the way I outwardly behave are two different things. They are separate responses and something as simple as a breath between them can create the moment that allows you to choose.
I’ve also learned (from Vipassana, but more recently from experience) that there is an even earlier opportunity to choose. If the moment before outward response is ‘feeling’, we can actually recognise an even earlier option to choose, which is ‘thought’.
Your feelings are not hurt because of what someone did. Your feelings are hurt because of what you think about what someone did. How you relate it to yourself, what it leads you to believe about them or what it leads you to believe it means they think of you. That thought influences the feeling or emotion, and that feeling influences the outward response.
So how do we interrupt this seemingly automatic process? How do we make our brain perceive someone or something differently so that the thought about it does not become anxiety, and so that anxiety does not become the outward behaviour that we’d prefer to avoid?
What anxiety is, scientifically speaking:
Anxiety is a future-focused emotional state. It occurs when the mind anticipates a possible threat but does not yet know exactly what will happen. The brain tries to protect us by predicting outcomes, directing our attention towards possible danger and preparing the body to respond (Grupe and Nitschke, 2013).
While some of that initial alarm may happen automatically, what follows is influenced by the meaning we give the situation. Rumination, catastrophising and repeatedly imagining the worst can maintain or increase anxiety, while techniques such as cognitive reappraisal allow us to reconsider our interpretation and reduce its emotional impact (Lincoln, Schulze and Renneberg, 2022). In other words, the mind can create and reinforce anxiety, but it can also learn to regulate it.
What anxiety does, spiritually speaking:
Spiritually speaking, anxiety can be interpreted as a sign that our attention has become attached to an outcome we fear and to the belief that we will not be alright if it happens. Buddhist teachings have long associated suffering with attachment and aversion: holding tightly to what we want while resisting what we do not (Shonin, Van Gordon and Griffiths, 2014).
Bashar describes anxiety as our natural energy filtered through fear-based beliefs, particularly the belief that we are unsupported or must control an outcome in order to feel safe. From this perspective, anxiety invites us to uncover the belief beneath the feeling, question whether it remains useful and choose a different relationship with uncertainty. Spirituality may also offer meaning, trust and a sense of connection during stressful experiences, although research suggests that its effect depends greatly on the beliefs and practices involved (Pargament, 2013).
I’ve spent a lot of time lately listening to the teachings of Bashar, supposedly an extra-terrestrial from a parallel universe to our future, shared via a man called Darryl Anka, who says he channels the words of this alien…
This may not be a reputationally advantageous admission to make, but Bashar the alien seems to talk a lot of sense, and I genuinely think I’m starting to benefit from it.
What I’ve realised — and this is no breakthrough, this has long been studied and discussed in spiritual circles by different names, some say manifestation, some call it, I don’t know… Other things — But what I’ve realised is that bad feelings tend to create bad outcomes, while positive feelings tend to create positive outcomes.
Recognising that we have the option to choose can change our wellbeing and our experience of what happens to us. Some spiritual teachings go further, suggesting that the choice we make could also influence the physical reality of what happens next.
What have feathers got to do with this story?
While I was in my spiral of anxiety and did not feel able to break out of it, I was not actively looking for signs from the universe. I already knew that my mind and body needed to be calm and settled before I could recognise one anyway. I had become so sure of negative outcomes during those moments of anxiety that I truly worried I might manifest the worst.
So, I stopped, and I asked myself the following questions:
What can be improved by my concerns? Is my ruminating on these subjects presenting new information or potential plans?
If I can feel so certain of a negative outcome, is it possible to turn that energy into a new assumption of a positive one?
Even if I don’t believe that a positive outcome is possible, does the energy I’m spending feel lighter or heavier depending on which assumption I choose? What would I prefer to feel for the next few days while awaiting the outcome of a survey and leading a few difficult meetings?
Is it possible to choose that positive feeling if I give more focus to how I want to feel, than what I need the outcome to look like, detaching myself from a particular picture in my mind and instead connecting with an intended feeling?
Your anxieties may have nothing to do with house surveys or difficult meetings, but the questions can still translate to whatever uncertainty you are facing. I think you get the idea?
Bashar the alien might be a figment of a man’s imagination. He may be a voice of reason coming directly from the mind of the man who yells his teachings into an audience in America. But does that make his advice redundant?
So, whether you choose to look up Bashar or not, just know this… My mind and body feel significantly lighter with this perspective, and much of it is reflected in what he talks about. And if this perspective doesn't change my life, that's okay, it's just an experiment. An experiment I think is going really well so far!
I have seen more feathers each and every day in the past week than I ever had before. I don’t look for them, they just continue to float into my line of vision on every walk, run or moment of vacant window gazing.
Do with this information what you will. I’ll keep you posted on the feathers!
References
Grupe, D.W. and Nitschke, J.B. (2013) ‘Uncertainty and anticipation in anxiety: an integrated neurobiological and psychological perspective’, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14, pp. 488–501.
Lincoln, T.M., Schulze, L. and Renneberg, B. (2022) ‘The role of emotion regulation in the characterization, development and treatment of psychopathology’, Nature Reviews Psychology, 1, pp. 272–286.
Pargament, K.I. (2013) ‘Understanding and addressing religion among people with mental illness’, World Psychiatry, 12(1), pp. 26–32.
Shonin, E., Van Gordon, W. and Griffiths, M.D. (2014) ‘The emerging role of Buddhism in clinical psychology’, Journal of Religion and Health, 53, pp. 1238–1242.
Bashar Communications (n.d.) https://www.bashar.org/formula
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