The Wisdom of Anxiety

by Sheryl Paul

  These small moments of pared-down, openhearted contact are what this season is about. We call these days holidays, but they’re also holy days, for embedded in them is an invitation to connect more strongly to peace and love. We can focus on the overconsumption that seems to intensify each year, or we can focus on the archetypal underpinning that informs every holy day: the desire to connect to our true nature, our essential goodness, and to give from that place to others. To me, that’s holiness. It’s the unencumbered heart. It’s the moments in life when we touch into the divine, which means the highest parts of ourselves that carry a spark of divinity. It can occur at the top of a mountain or on a city street corner. It’s when our hearts are wide, wide open — open enough to receive what Martin Buber called the “I-Thou” experiences: standing eye to eye with a person, an animal, a tree, a rock. It’s letting ourselves see and be seen without inhibition or obstruction. It is, in a word, love.

  That’s what this season is about. That’s what it means to sink down into the underground river that informs the holidays and turn them into holy days. It’s about giving for the pure joy of giving. When you connect with the archetypal river that hums beneath the frantic, anxiety-ridden top-layer pulse of shopping and parties and spending and wrapping, you’re given an opportunity to learn more about what it truly means to love.

  One of the most giving acts we can engage in is to see another’s essence. When we hold another’s gaze and see them with eyes of love, we’re giving a great gift. I find it fascinating, although not surprising, that many people who find my work are in helping professions: therapists, teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers, and, of course, parents. These are people whose hearts are as big as the moon and can easily give to others and see their essences but have a hard time seeing it in themselves. So we start there. We make a prayer during this veil-thinning time, when the earth is tilting on its axis and turning into winter: “Please, help me see my goodness. Please let me know that I am loved.”

  From that filled-up place, even if you remember your goodness for just one moment, you can set your compass to the dial of giving, and your anxiety will diminish. It’s important to know that giving doesn’t hinge on healing. The ego’s common line says, “If I’m not fully healed then how I can give?” The giving facilitates the healing, and the healing nourishes the giving. They work in tandem: twin, symbiotic poles that help us grow and move more and more toward love. And the more love we grow, the less room there is for fear.

  Here again is the invitation of this season: to give. We focus on giving gifts, but what if we widened that focus to include giving our hearts? One tangible way to practice this is to set an intention that with every person you meet from now through the New Year — from intimate loved ones to perfect strangers — you will take a moment to see their essential goodness. I once read about a rabbi who would silently say tehora hee (“your soul is good”) to each person he met. It’s similar to what we say at the end of yoga practice: Namaste, which means “the light in me sees the light in you.” Isn’t this what Jesus taught as well — to love your neighbor as yourself? Isn’t that what we’re celebrating as we walk toward Christmas — the birth of a man who embodied unconditional love and brought peace to this planet? What would it be like to bring this Christ-consciousness into our hearts and make it a conscious practice of seeing goodness and giving this silent or verbal reflection to any life we touch in any form? To see with the spiritual eyes that reside in your heart.

  I see you. I see your goodness. I see your heart. I don’t know what stories and experiences brought you to this moment in your life, but as I hand you this bill, I’m handing you more than money: I’m handing you a moment of love. We are two humans, each suffering in our own way, each touching into the divine in our own way. As I write this, I’m holding you in my heart. I’m sending you love. I hope you have a warm place to stay tonight. I hope you have a blanket. I hope you have food. I hope my thoughts reach you in some mysterious way. I hope for a more peaceful planet where all beings are free and safe and loved.

  If each person oriented their compass in the direction of seeing others’ essences, the planet we live on would be different. Perhaps we can view that planet during the window of the holidays by seeing good, reflecting essence, and sending prayers for peace into each heart we meet.

  There are two rivers that pulse through the holiday season: a river of anxiety informed by the need to consume and socialize and stay loud and busy, and a river of love informed by the waters of giving and gratitude. The more you choose to connect with the great expansive river of love that pulses beneath and around and between all of us, the more you open your heart and edge out anxiety. In doing so, you will transform the holidays back into holy days.

  Listen for the Seed

  Winter is often an emotionally challenging time. In the darker months with shorter days, psyche invites us to slow down and dip into her underworld where we find unshed tears, unexplored fears, and latent dreams. We can avoid our shadow during the long days of summer with endless fun-filled distractions, but when autumn then winter settle in, past the rush and glitter of presents and parties, when the long, long month of January unfolds into February’s silence, there’s no place else to turn but inside. And if we don’t have a steady relationship to our emotional life, what our culture calls depression can easily set in.

  Depression has many meanings. From a Jungian perspective, depression is the soul’s call to sit still and become comfortable with the waiting and nothingness that define the liminal — or in-between — zone. From the perspective of transitions, winter depression is what necessarily follows the high of summer. What goes up must come down, and when we make room for this truth of life, we can stop fighting the archetypal energy that is so present during these months, and instead breathe into the stillness and perhaps discover the gifts that lay wrapped inside. Every time we align with what is instead of the expectation of how we think it should be, anxiety has less room to take hold.

  When we drop into stillness with reverence and curiosity, we may be surprised at what we find. Yes, there may be wells of tears that need to be shed. There may be loneliness and uncertainty, vulnerability and the fear of the unknown. But there’s also something glimmering underneath the winter snows, a seed of creativity, a moment of possibility that, when given attention, can be nurtured into something new: a poem, a story, a project, a recipe, a dance, a song, a painting. It’s not ready to blossom into the fullness of its manifestation, but the tiny beginning is here, and you can only hear it if you slow down enough to listen.

  I invite you in winter to listen for the seeds that want to gestate. Listen for the slight vibration of “yes” energy that longs to create new life. There’s an archetypal energy embedded in winter, especially February, as it’s the month that precedes spring. The sap is starting to quicken. The animals, while still deep in stillness or slumber, are sensing that the first warm wind is close. The crocuses are centimeters away from poking their purple heads above ground. What is vibrating inside of you? What small creative impulse is taking root, ready to begin its journey down the birth canal of psyche and emerge, one day, as something new and alive that will be birthed into this world?

  Spring: The Season of Rebirth

  On the threshold of spring, we begin to notice a quiet awakening within. The intentions that we set during the dark days of winter may have lain dormant these past months, but now we see the first green heads pushing through and realize that the dawn of something new is upon us. Spring is the season of hope and renewal when, encouraged by the increase of light and warmth, we find the energy to take the necessary action that can push the tentative new beginning into full awakening.

  Now is the time to ask yourself: “What is longing to be born? If I set intentions on New Year’s Eve, how can I draw upon the energy of renewal and call those intentions into action? What seeds of new beginnings were resting in the underground caverns of my mind and are now bursting into fruition?�
�� Spring is an excellent time to harness the powerful energy of rebirth that surrounds you, to set your intention to burn through a layer of resistance that may be holding you back from your healing.

  Sometimes simply noticing the change of seasons is enough to facilitate an inner change. For example, last year I was counseling a mother of two girls. The younger girl enthusiastically threw herself into every new activity and seemed to exhibit little struggle with life. The older one, on the other hand, was more cautious and sensitive, and had been struggling the previous summer with mastering the skill of riding a bike. The girl wanted desperately to ride a bike and join her neighborhood friends in their fun, but something was holding her back.

  As spring neared, and the weather warmed, my client and I discussed saying to her daughter, “Spring is here to help you learn this new skill. Just like the first crocuses that bravely show their heads even when the threat of winter is still near, you can find the courage to try to ride your bike again, even when you’re scared. Perhaps you just weren’t ready last summer. I think you’re ready now. What do you think?” The girl said yes, she was ready, and yes, she was still scared. Mother and daughter then planned a special hike together in the early days of spring to observe the ways in which the season was birthing herself. They noticed the tiny green buds on the trees and the delicate blades of wild grasses popping up across the hillsides. They hiked for a few miles, then rested on the earth and felt the warm sun on their faces. When they returned home, the girl rode her bike alone for the first time.

  If winter was a season of sorrow, allow the light winds of spring to wash away the residue of grief. If winter was a season of sickness, let the freshness of spring restore you to health. If winter was a season of loss, notice the new life and rebirths that surround you. If winter was a season of silence, invite the birds of spring to bring song back into your life. If winter was a season of hopelessness, connect to the perennial signs of hope that rise up in the natural world as if to say, “Today is a new day. Today I can start something new and find that place of beginning within. Today I am alive and for that I am grateful. Today I see love manifest in the miracles of nature and I whisper a quiet but certain ‘Yes.’”

  The Restlessness of Spring

  Every spring, there’s a restlessness in the air. I feel it in the trees, their stored winter sap pulsing to birth their new buds and leaves. I see it in my clients as they wiggle out of the identity that no longer fits — as single person, as nonparent, as employee at a job that no longer serves them. I sense it in many creative people around me who are working to complete the final stages of a project that they’ve wanted to release into the world for years. I recognize it in myself as I strive to find the balance that seems to perpetually elude mothers. And I witness it in my sons, their whole beings itching in a constant state of discomfort as they reach for the next stage of growth.

  During autumn, the invitation from nature is to turn inward as we prepare, like the trees that shed their leaves, to release that which no longer serves us. But during spring, the seasonal counterpoint of autumn, we’re also invited to observe the stagnant places revealed through winter’s hibernation and let them go. It’s a different letting go than happens during fall, not a full shedding as much as a recognition that a new stage is just within reach, and in order to embrace it, we must pass through an uncomfortable “itchy” stage as a layer of skin falls away. The outer world is on the threshold of bursting into the full bloom and celebration of summer; if we look carefully, we’ll see that our inner world is also in this simultaneously uncomfortable and exciting state of anticipation.

  Sometimes the restlessness is a call to action: we assess the situation at hand and see if there are other possibilities asking to be discovered. But sometimes our tendency to do and solve and fix prevents us from simply witnessing the restlessness and trusting that through this witnessing the new birth will naturally arise.

  Summer: The Season of Celebration

  Summer is the season of simple and timeless joys. She frolics like a happy child between innocent spring and melancholy autumn, waiting for us to embrace her unbridled delight with life. It’s the season when we walk barefoot in the grass; we watch kids run through sprinklers and throw themselves with careless abandon onto Slip ’N Slides; and we wear straw hats, sundresses, and sandals, while eating a single scoop of vanilla ice cream in a wafer cone.

  One summer many years ago when my boys were young, my older son and I wordlessly agreed to a daily ritual. After his younger brother fell asleep for his nap, we grabbed our sun hats and each other’s hands and walked out to the garden. No matter how much frustration or irritation had pockmarked our morning, as soon as we stepped onto the stones that marked our garden’s edge, we exhaled more deeply and felt the tensions dissolve.

  Away from computers, phones, and the mounting collection of “kid stuff” that was filling our house, we fell into an easy rhythm as we engaged in the simplest of tasks: weeding, watering, harvesting. The waterfall of words that normally tumbled from his six-year-old lips slowed down, as if his thoughts were following the cadence of his actions. There was space to hear birdsong and the rush of the creek. There was time to bend down low and observe the honeybee drying her tattered wings in the heat of the midday sun.

  After my son picked pocketfuls of snap peas, we walked back indoors, sat together on the wicker chair in the screened-in porch, and marveled at the miracle of these delicious green treasures. “Better than candy,” he would say, as he thoroughly enjoyed the sweetness of the peas we had planted together in early spring. So simple and so complete. It was, without a doubt, the high point of each day.

  The secret is in slowing down long enough to notice the small miracles that surround us, the singular moments of life that can, when we take the time to see them, connect us to a profound sense of joy and gratitude. It can sometimes feel like a Herculean effort to peel ourselves away from the magnetic force of screens and the things we have to do (the ever-growing and never-ending to-do list), but it’s an inarguable truth that the simple joys of summer will not be found in that virtual reality or in checking items off the list.

  In this culture that exalts technology, achievement, and efficiency to a godlike realm, pushing us into a frantic pace that exacerbates anxiety, we have to listen closely for the simple activities that invite us to slow down to a natural pace. These moments are medicine for the anxious mind; they’re what the soul longs for. And summer abounds with these opportunities. It might be as simple as stretching out under a tree, like a cat in the shade, and allowing yourself to unwind in the late-afternoon, languid heat. It might be taking ten minutes in the middle of a workday to sit on a park bench, bite into a crunchy red apple, and notice the shapes of the clouds as they billow across the sky. Do you remember, as a kid, finding dinosaurs and dogs hiding in the clouds? During this childlike season, we can become like children and remember that it’s the simple moments and the timeless pastimes that inspire the most joy.

  PRACTICEINVITATION OF THE SEASONS

  When we align ourselves with the primary action of each season, we can harness the energy that permeates the natural world and, thus, facilitate our own transitions. With each season, take time to journal on the following questions:

  •During autumn, as you witness the falling of leaves, I invite you to open to the energy of shedding and ask yourself, “What is it time to let go of?”

  •In winter, as you watch the stillness settle over the land and notice the hibernation of your own soul, you can ask, “What arises in quiet and solitude?”

  •In spring, the literal and metaphoric seeds that lay dormant for several months tentatively poke their heads through the warming earth, then burst into full bloom, and you can ask, “What is ready to be born?”

  •And in summer, as you celebrate the fruits of your labor and enjoy the days of water and sunshine, you can ask yourself, “What is it time to celebrate?”

  6

  THE VULNERABILIT
Y OF BEING PRESENT

  Bodhichitta is our heart — our wounded, softened heart. Now, if you look for that soft heart that we guard so carefully — if you decide that you’re going to do a scientific exploration under the microscope and try to find that heart — you won’t find it. You can look, but all you’ll find is some kind of tenderness. There isn’t anything that you can cut out and put under the microscope. There isn’t anything that you can dissect or grasp. The more you look, the more you find just a feeling of tenderness tinged with some kind of sadness. This sadness is not about somebody mistreating us. This is inherent sadness, unconditioned sadness. It has part of our birthright, a family heirloom. It’s been called the genuine heart of sadness.

  PEMA CHÖDRÖN

  Start Where You Are

  We are not taught to meet life on life’s terms, that is, living in the present moment. Left to ourselves, our ego will shift and move and invent and convince in order to protect us from meeting life square in the eye. All the ego’s intrusive thoughts and fear-based schemes are, in fact, finely crafted and often convincing escape hatches designed to remove us from touching the raw places that define being human — our loneliness, pain, fear, uncertainty, and transcendence — the places that only arise when we drop down into this moment.

  One of anxiety’s most brilliant defense tactics to protect us from the vulnerability of being present is to lure us into the mind trap of perseverating on the past in the form of regret, guilt, or shame, or of launching us off in the rocket ship of the future where we worry about things that are out of our hands. One of the keys to healing from anxiety is to learn to come into this moment, where our vulnerability lives. This isn’t easy, especially since very few people were taught how to tend to vulnerability. In fact, we’re taught just the opposite, and often receive the message never to make ourselves vulnerable because it’s not safe. This mindset likely made sense for most of our history as humans when it truly wasn’t safe to be vulnerable, but as we’re at a threshold of consciousness, we’re being invited to learn a new way. Anxiety is the guide. Curiosity and compassion are the allies. Being willing to open to the full, raw, tender experience of being human is the light in the darkness.