I have yet to meet someone who has not, at one point or another, experienced the pangs of anxiety. However we think about it, it seems to be something our bodies naturally produce when something we deeply care about is at stake. 

My own history with anxiety--and her long lost sister, depression--began as a child. My mom suffered from a chronic illness for most of my childhood, leaving her bedridden and unable to care for her children the way she had envisioned. When she was depressed or anxious, it was palpable. It was shared. It was something I took on as a thing of normalcy, as something that underscored my days throughout childhood and early adulthood. Even now, in my early 30s, I still find myself time-to-time crippled by anxiety and depression, strewn about on the living room floor unable or unwilling to entertain another option for spending my time. And for everyone who can relate, you know all too well: Anxiety isn’t something we choose, it’s something that happens. And when it happens, it’s spell-like. It’s a storm we must wait out. It cannot be bartered with, cajoled or bribed into disappearing. 

Its qualities are infectious. It may create a sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach, or an antsiness that has us wanting to jump out of our skin, or a closed-off feeling in the chest that makes breathing--and therefor standing--difficult. It will have us crawling across the floor to go throw-up because walking isn’t possible. It will have us curled up in a corner trying to make ourselves invisible. It will have us hyperventilating at the prospect of our worst nightmares coming true. It will have our jaws clenching and muscles contracting as if to inflict some sort of punishment on ourselves. It will eliminate all possibilities of us having a productive day. And then, somehow, the storm passes and we re-enter the narrative of our lives, perhaps smarter or perhaps not, vigilantly on the lookout for signs of the next storm. 

Maybe your anxiety registers similarly. Maybe not. However you experience it, there are strategies for coping that can help us better understand and live with our anxious tendencies. My own anxiety has motivated a deep interest in these matters, and has brought me a wealth of teachers and resources that have helped me interpret my experiences and tune up my behavior in response to them. 

I have no formal background in medicine, trauma or psychology. My credentials are the ticking time counter that keeps track of all the instances of anxiety that have underscored my days; the roster of triggers that set my anxiety into motion; the scratch marks on the furniture, broken phone pieces in the nightstand, the chipped faucet that now hangs down into the sink bowl instead of standing upright. My credentials are simply the pain that I’ve experienced and my long history of trial and errors that have revealed lessons learned on my pathway to existential freedom. 

Don’t Do What You Probably Usually Do 

The biggest mistake I’m guilty of is trying to make my anxiety go away when I feel it, mostly because it hurts so damn much. Even if I’m not actively trying to persuade its downfall, there is usually a hint (or more) of resistance when I identify anxiety in my system. The resistance is simple: I don’t like this. Once my anxiety has been categorized as something I don’t like, it becomes painful. Prior to the classification, it is simply a sensation with a certain level of intensity. It is not until the afterthought that labels it bad that it starts to feel like shit. 

This classification can happen in an instant. It can happen so close to the birth of the sensation itself that I don’t even realize that there is a distinction between my anxiety appearing and my reacting to it as something I don’t like. When this distinction is blurry, my anxiety registers as something excruciating, as something that needs to be addressed and amputated as quickly as possible, which--spoiler alert--actually fuels it into larger expressions (hence my broken faucet).  

Instead, and with the help of several skilled teachers, I am learning to distinguish the sensation and my reaction to the sensation as two separate events--events that don’t really have that much to do with each other except for the fact that I’ve rehearsed them hundreds of times in that order. The key to deflating my anxiety is to not mind that it’s there, which means being able to notice anxiety as an inherently neutral--albeit intense--experience, and being able to notice my narrative as the inherently painful part. When I can get clear on this--especially in the moments that I’m experiencing anxiety--my goal is no longer to seek and destroy my anxiety. My goal is to seek out whatever it is that is resisting my anxiety, and to see clearly that whatever those thoughts are (I don’t like this. I’ll never survive this. This is too painful. There must be something wrong with me.), they are not an accurate interpretation of my anxiety. Anxiety is simply a neutral sensation which is made painful only by the narrative I choose to apply to it. 

I’m not always successful at this--quite honestly, it depends on when I become aware of anxiety in my system. Sometimes I’m too deep in the rabbit hole, in which case (and in the words of my teacher, Francis Lucille): I’ve boarded the train and now there’s nothing left to do but enjoy the ride. And if it doesn’t feel like I’m enjoying the ride, it will eventually, once I begin to see my anxiety as my teacher rather than my enemy. 

Sometimes the best course of action is to simply wait it out on the couch, in the corner, on the floor--don’t blame myself for resisting it and don’t follow its orders (whatever those orders are). Sometimes the best course of action is to catch it early, grant my anxiety access, debunk my resistance, and carry on with my day without taking it too seriously.

Our Anxiety Is Not a Mistake

While depression is a past-centered experience, anxiety is future-centered. It develops as a result from the various beliefs we have about how the future should be. It is rehearsed and perfected through repetition and indulging in its content. 

Aside from resisting, I am also prone to believing that my anxiety is a mistake that needs to be fixed. But in truth, my anxiety is not the mistake, the mistake (if I can even call it that) is simply the belief that it’s a mistake. 

All psychological suffering, whether anxiety or something else, is a sign that tells us that we are not processing the world correctly. It is an opportunity to investigate the truthfulness of the claims we are making internally, to debunk the assumptions that underlie our suffering, and to reap the rewards of calmness and ease even and especially when we are experiencing intense sensations. When asked what to do about psychological suffering, my teacher, Rupert Spira, often says: The pain will only go away when we decide we can live with it forever. This is not a sexy or partiularly attractive answer, but it registers with the weight of truth which is relieving in its own way. The relief is not that accepting our pain is easy (because it isn’t), the relief is that accepting our pain is the only sustainable method of freeing ourselves from it. 

Accepting pain is not a psychological pursuit. It’s not a matter of replacing our existing narrative with new platitudes of self-acceptance. Accepting pain is the process of discovering the element within us that is already accepting of pain. We are probably used to paying attention to the elements within us that are resisting pain, and probably don’t have that much practice attuning our attention to the aspect of ourselves that is already accepting of it. But we’ve all experienced the acceptance of our pain at various times throughout our lives. As an example, I think back to a particularly painful breakup that left me devastated for months except for a few moments of realization that there was still something present in my experience that wasn’t fighting my pain. Or putting my toes in too-hot bath water and being able to register both the pain and the neutral space within which the pain appeared. Or the flight I boarded to San Diego after hearing about my mom’s death, where walking up and down the aisle I felt that everything in my life had been demolished, and yet there was still something present in my experience that didn’t mind what I was going through. Accepting pain means to put ourselves in touch with the part of us that is accepting of our lives under all conditions and at all times. When we are in touch with this--when we recognize this aspect as more real than whatever fleeting pain we are experiencing--what naturally follows is a peace that exists alongside our suffering. In time, we are able to access this peace in all circumstances, even when we are experiencing sensations that we have historically not liked. 

Key Takeaways

Anxiety is not something that we need to get better from. It is a symptom that merely provides us an opportunity to discover what is at its root. We cannot dismiss it from our lives by sheer force of will, wishful thinking or magic. Its disappearance is predicated on it being understood, which we can’t do when we’re in the middle of fighting it. This is why resisting our anxiety doesn’t work. The only lasting relief is the acceptance of our anxiety when it shows up, acknowledging its capacity to reveal to us holes in our thinking patterns that create it, and the understanding that there is something that underlies it that is inherently at peace. 

The next time the storm rolls in, try out this checklist: 

• Make a distinction between the sensations of anxiety and the resistance that names it as something you don’t like. 

• Distinguish anxiety as a neutral--albeit intense--sensation. 

• Notice your resistance early or board the train and enjoy the ride (and don’t feel guilty about it later).

• Ask yourself: Can I live with this sensation forever? 

• Accept your pain by finding whatever it is within you that is already accepting of every moment of your life. 

• Be open to discovering the assumptions and triggers that lie at the root of anxiety. 

As we move forward, the goal is to be able to look back at a stretch of time and see our anxious tendencies become more infrequent, less intense, and last for shorter periods. And when the next storm rolls in, which it will, to regard it with a newfound curiosity, an optimism for discovery, an openness to whatever winds it brings with it. 

Anxiety is something we experience, it is not something we are. We cannot be anxious, we can only experience anxiety. And while it may sometimes seem like our anxiety has swallowed us whole, has consumed every cell in our body, and has shapeshifted into our very essence, this is simply not the truth. And the truth, as the old adage goes, is indeed what sets us free. 

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