I. The nature of anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion that we experience in reaction to scary thoughts. If we do not have any scary thoughts, we do not feel any anxiety. Scary thoughts multiply themselves when we go inside them, when they become our whole world. This makes us feel anxious or panicky. If we see that these thoughts just come and go by themselves, that is, when we do not identify with them, they fade away very quickly. Most thoughts will not last more than 2 or 3 seconds if we donít feed them with fear or desire. But what happens with us most of the time is that we think about these thoughts more. We feed our anxiety as we continue to think. We try to fight or avoid thoughts or we pursue them, which makes them stronger.
Most of us engage in these frightening thoughts out of habit. Often the mind gets caught up in following a thought, like, “What would happen if?” Then we are caught up in thinking about the “if.” Also, we often fight or avoid thoughts because we believe we can get rid of them by doing so. But by fighting we invite these unpleasant thoughts to visit us again and again, because we cannot fight or avoid something without thinking of it. Thinking about scary thoughts like this makes them come alive.
Thus, it is our task in mindfulness meditation not to react to these scary thoughts in any way. When a thought comes up we just notice it and let it go. It fades away by itself. Mindfulness meditation provides us with a useful tool with which we can successfully deal with these fearful thoughts.
II. The nature of thoughts
Thoughts are always arising by themselves. We don't really know where they come from or even what they are. Thoughts and thinking are mysterious. Probably we will never be able to fully understand what they really are. But we can nevertheless discover some interesting things about thoughts.
It is useful to consider two aspects of thought: content and process. Content refers to the meaning, or what the thought is about. Process refers to thought just as an unfolding thing, regardless of the details of what is unfolding. Both aspects are important and need our attention. The content aspect becomes useful when we plan a business or drive a car to a new place. We need to think about these things to succeed in what we are doing. But the content aspect of thinking can cause problems when thinking continues out of control. For example, a person is concerned about a car accident or a personal relationship with her friend and might worry about it continuously.
In this case, thinking aggravates the anxiety. Thinking cannot solve the problem because we cannot know the answer (content) by thinking about it. For example, we cannot come to an answer about a possible car accident; it is just a thought we have made up. Rather, the very act of thinking, which is in this case anticipating various harmful results, is producing more anxiety. This anxiety leads to even more thinking which in turn brings more anxiety etc. Thinking like this is involved in most anxiety problems.
The process aspect of thought refers to the occurrence of thinking itself. Thinking is a phenomenon, or something that just exists, like any other phenomenon. For example, blood, muscle, a flower, a bird, or a cloud are phenomena; they just exist. Sunsets and wind are also phenomena. All of these things are energy flows that can be sensed. We can objectively find them, be aware of them, observe them as they arise and fade. In meditation we treat thinking just as we would treat a bird or a sunset - as something that can be observed as it rises and falls. That is, we are concerned with thinking as a process and we are not concerned with the content of thought. We don't think whether these thoughts are right or wrong, good or bad. Those judgments have to do with content. We don't judge thoughts and we don't fight or avoid them. We simply acknowledge that they have arisen and observe them as they come and go.
Everybody has worries and fearful thoughts. But most people don't get wrapped up in them; instead, they move on from these thoughts to whatever else they are doing. People with anxiety problems tend become so engaged in the content of fearful thoughts that this interferes with their happiness and productivity. The difference between the former and the latter is not qualitative but quantitative, meaning that both engage with the content of worried thoughts but the anxious people do so more intensively. They grasp onto or try to fight these thoughts. It is difficult for them to keep distance from their scary thoughts.
III. Mindfulness meditation
Mindfulness meditation is a method by which we can calm down our disturbed mind. In mindfulness meditation we simply observe our thoughts as they come and go. We don't engage in them, we just let them arise and fade. We treat our thoughts as a process, not as content.
At the beginning it is difficult for most of us simply observe the thinking process. We are so accustomed to thinking all the time and most of us have no idea what it is to observe our thoughts without going inside them, or becoming them. It is like being in a room with a noisy refrigerator or driving a car on coarse asphalt: we only notice the sound when it stops.
As it is possible for us to be aware of the sound of refrigerator, it is also possible for us to become aware of a thought and observe it as it starts to form. This is what mindfulness meditation is about. We make some space between our thinking and knowing about thinking so that we can observe thoughts as they come and go without being involved in them. This is simple, but at the beginning it is not so easy to do. However, when we succeed, the payoff is big! We are less influenced by anxious thoughts; we become more independent of them and more emotionally stabile. Our happiness will no longer be at the disposal of our unbridled thoughts.
1. How can we find our thoughts?
It is sometimes difficult for the beginner to find their thoughts. Some practice is necessary. Fortunately, scary thoughts are easier to find than neutral thoughts because they have a bigger impact on our body. We feel the fear in our belly or the worry in our solar plexus. So we can pay attention to our sensations and whenever we find discomforts in the body, we know these are caused by scary thoughts. So bodily tension or/and uncomfortable feelings are like a flag; we can trace back the triggering thoughts that evoked these feelings. With practice it becomes possible to detect the scary thoughts at the very moment they arise.
2. What do we do with these thoughts?
When we have detected these scary thoughts we need to just to observe them as they arise and pass away. We do not get involved with them; we do not try to fight or avoid them. This becomes easier when we don't judge our thoughts but instead observe them with an accepting attitude. It helps to imagine each thought as if it were a flower or a bird. It is not good or bad and it is not “me.î
There are no more good/bad or right/ wrong thoughts than there are good or bad flowers, clouds or sunsets. Thoughts are just more things we experience; they come and go. We can sustain this attitude if we treat our thought as a process. Our judgmental attitude comes back to bite us. As soon as we judge our thoughts we get locked into fighting with and avoiding them. This gets very complicated and soon we are wrapped up in anxiety and worry.
So it is crucial in mindfulness that we don't either fight or avoid our thoughts but we just observe them as they come and go. The good news is that as we observe like this the thoughts lose their power very quickly. They fade away. We can make this procedure even easier if we relax our body when we do this.
3. Practical guide to dealing with scary thoughts: Pause-Relax-Open
One helpful approach to mindfulness meditation is Pause-Relax-Open. It is easy to remember as PRO.
PRO - formula (PAUSE - RELAX - OPEN)
a.) As soon as you are aware of a scary thought, PAUSE. Just for a moment, when you remember to do it, step out of these thoughts and see they are not “me”You simply observe them with acceptance. You observe them with kind and loving attitude rather than judging. Don't pursue them; don't engage yourself in them. This initial pause could last between 1 to 3 seconds or even longer depending on your mindstate. It is not helpful to try to stay in the pause a very long time without specifically relaxing or without something to pay attention to. If you try to just dwell in the pause you might unknowingly grab onto some arising thought and get tied up in it.
If you can't find any thought when you pause, then just be aware of sensations in your body. What you are not supposed to do is keep thinking or pursuing the thoughts. If you have found your thoughts but can't observe them even for a moment without getting wrapped up in them, then move quickly to the next step, which is RELAX.
b.) RELAX your body and be aware of the change of body sensations as the body relaxes. Give yourself some time for this, perhaps 2 to 5 seconds. It may be helpful to breathe deeply as you relax your body. While you are relaxing, you might notice how the body reacts to thoughts that come up. Tensions arise when worrisome thoughts come up and right at that moment you can notice this and intentionally relax. When you are comfortable relaxing in this way, you may be able to be aware of thoughts even as you relax. This is O.K. only if you donít follow and feed those thoughts. If this happens, as it may when the thoughts and emotions are highly charged, just go back to simple relaxation.
When there is more worry, spend more time relaxing. 5-10 seconds may be necessary. There is no rush; take the time you need to relax. Progressive relaxation can also be helpful. This is done by relaxing one area of the body at a time. Try beginning with the head and face, then relax the neck, shoulders, arms, hands, back, chest, belly, hips, legs and feet. It is also helpful to do some body exercise like Yoga practice or simple stretching exercise before mindfulness meditation.
PAUSE and RELAX can be done over and over again. It is natural that thoughts will come up and this is O.K. If we have scary thoughts or notice body tensions in the middle of meditation, just start again right in that moment. Take the first step, which is PAUSE, and repeat the process.
c.) Now we OPEN our mind to the outside events like sights, sounds, smells, tastes or to the dialogue with people. We expand our awareness to the outer world and carry forward the mindfulness we developed in the previous two steps. We can now meet the outer world with an open mind. Now we can see clearer, listen deeper, and understand better. For the moment we are more relaxed and free from disturbing thoughts. Because we are relaxed, we meet our environment with more acceptance and presence.
These three steps of pause-relax-open are part of Insight Dialogue meditation. The advantage of Insight Dialogue meditation is that it is a way we can expand our meditation practice from inner silence out to everyday life. We can meditate with PRO as we eat, walk, talk or even work. Of course we can also use this PRO formula as we do silent sitting meditation. The Pause and Relax are the same, but the Open means we expand our attention out to the whole body sitting. That is, we can just be aware of our body form or the body sensations or breathing and so forth as we sit relaxed. Whenever our minds are clouded with scary thoughts or uncomfortable feelings, we need just to repeat the whole process from the beginning again and again.
As the practice of PRO matures, we find the Pause-Relax-Open stages intermingle. There are no distinct boundaries between Pause, Relax and Open. As our mindfulness progresses we can notice that the pause takes on an inherent quality of relaxation and acceptance. When we face things just as they are, there is already acceptance, not the usual reaction of tension. Tension is associated with denial, fear, repression, and the effort to control our thoughts. Acceptance is inherently relaxing, since this tension is not generated. The “Openî phase is an extension of this acceptance from accepting what is inside us to accepting everything around us. We meet the world in a relaxed way. Do not expect all tension to disappear, however. Even the most mundane thought and its attendant emotion has some element of tension. This is just part of life, and when we do not resist tension, it is not so bad.
4. The attitude of trusting emergence
The most important and valuable philosophy of mindfulness meditation is the attitude of trusting emergence. We cannot really predict what will happen in our lives at any moment. This is part of the beauty of life. What kind of value would life have if everything was predictable? It would be just mechanical; there would be no Life!
But when we are anxious we want to make our life predictable and controllable. However the truth is, the more we strive to control our future, the more anxious we get. This is really paradoxical. You might ask, Why is it so? It is very simple. The very act of trying to control things makes us tense, which makes us anxious, which makes us try to control more, which make us more tense, and so on. The vicious circle goes on and on.
Trusting emergence helps us end this unhappy cycle. To trust emergence is to take an open minded stance toward whatever comes. This makes us receptive and consequently we feel connected with life. We feel supported and grounded, which makes us more open to the reality of how things are, which makes us more comfortable, which makes us more accepting. The benevolent circle goes on and on. Life lived in this way is interesting and full of energy.
The attitude of trusting emergence applies to many of our behaviors. For example, we trust our body processes like breathing or heart palpitations, and we relax and trust what is happening as we speak with someone that we don't know at a party. We trust that things will work out if we ask someone for help or sing a song in front of group. Whatever actions we have not trusted ourselves to do until now can be good experiments in trusting emergence. Anxiety is an inhibition of our trust in emergence. We could reestablish this trust by practice.
PRO meditation is a method to practice this trusting emergence. PAUSE is an act of trusting a new path after departing an old track where we have been stuck. It is like shedding an old tight jacket and trying on a new suit. RELAXING is another act of trusting the emergence: We let go our body tension and trust what emerges in our body process in the course of relaxation. By relaxing our body we release our anxiety and accept the new reality without resistance. OPEN is expanding our act of trusting emergence to the outer world. We are open to whatever comes into being in our interaction with the environment. With PRO meditation we can build our power to trust emergence, which will help us feel free and self-confident in our relationship with our self and our environment.
