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Feeling overwhelmed is a common trigger for my anxiety attacks<\/a>. A project doesn\u2019t go as well as I\u2019d hoped or I miss a deadline, and fear and insecurity rise in my mind and body. \u201cI\u2019m going to be judged and found wanting,\u201d goes the narrative. \u201cThey won\u2019t want to work with me again. Who was I anyway to take on such a job? I\u2019m an imposter. I always fall at the last hurdle.\u201d My heart starts racing, my stomach churns, my muscles stiffen. These sensations are unpleasant, so I tense up further in an unconscious attempt not to feel them, even while my attention is pulled in their direction. Oh no, says a new thought. Why am I getting so anxious<\/a> and blocked.<\/p>\n With so much energy expended internally, there\u2019s less available to attend to daily matters. Panic<\/a> may set in. \u201cNow I can\u2019t get any other work done,\u201d my mind laments. \u201cIt\u2019s the old cycle downwards again. I\u2019m cursed with depression<\/a>.\u201d The familiar pressure builds up in my nose and chest, making it difficult to access any other feelings, and the negativity<\/a> starts to spiral: I won\u2019t be able to cope, I\u2019ll be left with no money, no energy, unable to dig myself out of this hole. The doom-mongering thoughts fuel even more anxiety<\/a>. It could go on indefinitely\u2014a self-fulfilling prophecy.<\/p>\n With so much energy expended internally, there\u2019s less available to attend to daily matters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But hang on a minute. If these thoughts are just thoughts<\/a>\u2014and probably mere projections, tainted by the negative bias that comes especially at times of stress<\/a>\u2014then there\u2019s no need to follow them. Anxiety is a feeling, and I know that feelings come and go. Yesterday\u2019s thoughts and feelings were different, so who\u2019s to say my internal weather<\/a> isn\u2019t due another change? There are patterns of experience, for sure, but this moment is just a vibration of energy experienced in consciousness, created by constellations of events in the mind, body, and outside world around a so-called \u201cme\u201d that in reality has no fixed location. Ideas in the mind are in flux, sensations in the body are in flux, and the trigger events are already receding into memory\u2014no more than traces of causal energy that set the winds of mental and physical habit blowing. Suddenly, with this shift in perspective, thoughts, and feelings are no longer facts, and there\u2019s not even a solid, single, separate \u201cme\u201d to feel upset or hurt by them. There is just experience, happening on and on. It\u2019s painful experience right now, to be sure, but just energy in motion nevertheless. I\u2019m changing from moment to moment, too\u2014everything is in flow<\/a>, as it always is. This won\u2019t stay the same, and nor will I.<\/p>\n Rainer Maria Rilke<\/a> once said: \u201cLet everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.\u201d We can make it even less personal. Just let everything happen (drop the \u201cto you\u201d)\u2014watch and feel each aspect of the mind\u2013body\u2013world show play out on the stage of consciousness, experiencing it all with interest and kindness in the knowledge that the moment is already and inevitably on its way to becoming something else. If the energy is allowed to play out by itself, the next moments are less likely to be conditioned by misguided attempts to turn what is flowing into something solid, or to push away what is here so it\u2019s no longer part of the moment. Neither solidifying nor separating from the moment can ever be successful, because the moment is always both here and in transition. But if there is no depression to get stuck in, and no self to get hurt, then everything in mind, body, and life can flow like an undammed river, with energy streaming through without the defensive psychic barriers that serve only to turn that energy in on itself.<\/p>\n By shifting perspective and approach\u2014experiencing without grasping and resistance\u2014this moment has already become different from how it might have been.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Negative thoughts\u2014as well as the bodily symptoms of fear<\/a>\u2014may still be present. But they are not \u201cmine\u201d any more. They just are\u2014present remnants of past events that do not need to be turned into unnecessary future suffering. By shifting perspective and approach\u2014experiencing without grasping and resistance\u2014this moment has already become different from how it might have been.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cNo Feeling is Final.\u201d<\/h2>\n
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A Mountain Meditation to Help You Shift Out of Panic Mode<\/h2>\n