True calm is contagious - How to be a non-responder

 

Everyone I know is feeling extra anxiety these days, and it's only natural. The daily news has us all needing more than ever to deal with stress, anxiety and uncertainty. I hear many people asking: How do we keep from spiraling into full-blown panic?

As with any challenge there is one right way to navigate our anxiety, and it's contained in one concept I’ve been keeping at the forefront of my mind... Objectivity binds subjectivity. Simply begin by discerning; What if my thoughts aren’t real or right? What if these thoughts aren’t true? Subjective is the opposite of objective. The word subjective means “characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as an independent mind.”

 

Thoughts are not events. They are not objective; they are subjective. Objectivity is attained by being emotionally removed from outcomes by choice and through the practice of mindfulness meditation. The dictionary definition of objective is “in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers: having reality independent of the mind.” Objective things have a reality independent of the mind because the mind often messes things up.

Anxiety is so individual that it’s difficult to pinpoint a “type” that’s most common. For some, it might feel like vines of dread roping themselves around you the night before a big work deadline, or maybe like a creeping cloud of unease that settles in during your morning commute. Maybe you cope by taking prescribed medication or going for a run; maybe you’ve gotten suspiciously into baking bread or doing crossword puzzles.

No matter what your specific brand of anxiety looks like, it’s probably safe to say that the coronavirus pandemic is exaggerating it. At the urging of public health officials, large public gatherings have been canceled, obsessive hand-washing is all but mandatory, and much of the world is in an uneasy state of lockdown. There is a lot of uncertainty and a lot of physical isolation, and being alone with your thoughts may be more distressing than ever.
 

Subjective thoughts are perfectly suited to feed the worry monster. 

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So, why do fears and worries have so much power? Simply because you are unknowingly giving your vital energy to them. Objectively, there is a reality to what happens that is independent of what you think about. For many people, this is a foreign concept. Reality, to them, consists of their impressions, thoughts, opinions, biases, feelings, and assumptions.  "I think, therefore it is."

 

If you believe thoughts are yours, then the subjective worry monster those thoughts produce is yours. The subjective thoughts you feed your monster are tailor-made to strengthen the fight or flight instincts of primitive survival instincts. But the ACTUAL REALITY IS that thoughts are not really yours much of the time... How is that possible? Because your mind doesn't have a firewall to information and downloads from our environment. 

This is not easy for some people to accept. Their subjective perceptions are so strong that they drown out objective reality. These people live within a world of imposed delusions where what they think will happen will, even if all evidence points to the contrary. It is a world where the subjective crowds out the objective. It is a world of fears, worries, monsters, terrors and things that go bump in the night.

 

However, there is a cure for the heightened anxiety that’s all but inevitable in these stressful unprecedented times, and meditation is the God given way to empower your ability to deal with all of "it" and meaningfully reduce your overall sense of helplessness. If we have to sit at home feeling waves of anxiety, we at least can learn how to be experts at riding those waves. 

 

In the ancient Chinese military treatise The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

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The first step to mastering your anxiety is to recognize what "it" is when it happens. Instead of ignoring anxiety and letting it build up and take over, simply note the anxiety as soon as you feel the buzzing in your heart, or the spinning in your brain... These sensations signal anxiety. Simply detect them and then deflect them kind of  like the beachball someone flings at you. Once you see it, you can deflect it.

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When we do this, we take the emotional energy, or the anxious energy, out of anxiety. Recognizing the feelings of anxiety puts you back in control; instead of facing an often remote threat that can feel overwhelming and scary, you are now dealing with a known adversary that is most often only an undetected thought that has slipped by your conscious attention.

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Once we recognize "it", we can identify its source. Anxiety is an emotional response to an anticipated threat. And while there’s a lot of panic around the general idea of the coronavirus itself, we can usually get more specific about what we’re truly concerned with, says Joel Minden, a psychologist and author of the book Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss.

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Some people might be responding to practical concerns like the threat of job loss, the lack of social contact, or the availability of supplies, Minden says. Others might be overwhelmed by future-oriented concerns about the anxiety itself (“I’m emotionally distressed and can’t function”) or uncertainty (“I don’t know what will happen, but I can’t stop thinking about how awful things will be”).

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Through mindfulness meditation, objectivity becomes the firewall that stops influences from drawing us in subjectivity. Protected by a stabilized awareness we gain perspective on what anxiety is, and where it's coming from. Objectively viewing challenges normalizes our mind and the power we give anxiety diminishes similar to how if we are in a dark room and begin to feel fear turning on the light destroys our dread.  There’s comfort that comes with knowing that our fears are within our control.

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As scary as it may seem, facing your fears will provide a sense of relief

Once you’ve identified the sources of your anxiety, it’s time to consciously turn toward the things we fear. There are long-term benefits to taking concrete steps to improve your situation. It is important not to put off facing the fears and worries now, so that you will quickly be in a better emotional position to cope.

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“When we respond to avoidance urges by taking action, we prioritize personal control and fulfillment over anxiety management,” says Joel Minden. In my own experience I have found that its important to sit with your emotions, and to allow any feelings to exist alongside the power of objectivity that neutralizes them. The simple act of allowing yourself to become aware of all challenging feelings — despite their ability to provoke anxiety initially — can prove to be what will lead to a greater sense of personal control.

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Be honest with yourself about things that you can see are harming your mental/spiritual health and remember: Objectivity binds subjectivity - that’s a research finding. Take appropriate meditative centering action a minimum of twice to three times a day and doing this alone will calm you down and refine your power of focus.

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It’s also okay to deliberately avoid certain situations that can worsen your circumstances or mind space, according to Rick Hanson, a psychologist and author of the forthcoming book Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness. This could mean avoiding the onslaught of opinions on Twitter, the rising death tolls in news stories, or the texts from friends and family members that trigger anxious thoughts.

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Ultimately, anxiety is an inevitable part of life. But, you can “hack” anxiety, control and conquer the more you watch or observe, and the less you struggle to manage it. We’re living through a global health crisis, after all; times are tough, they’re stressful, and struggling with dark thoughts or overwhelming feelings is the wrong way to handle our concerns. So again, if you can see anxiety creeping up on you, you can deflect it.

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“If you’re warm and supportive when other people get overwhelmed, you can treat yourself the same way,” Minden says. “A good response to destructive ideas like ‘What’s wrong with me? Why am I getting so anxious?’ is something like ‘ difficult feelings. I know where they come from. I will be patient and kind with myself because I’m going through a hard time.’”

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Hanson points out that it’s also important to recognize that we might be ultra-sensitive to others’ anxiety right now. Our social brains are hardwired through evolution to pick up on other people’s fear and absorb it as our own. This is why being a non-responder is so powerful!

 

“We look to [other people] on social media, walking down the street, standing there with a mask on, it makes us anxious, broadly,” Hanson says. “And that’s a perfectly ordinary kind of thing. What we should do from a practical standpoint is to take on reasonable input from others, but meanwhile not let the fear itself be contagious.” 

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Learn and practice being calm and centered

On top of identifying the causes of your anxiety and creating actionable steps toward management and self-compassion, here are natural methods for soothing the overworked mind.

First, focus on bringing awareness into your own body, especially through internal sensations like your chest rising and falling with your breath. Being mindful about your breathing helps switch off the neural circuitry that anxiety ramps up, leading to an overall feeling of calm.

 

Whether in a quiet room or in the middle of what feels like a burst of panic, try focusing on your five fingers shifting your attention gently from finger to finger — relaxing into the process and being mindful of each one, and gradually feeling your heart rate slow and a slight change in your breathing.

 

Second, focus in the now moment to keep yourself grounded in the present.

 

Anxiety is, after all, based in an uncertainty around and fear of the future — what might happen next. To help practice physical mindfulness, take your indext your finger and touch your forehead until you feel a slight warmth or tingling. Focusing this attention down either arm and into your fingertips, this naturally quiets stress about the future and the past, and tends to bring you into the present-moment mindfulness and a sense of well-being.

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If you’re having trouble quieting your mind on your own, FHU.com has simple meditations, and mindfulness exercises, all free. All anxiety can be self-managed — If the worrying and sleeplessness feel out of control, or you’re suffering from constant panic attacks — or if you are using alcohol or drugs to cope, or have other mental health concerns — quieting your mind on your own or at FHU.com with simple recorded meditations is advised.

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“We’re all being tested all the time, and we will get to the other side of it, and we’ll look back and ask ourselves how we conducted our lives during this time, including how we treated other people. When you practice being a non-responder, the more centered you become the more peaceful and productive you are and everyone around you benefits from your calm.

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Would you start your life over given the chance?

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A new poll reveals that 89% of young people aged 18-29 feel their lives are meaningless and without purpose.

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• 30 per cent of youngsters complain about being “stuck in a rut,” while 84 per cent say they are failing to “live their best life.”

• One of the primary reasons cited for failing to achieve happiness and purpose is a lack of finances, according to 45 per cent of respondents.

• The survey found that 80 per cent of people across all age ranges felt they were living without purpose

• More than a third of Brits would completely start their lives over given the chance.

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A study conducted by the American Academy of Family Physicians revealed 75% to 90% of patient visits to their family doctor are stress-related. How do you deal with stress?

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You can and you will... learn to deal with stress.

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• Identify and delete from your life the cause of negative decisions you make on a daily basis

• Learn why you let a bad mood run your day, why you focus on what’s wrong, rather than what’s right

• Understand why when things don’t go your way. you find yourself blaming others or beating yourself up

• Learn to break the reaction patterns that control you, and replace them with calm objectivity

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At Start Your Life Over Seminar, you’ll learn to unlock and unleash the innate power inside you to break through your fear, conditioning and limitations and take control of your life.​ Contact David Masters at: Tradiostars@gmail.com to arrange for an interactive 1- day seminar. Past events have been personal, spontaneous, enlightening, humorous, and always liberating and up lifting. Visit: www.escapeyourmindsprison.com