SpaceAgeSage

I hear it screaming from commercials. I hear it in the strained voices of family and friends. I hear it coming from the Internet. I see it in headlines, worry lines, and the rush for bylines. Silently it races through our lives, a contagion that knows no bounds. Like an irritating background noise we’ve grown used to, it keeps us on edge and drives us like cattle into the stockyards of poor health.

I, for one, am tired of it. I hate being ruled by something I actually have power over. Time to stop the million biting mosquitoes from chewing my well-being to death.

What am I talking about? You can call it nervousness, apprehension or worry. I call it anxiety.

We stress over finances, the economy, the guy who dissed us, the lack of progress in our lives, who will be president, fuel costs, the crummy job, trying to keep up with the Jones, the irritating relatives, and an endless list of things we want to control, but seem powerless over. Self-doubt and doubt about the future stir the emotional pot to a constant simmer, and our heart and mind turn tough and chewy as we stew over problems.

With anxiety in ascension in our lives, fragility replaces flexibility, rigidity replaces resilience, and a gnawing sense of vulnerability replaces stalwart courage. In a word, anxiety turns us into victims. The deep roots of anxiety are insecurity and reactive thinking. Like a rabbit paralyzed with fear as the coyotes draw close, we freeze into chronic habits, ruts, and supposidly “safe and secure,” methods of operating.

The Stress Habit
According to Doc Childre in his book Transforming Stress, the unfortunate results can be loss of humor, irritability, binging on whatever strikes our fancy, fatigue, memory loss, and aches and pains. He adds:

Stress inhibits cortical function. When stress becomes a habit, it forms a mental block that prevents you from thinking or acting on real solutions. And so the grind goes on. Millions of people work harder to make more money to buy and do more things in order to make themselves happier. All the while, health-care costs are eating away their income, their kids are getting more stressed, and they think they have to keep going, going, going in order to survive. And yet, many secretly feel there must be another way. They experiment with different fixes, but mainly they just keep going. Their stress becomes a habit — mentally, emotinally and physically.

I see this quote as a call to “bust up” stress. We can do that by re-finding our humor in a comedy or with fun friends, by taking life by the horns and learning to say no or to face problems head on, by embracing more thoughts that release others from our expectations, and by engaging in one of the best stress busters of all — exercise.

Going Deeper
For deeper work, I turn to a number of resources including Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso and Russ Hudson, who write:

List ten or more instances or areas where fear, anxiety, or doubt habitually show up. Can you identify particular times, people, places, or other triggers that get you revved up with anxiety and tension? While there is clearly a negative component to these states, can you also discern a positive payoff that you might also be seeking — such as gaining sypathy … protection? {SpaceAgeSage: I would add “attention” and “justification.”} How do you complain or otherwise show your displeasure? What would it be like to not behave this way? What do you think would be gained? What would be lost?

I know I am not the only one seeking to find inner peace amid the raucous call to be stressed. Bloggers like Leo Babauta at zenhabits.net and Clay Collins at thegrowinglife.com draw thousands of readers seeking to find a way to get off the stress and anxiety merry-go-round. Just today, Clay writes about what he calls “Baselining:”

The process of baselining involves writing down everything you don’t have to have, be, or do, to live a happy and fulfilled life … For example, I don’t have to own nice furniture (thrift store furniture works just fine) or a house, I don’t have to finish graduate school, I don’t have to be able to tell a coherent story about how I make money.

Simplicity, minimalist living, and Clay’s “baselining” all clear the clutter from our lives, which leaves room for relaxing and energizing. My husband and I will be soon reducing our anxiety by clearing, cleaning, and selling items in our rather full and huge garage. It will simplify our lives, make us some money, and prepare us for any minimalistic downsizing we may want to explore in the future on this road to eliminating anxiety.

It will be nice to rid myself those million pesky mosquitoes chewing at me — kind of like using anxiety repellent.

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There cannot be a stressful crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
~ Henry Kissinger ~

Tags: anxiety, finding sagehood, stress, stress busters, worry