Ending Anxiety With Non-Duality
The harmony of the opposites
Anxiety is a debilitating condition. It is something everyone experiences once in a while. It takes many forms such as uneasiness, restlessness, obsessive thinking, imagining the worst, replaying the past, physical body changes, sinking into an infinite loop of thoughts, aggression, silence, etc. It is an in-built tool geared for safety and survival but has now become overused in recent decades. Fight, flight or freeze mechanisms are operating at an altogether different level in today’s world causing many to lead a difficult life. There is a way out, and that way is in, through you.
Anxiety is defined as intense, persistent, and excessive worry and fear about day to day situations.
When it becomes all-consuming, it can lead to panic attacks and even long term illnesses and conditions. We deal with it in a number of ways, some well and many others harmful. Positive approaches to these include a pure high vibration plant-based diet (yes, eating animals includes eating their death time anxiety), meditation, chanting, music, setting emotional boundaries, etc. Harmful approaches lead to addictions such as smoking, drinking, food disorders, workaholism, over-exercising, etc.
Below is a tool I use that helps me come back to equilibrium. Anyone can do this at any time. It can be applied as a preventive measure. Prevention is better than cure and with practice, you will even be able to do a fantastic job helping yourself and keep it from happening in the first place. Coaching yourself is an investment that has life-long proven benefits. The below advice however is not a substitute for a medical opinion or treatment. One must seek what’s best for their situation. Learning how to support yourself is crucial in managing anxiety.
The Anti-Anxiety Tool: Non-Duality
Duality is expressed as the quality of opposites being paired, bonded, created, or found together. In Indian scriptures it’s called Dvaita, in Chinese, it is represented by the Yin and Yang. Advaita or Non-Duality speaks of the individual Soul and the universal Spirit being one and the same. Over-coming the separation or amnesia between the Soul and the Spirit, and attaining bliss is the aim of Advaita. Today, we will look at its application in dealing with the fluctuations of life for low to medium grade anxiety.
As school kids, we learn opposites in all our subjects. In physics, its protons and electrons, in maths, its addition, and subtraction, in chemistry its heat and cold, in biology its male and female. All parts of matter exist in polarities or pairs. These opposites are also found in thinking. Every single thought we have has a polar opposite as well as present simultaneously. Which pole we place our attention on magnifies.
While feeling cold, the thought of a sweater to feel warm is immediate. In hot summers we want cooling fruits. When an excess is created in one part of the pair, the other steps in to balance it out. This is the law of matter. In the subtle world of thoughts and emotions, such a law is applicable too. Excessive one-sided tilted thinking needs to be balanced. Since we pick our thoughts, we might continue to pick one side only habitually and forget to pick the other pair. This programming is a part of human life and quite widespread. We are rarely taught to see the two together. Either we suffer from our attachment to happiness or our attachment to misery.
The Trick
When anxiety attacks the mind, and we start to get into the intensity of it, we need to come up with the opposite pair of it. Since it is a negatively charged emotion (negative in polarity creating depletion in the body-mind, not the judgement of it), it's opposite being a positively charged emotion, bringing that in, will start to restore the balance. If you are aware of your triggers then these are handy tools and you can use them beforehand just when you feel it coming, perhaps diffuse it all together. If you are not, you still have an equal chance to supply the other end of it.
When you start to feel anxious, it is usually a form of worry that begins it. Understand what it is you are looking for. Bring a little space into your thoughts. Ask yourself — What do I need in this moment? My loved one is not picking up the call. I want to hear their voice, that they are safe. Instead of dwelling on the fear of the unknown, you can now think to yourself — I have a choice to expect good news. I now wait for the phone to ring. They are responsible. They will call me. Everytime you experience contrast, at the same moment you become what it is that you do want.
Here are some examples of it.
There are many cases, that a person may be in danger which could lead to some bad news. Again, that’s one possibility. If we stretch our imagination, and not focus on one, but open up to more, it helps settle ourselves down, until we get proper news and can deal with it more appropriately.
What nature teaches us
Picture this. It's a typical wilderness setting. A lion and a zebra are in a high-speed chase. The zebra running for its life has the adrenaline rush that gives it the extra power. If it survives and the danger is over, it goes back to happy grazing. The stress hormones go back to normal. And the zebra relaxes completely.
The same instinct is in all creatures. In the case of humans, apart from the immediate threats of physical violence, we also have emotional and mental threats. It could be someone in the house, at work, random strangers, or someone in the news. An email may pop-up from your boss can cause your heart to skip a beat. The family get-together might be more of a stressful event than a joyous one. These small to large tensions keep creating fluctuations in us.
This predator in human life never really goes away. We come face to face with them the next day in the office or in our social circles. We start to pre-empt others responses, simply because we want to stay safe or be armed in case of defense. Over time, the average cortisol levels (another stress hormone) increase. Unlike the zebra, we ruminate on past events and replay them like movies with should have’s and could have’s. We also actively imagine the future thinking of worst-case scenarios and being prepared with caution. The zebra can’t do this. Since it lives in the moment, it has tremendous power at its disposal to run for its life.
Inheritance
We cannot change the past, nor can we create the future yet. The only power is in the current moment. We cannot see the future. Every time we worry, we are doing guesswork. It’s not the truth. It’s a guess. This game is going-on since childhood. We observe adults around us and inherit those behaviors because it's a tribal instinct to mimic how other’s live. If your parents chose to laugh through stress, likely it's how you do it as well. If an uncle cribbed and complained in anxiety, then that becomes a blueprint. It’s not the truth. It’s just one of the learned, rehearsed, and familiar responses.
The way forward
Because the learned behaviors feel natural and automatic to us, supplying the positive charge to the situation will feel silly, stupid or unrealistic. The way to know if we are able to handle an event properly is being steady through it. Anxiety leads to sinking. It depletes us and robs us of our abilities by convincing us temporarily that it is important to worry so much. Does anyone manage the problem well through anxiety? Of course not.
Haven’t we all heard — Laughter is the best medicine? Why is that! It’s because it’s loaded with a positive charge. Lemon water does the same. Anulom Vilom (alternate nostril breathing) balances the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Being barefoot on earth helps maintain proper electric potential in the body. Affirmations are words that supply a positive charge.
A lot of people experience anxiety for positive events as well. They feel it will never last, is hard to come by, or can’t fully enjoy it. Once the peak is over, they don’t know when their next high can be experienced. The boredom in between is unbearable. This can even lead to drug-induced euphoria.
Life is rich due to its highs and lows. Getting carried away, however, or being attached to either outcome, brings that much more strain. Knowing that both have their place, makes every day something to look forward to. Life is in this moment. Not what happened two years back, or what email your boss will write tomorrow. Life is alive within you this moment. Where is your present moment hooked? I hope it is in happy grazing.
