The Anxiety Addiction

Anxiety becomes an addiction when we use it to reassure ourselves that we are doing everything we can to be safe and comfortable. “I can only control what I can” becomes “And I’ll worry about the rest.” Anxiety is a motivator, it gets us to move in response to our thoughts of lack. “If I don’t prepare myself, how will I ever get a good job?” We learn skills and acquire certificates of competency and then we are acceptable. Suddenly the arena is no longer what I do but who and how I am. And life becomes an endless struggle. With each accomplishment, I become more OK. But the anxiety never diminishes. In fact, with each hurdle jumped, it increases. What’s next? How can I make a bigger goal materialize? What do I need to do to increase and prolong my success?
After decades on this treadmill, we tire. We may question our belief in lack. “Does life work because I push it? How come some people receive huge rewards in their early 20s without much effort when I knock myself out and still I’m not satisfied? I’m such a good worker but I can’t get through an invisible ceiling and I’m frustrated and ANGRY.”
If we believe we earn what we receive by the sweat of our brows only, we’ll cry “Unfair” when we don’t win the big prize for which we have worked diligently. Apparently another factor is involved. One that is subtle. One that lives inside our heads. A scrim that our eyes look through but don’t see. We have assumptions about How Life Is and How I Am but we don’t even know what these assumptions are. We have beliefs that severely limit our experience and we don’t know that we are the ones who choose mediocrity for ourselves.
Common wisdom would tell us, “Only a few can be great. Most of us are ordinary.” But if we examine life by its rules and not our mind’s, we notice something different. Our mind values control and hard work and discipline. Life outside us reflects our mind’s life. What I believe to be true in my mind will take form in the world around me. In the Catholic Church I learned to say, “I am not worthy.” I manifested folks who would verbalize the same for me. That felt right. I believed life is a struggle and there is virtue in struggling without reward. Outer circumstances aligned to provide me with opportunities to struggle. As long as I didn’t step back and look at the light I was shining on the situation from my thoughts, I could feel like a virtuous martyr.
But repetitive victim experiences tell me that I am choosing that and somehow benefitting. I’m not struggling for God nor for the polish on my soul but simply to make true my mind’s erroneous belief that I should suffer and struggle. In grade school the good Sisters told me (or did I misunderstand?) that life on earth was for suffering to make up for our sins so that when we die we can go to heaven without delay in purgatory. My former classmates and I now laugh at the scary beliefs we developed from catechism class, but something seeped into the marrow of my bones and I still trip on a too easy acceptance of limitation.
My experience is that when I am “in the flow” doors open. Life welcomes me when I affirm myself. When I recognize Spirit in me and rejoice, Life applauds. When I share myself without comment or fear or need for any response, Life receives me. When I trust, I am given what I need.
Not so when I struggle. Anxious struggling offers my Controller comfort that her belief in limitation is correct because “see how I struggle and still there’s no reward?” But when I depose the Controller, I no longer need anxiety and I can open to experience Life. And really all it takes is being present and a willingness to be vulnerable. Not doing. Definitely not struggling. Just being and breathing and waiting and noticing. No need for anxiety in that! Just trust and acceptance–two qualities no Controller can provide.

God's Little Box

Isn’t it funny how we try to be strong and impervious to life’s challenges? We must distance ourselves from our vulnerability (read: feelings) and pretend we can handle it, whatever today’s “it” happens to be. We want to look “together” so we cut off our vulnerability. Is that nuts?! We hate our vulnerability and, yet, that is the only way to God. Our minds with all their intellectualizing don’t need God, our hearts do. It’s only when we are broken that we allow God to show us another way. When we are broken and down on our knees and blinded by our tears and humbled by our failed efforts, we are ready to listen. Finally, we acknowledge we can’t do it on our own. We long for wholeness and peace and we know we can’t effect either by our will. Addiction is a good model for this process. We substitute something—alcohol, drugs, work, exercise, TV, food, success—when we long. We want to fill a hole inside us and we hope these means will suffice. But they never do. And by the time we’re addicted we can’t tolerate the longing. But the longing is our recognition that something essential is missing in our lives. Thus, longing is the first step to knowing God. But how many of us permit ourselves to long? It’s so not cool. But cocaine looks cool and cigarette smoking looks cool and sipping brandy looks cool. Longing for God is not cool. It’s desperate and confusing and humbling. But it’s the essential basic step for all humans to acknowledge that missing piece. We need God but we look for drugs. We want wholeness but we choose division in ourselves. We long but we look outside us for something/someone to satisfy us. We lose something of our fabricated selves to experience wholeness. What is that? It’s not integrity. We lose integrity when we choose a God substitute. On a conscious level we say we want to experience our oneness with God, but unconsciously we fear it. Truly, we can’t handle it--it’s overwhelming and unlimited. Easier to stick with alcohol or work. They don’t completely satisfy but they don’t threaten our integrity, except that they destroy our integrity. Wholeness without God is impossible and wholeness with a strong sense of individuality is inauthentic. When we demand the real thing, when we insist—“Give me your blessing”—we stay true to ourselves. Wrestling with the angel all night to garner a blessing—that is a spiritual experience. We stay true to ourselves, we don’t deny any part of us, we don’t walk away alone, we don’t pretend. We insist on a blessing. Not a reward for specific action but a recognition that we are God. We demand our blessing and we won’t go away without it. And that’s when we let God out of the box. When we take responsibility for acknowledging God in us each second and we allow God to be God in our lives.