Weeding for the Mind: Getting to the Root of Anxiety
What can weeding the yard can teach us about handling anxiety?
One of the reasons why positive thinking and affirmations tend
to provide only limited help for reducing our anxiety is because
the problem is not necessarily in our thinking.
We are capable of having many, many thoughts. We believe that
some of our thoughts are true. And we instantly discount other
thoughts as untrue.
It is the thoughts that we believe as truth that drive and
create our experience, that have power inside of us.
It is the thoughts that we believe that manifest themselves in
what we refer to as the experience of anxiety.
Trying to use positive thinking to overpower or to outthink
anxiety is like trying to kill the weeds in our yard by mowing
them down, only to see them immediately grow back the next week.
If we do not pull the weeds out by their roots, from the source
of their growth upward through the soil, they will easily grow
back.
Just as our anxious thoughts and feelings easily sprout back
when we try to mow them over with the power of positive thinking.
The real solution to anxiety lies deeper in the roots of what we
believe.
~Elusive beliefs made tangible~
So realizing that our beliefs are really the source of what we
experience is great. But where do we go from here?
The topic of beliefs sounds so airy, so intangible. What are our
beliefs? Where are our beliefs? And why are they so powerful?
These are huge questions. So we will start today with just one
way of understanding more about our elusive beliefs.
What happens when you try to logically think through your
illogical fears and anxiety?
Does your body keep going through the experience no matter what
logical argument you try to impose on it?
This is frustrating - I know!
Why is it so hard to eliminate these anxious feelings?
Here is one possible explanation. Just like when you are
shopping for clothing, you can try on this idea and see if it
fits!
One way to understand how our beliefs can have a tangible
presence is to look at how our body and brain interact.
Neurologists tell us that we have a logical, rational brain,
referred to as the cortex, where our higher level mental
processing goes on. But this processing is connected to our
muscles, sending the body messages about how to move through the
world, about what actions to take.
And, at the same time, our autonomic nervous system, associated
with our middle brain, is designed to communicate with the body
through our more unconscious functions. So instead of
communicating with our muscles, it communicates with our heart,
eyes and lungs. When we sense danger, this nervous system sends
a message to the heart to pump more quickly to get us out of
danger.
And where are our beliefs associated?
In the autonomic nervous system. In the system designed to get
the body out of danger.
What could this mean?
This could mean that what we believe is automatically and
unconsciously carried out to the body.
Below the level of our higher brain functioning.
And what we believe has a physical presence through our
autonomic nervous system.
And we are not having any conscious say in it!
~Beating a lie detector~
Our beliefs directly and automatically manifest in our physical
body.
That is how lie detector tests work. The machine reads those
unconscious bodily changes between the different statements we
make.
Isn't trying to impose positive thinking on anxious feelings
like trying to beat a lie detector test?
The body follows the mind. And the mind is using the body to
carry out our beliefs.
What can we do?
Obviously, we need to work on changing our beliefs - that lie at
the heart of our autonomic nervous system.
One way to begin doing this: Let's work on strengthening our
ability to act in spite of our internal, automatic reactions.
What (small) interaction can you engage in this week to generate
the automatic, fearful reaction?
Try to recognize the reaction and say, "Oh! That's my autonomic
nervous system expressing my old beliefs!" And see if this new
understanding can give you strength to alter your relationship
with your automatic reactions and to begin to create a new
belief about what is going on in the interaction.
Ask yourself: "Does the interaction feel less threatening? Is
there space to re-interpret what is going here? To create a new
belief about what is true about myself and the other people in
the interaction?"