Sometimes several “incidents” happen around the same time, and by themselves perhaps each one would be manageable, but all together the anxiety provoked creates….well….
….Mass Anxiety.
My kid is in Geometry tutoring. For the first time in her life, I hear her say things like this:
“OMG, I get what Mr. Teacher was saying in Algebra last year….WOW, I’m going to know Geometry better than most of my friends….Mom, my junior year is going to be awesome.”
We add up the tutoring bill and discover funding for it is not possible the way we planned. We’re switching summer education plans as of today. She’s very upset.
Then….my hamstring injury starts hurting again for what seems like no apparent reason. I didn’t even push it too hard, I’ve been taking it easy. I finally take pain relievers, and nothing happens. I take two more. Barely touches it. Back hurts, neck hurts, achilles hurts, foot hurts. All on the right side. That right side is seriously a *$*%@ problem.
Three clients all report that even though they’ve been in The Work for awhile, catching their thoughts and questioning them, they felt like sh*t this weekend.
A few more inquirers who read Grace Notes write to me and say the same thing.
“My life is too overwhelming, my thoughts are too overwhelming, I can’t find solid ground…..maybe inquiry doesn’t work.”
Two really, really good close friends of mine get surprise shocking news about someone they love and they feel slammed to the ground, crushed by the universe, and very, very sad.
My communications with others, even brand new friends, seem like there’s not enough time, or something was off or confusing. She thought I was free all morning (but I was only free an hour). He thought I was calling him before the end of the day and I thought he was calling me. I blanked out completely on my Sunday morning session with a client.
Shut down everything! I QUIT! I GIVE UP! FORGET IT!
These events all float through the mind and feelings close in like walls coming closer and closer, squeezing and suffocating you practically to death.
Well….that may be a little dramatic, but sometimes not really.
Yesterday a group got together on the phone, a follow up call for everyone who attended the Breitenbush retreat last month.
We found an underlying thought to question: it is too much.
Whether it’s mind, my thinking, my negativity, that person, my loss, this challenge, her personality, my job, this problem….it’s simply too much.
Let’s take a look.
Hold all those bubbles of people, issues, scenes, situations, dilemmas, concerns in your mind. It doesn’t matter which ones. It may look like a fog bank, the weight of the world, blackness.
How do you react when you believe it’s too much?
Hopeless, shut down, screaming inside, full of rage, like crying and crying. Can’t take it anymore.
One big NO.
Sleepless hours, perseverating, analyzing….doomed feelings.
Pause. Deep breath.
Who would you be without the belief that it’s too much? Look around your environment. Start where you are right now.
Alive and breathing–check.
Heart beating–check.
Ground beneath my feet–check.
Bed to lie in, chair to sit on–check.
Something different here, besides all the thoughts and emotions colliding together in chaos.
A stillness. Can you feel it? Can you slow down enough to give yourself this peace, just for a second?
Can you notice how life is pulsing here, no matter how terrible your mind thinks it is?
“Instead of going through your life reacting to the content of your life…become aware of the now, beyond the phenomena that arises in it. What does that mean, to become aware of the now itself? You become aware of an undercurrent of stillness in which everything happens. You sense it. Even that’s not quite correct…. You realize that you ARE it. And then it’s so easy once you realize you are that deep undercurrent of stillness. The world is no longer problematic. That moment you know yourself to be that, whatever content is here, including the story of “me”, is no longer problematic.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Turn the thought around: I am too much, not “it” and all the situations, people, conversations, mistakes, things that were off, problems, events.
My thinking is taking it very seriously. My thoughts are overwhelming.
And I am more than all my thinking combined…..one thousand billion trillion times more…I am far too much for this minute problem, I am beyond mental noise and fears, I am quiet, I am love.
Could that be just as true, or truer?
“Let your self be one with something beyond it….I could see peace instead of this….there is nothing to fear.” ~ A Course In Miracles
Much love, Grace
The smell was not going away.