Free Floating Anxiety...

How interesting that July started out with a new “Passion for Life” and is ending up in deep underground pools of free floating anxiety.  I hadn’t realized that these underground pools were still there, waiting to pull me under and nearly drown me.  And it wasn’t the “big event” of the shooting in the movie theatre that triggered it.  No, it was the little things that sent me head long back into contraction… 

The week started off with breaking off a professional relationship with someone when I realized we were not on the same wave length spiritually, nor did we share the same vision - for me. Instead she had her own agenda, and my red flags kicked in to full gear when I realized this was not going to be a beneficial relationship.  It triggered anxiety to intuitively step out and do what was “right” for me.  The old message that it isn’t okay to be “real”/honest/authentic – to say “no” – to pay attention to my intuition and not just follow the path of another – taking on their perspective.  Strangely, stepping out, following my inner Voice, was the trigger for a week long episode of familiar disabling anxiety.

I am aware that this is a deeply engrained, life long, neuronal pathway that is like a constant stimulus in the brain that says, danger, danger, life is dangerous – being who you are is dangerous…  And there is evidently a remembered response of anxiety in the body-mind.  By Tuesday I was beginning to slip away into the pull of its currents.    

“We”, well actually DH decided that it was also time to take our car in for transmission repair the same week that we also had some preventative plumbing issues taken care of…  It was a week of over stimulation, and by Friday I was drowning in the cesspools of anxiety unable to come up for air.  I was paralyzed by what others would consider to be a small series of life events.  I know I was primed for this in childhood.  It has been my modus operandi through life.  But through the mind muck I *was* able to realize that life was really only reflecting back to me the hidden trauma and anxiety that was already there, residing in the underground pools – waiting for me to notice - again. 

It’s interesting to me how some people can go through life barely scathed by life events, not disabled by anxiety, and others, like me, are sensitive to the external stimuli of trying to juggle life... Some are just better jugglers.   Even if I know it is only the mind mechanism at play here – it’s debilitating.  It’s my blind spot, so-to-speak, where I am not fully aware…

It was also interesting to watch how this feeling escalated out of control, even knowing that all I had to do was return my awareness to the ever-present Primal Beingness that holds it all.  It became clear that I was still identified with this anxious, fear mongering mind within – not the Essential Being that we are.  But no amount of meditation, or trying to switch perspectives would allow my mind to ‘let go.’ Believe me, if I could have found the perception switch I would have changed to a different channel!  So I rode the waves, and free floated in the experience of anxiety as treacherous as it felt at times.  And I still feel it creeping up on me, as car issues have not been resolved.  There have been other issues created by messin’ with the transmission that we were not prepared for.  Apparently there is a deeper awareness to be discovered here… No, not about the car.   So I surf the waves once again – free floating – holding on to the life raft of awareness that there is something present here beyond the fear, that is untouched by any life experience.

It is challenging to practice deep acceptance, to keep turning my awareness towards Primordial Presence and remember the Primal Message of life – that there is only Beingness – the vast field of Aware Consciousness - in which all of life occurs – including its anxieties. It is challenging to remember that this Primal Being is at the Heart of every experience of life, no matter how painful.  And to remember that everything that happens in life, and our reaction to it, is to bring us to greater awareness of our True Nature – to wake us up to our True Nature.  Evidently I’m still waking up, expanding awareness *through* the experience of anxiety…

From a non-dual perspective there is *nothing* that can affect this Primal, Essential Beingness that we are.  And yet, the body-mind tells us differently.  Through our beliefs *about* life, and how it should be happening; about how we see our self, or how we believe we should be, and what we identify ourselves with - the mind-identified person - anxiety arises.  Instead, when we identify with the Vastness of Being, it is the life raft that allows us to float on the sea of life… 

Just writing about this has brought perspective again ~ ~ ~ ~