217. Anxiety And Attention

An intense feeling of anxiety can be overwhelming. It can become almost impossible for me to remain present and attentive to what I must do in the moment when I am totally consumed by worry.

To eliminate my anxiety, I need to see the attachment that is producing it and loosen myself from it. But when I’m burdened by the immense weight of the feeling, it can be incredibly difficult to do this effectively. I’m forced to contend with the feeling, which is merely a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself.

My first impulse is to react to the feeling. I want to do whatever will remove the unease and apprehension I’m feeling as quickly as possible. I might turn to some form of distraction, something that will absorb my attention so that I’m not able to think any further about my worry. Of course, this doesn’t help me do what I need to do. But my inclination to escape through distraction does contain valuable information: I need to shift my attention in order for the feeling to weaken.

One way to do this is surprisingly to look directly at the feeling itself. Rather than attempting to escape, I focus all of my attention on it. I’m not looking at the thoughts surrounding it, but at the anxious feeling itself. The purpose of this is to allow myself to notice the scale and extent of the feeling. When I’m overwhelmed, my anxiety feels huge and vast. But when I focus on it, it quickly shrinks into something smaller than before.

Another way to shift my attention is to draw it towards the body. Stretching, altering my posture, or even just scratching my head can help with this. The point is to pull my attention out of the dominating feeling of anxiety and back into the world. Part of being overwhelmed by such a powerful feeling is that I shrink into the narrowness of the self, and shifting my attention to the physical reality of my own body can help to counteract that.

These techniques can only provide temporary relief. I must remember that I’m not actually resolving my anxiety through them, I’m just giving myself enough room to function so that I can have a chance to properly address the source of the problem. More lasting relief will only come from loosening the attachments that are causing me to suffer from anxiety in the first place.