#facing anxiety

[daily-bible-quotes]

Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up.

Proverbs 12:25

[airfare-included]

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful

[livelyyoungheart]

the important thing is that I acquit myself in accord with my own honor, it matters not in anothers thought

[potatoplatypus69]

Confidence Challenge day 12/30 Soooo I always get super anxious whenever I need to go talk to people I don't know. Like ordering takout, asking for help at the store, that kind of stuff... I've been needing get my breaks tightened on my bike for a long time, but the idea of taking it in drives my anxiety crazy. Today I faced it! I took my bike to the station on campus and they helped me out. It took all of like 5 minutes and the world didn't explode!! It was such a small thing, but I faced my anxiety and it all worked out!

[non-stick-raven]

Confronting Non-Being (Anxiety)

"Existence… is indeed at every instant threatened by non-being. Without this awareness of non-being — that is, awareness of threats to one's being by death, anxiety, and the less dramatic but persistent threats of loss of potentialities in conformism — existence is vapid, unreal, and characterized by lack of concrete self-awareness. But with the confronting of non-being, existence takes on vitality and immediacy, and the individual experiences a heightened consciousness of self, world and others around him."

—Rollo May, "The Discovery of Being"

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This quote encapsulates what I learned in reading "The Discovery of Being". It taught me what my underlying, persisting anxiety is about. It showed me why I am so impatient to get out there and do something significant with my life.

You can mis-interperet the last part as to mean actively charging ahead but it isn't at all about that. It is about constantly accepting yourself in the NOW, right this minute. Fulfilling everything you can about your own potentialities in that second. The ultimate mindfulness, really. You might happen to be doing the laundry but you can make that moment vivid with awareness and it is that awareness that proves you are BEING, you are existing to the fullness of your capability. And that's what counts.

When I am able to focus on this practice as a tool, I am much happier with myself. It takes a lot of practice to get it into muscle memory, I am sure. I'm not there yet. I know it can work because in those moments where I've been able to really try, I feel alive. I confront my own death quite often as I am active in hiking and climbing mountains and have had some adrenaline-fueled near-misses in my time. I am in therapy, doing the homework my therapist gives me to look my anxiety in the face and learn to master it instead of it controlling me.

The last one, "loss of potentialities in conformism" - this is saying that you can never fully fulfill your inner potentials that only YOU as a unique individual can attain if you are bowing to social pressures. Being gay comes with pressures. Being an artist who is ditching her design career to paint, which her family worries about - that's a huge laugh in the face of family social pressure. It's very scary to look my loneliness in the face by being MYSELF at the risk of losing people around me.

But I try to remember that the happiest I've been is when I've stayed truest to myself and stayed alive in every moment I can. I'm still healing so I write this as a reminder to myself to keep trying. :)