What is the emotion under my anxiety?

In contemplating this idea, a memory returned. A memory of a song that speaks to how I grok this topic.

The circumstances around a song playing in your life can nail in some special meaning. For me, Chris Rea’s Tell Me There’s a Heaven has an explicitly weird moment in memory.

I’m sitting in a restaurant in Santorini with my two younger children. Somehow, I ended up speaking about people requesting a song at their funeral.

I spoke about Chris Rea’s song, that includes the following lyrics.

Oh every night a baby dies
and every night a momma cries
What makes those men do what they do?
To make that person black and blue.

We are eating our now obligatory fruit, yoghurt and honey, listening to local radio and Greek music as this discussion transpires.

Then… Tell Me There’s a Heaven played on the restaurant’s sound system.

Yes, just a coincidence, if that’s how your belief system works. The experience left an impression on my psyche.

I can listen to the song anytime - many times. I get teary, which is unusual for me.

Here’s a version of it from Chris’s ‘official’ youtube channel.

Dots connected

So what does Anxiety Dropped have to do with Heaven?

Well, the fear of death of course.

My Belief System now holds that… Emotions are thoughts experienced on the body. When we are in the womb, our conscious minds begin forming base emotions that become the foundation for all other emotions.

• That feels good. I’ll seek more of that - Craving
• That feels bad. I’ll push that away - Aversion

See my references to Dr Philip Stokoe in I Dragged Myself Out of Bed and Winners are Losers

The above, including the references, exists in my belief system as:

• All my anxiety is some expression of a fear of death. However, my rational mind realises that death is inevitable and the anxiety doesn’t serve me.

• My non-rational self is more inclined to say “You need not feel fear of death - yet, your anxiety plays some role in keeping you alive, from a certain perspective”.

Lately, I’ve contemplated the need to ‘hold’ certain thoughts and emotions in a certain Frame. Whilst I’ve always known this, it’s become important lately to ‘hold’ these experiences with Gratitude.

I’m not exactly on my Pat Malone here. I think you’ll find plenty of Wisdom that suggests Gratitude as a useful emotional Frame.

Even somewhere as boringly mainstream and rational as Harvard University sees a role for this Giving thanks can make you happier

Lately, I’ve been trying some practices that suggest I’ll receive negative emotional experiences like a Gracious householder receiving a Guest.

The Guest is made Welcome initially. We make it clear that they should feel welcome. We also make it clear that this will be a short-term stay.

I’ve found this useful. I hope you do too.

I see a relationship here to the conclusions in Game Theory in Two Lines of Code, in particular, the last stratagem, being provokable - not letting outside influences ‘take the piss’ so to speak.

A physical practice that supports Anxiety Dropped

A morning ritual that includes some seated meditation and some yoga practice has proved to be a good tonic for even low-level background anxiety.

There isn’t always time for this. When there isn’t time, I’ve found a decent ‘short’ version. This involves touching my forehead on the floor/the ground, even for as little as a minute.

For people that don’t mind the concept of a Goddess

I had enough Catholic brainwashing as a child to still have access to a concept of a deity. In my 40s, whilst pursuing contemplative practices, I was lucky enough to get to know Tim Mansfield and participate in some Centering Prayer training and practice.

At that time, I met a bunch of people through Sydney Integral who, like me, had Christian ‘wiring’ (my term) and had been drawn to other traditions, specifically Buddhist subtle practices.

Centering Prayer allowed me to sit comfortably, observe my thoughts and, with no wish to trivialise, let it all ‘go though to the keeper’. Give it to the Goddess, if you like.

For me, as I’ve come to accept the contents of my Belief System to be almost entirely arbitrary, there’s no harm in asking a Goddess consciousness to be a lightning rod for my fear of death, my anxious thoughts.

Can I keep that up all day long, when Work and Life through Reasons to be Anxious at me? No. To quote the cliche, it’s a practice not a perfect.

And let me add one more aphorism to that. “Don’t just Do Something. Stand There!”

What goes in the Frame?

Soon, I will write about my trip to Acceptance and Surrender, which again is in that category of a Practice.

I’ve found that those two concepts make a great breathing mantra.

Accepting the World as it is with this In Breath…
Surrendering to my mortality as this Out Breath.

If I frame that in Gratitude, it’s a GAS (mnemonically anyway)

Other perspectives about Anxiety Dropped

I know, I know… you’ve had one too many Alan Watts talks recommended to you. You’ve heard he was a bit of a lush or rakehell.

Nevertheless..

This one is worth your time (~8 minutes)