“There is nothing permanent but change.”
— Heraclitus
One of the biggest causes of anxiety is not knowing.
Here in COVID world, knowing is the very thing we have so little of. You can pick up the paper and see everything changing on a daily basis. There is zero stability, zero ability to predict what may or may not happen.
This is enough to make anyone uneasy – to say the least. To a brain that is already overwhelmed and exhausted, it’s crack cocaine to loop upon, the end result being anxiety and panic and terror.
Wanting to find stability but finding it nowhere. Needing to manage what seems like chaos but finding it so slippery. It’s like those dreams where we know we need to do something but a) we’ve forgotten what it is, and/or b) are constantly thwarted in our attempts to move forward.
It’s like trying to keep your head above water yet feel like someone’s taken out the plug from the swimming pool.
A horrible feeling, no?
So what’s the answer?
The priceless thing – a life skill for any moment in time, regardless of the situation – is the ability to be fluid, to be okay with uncertainty, to find stability in the face of an unknowable future.
To reassure you:
This is a skill.
While it is not something many of us were born with, it is something that can be practiced and developed. Just like a muscle.
But you have to let go of needing to know the future, to have everything settled in a little box.
You need to learn to embrace the only thing you can truly know:
This, here, now. The realness of your presence in this moment amongst all potential futures; the simple fact of your breath coming in and out of your nostrils; the truth and rock-solid nature of your existence, beyond anything that comes and goes.
Find out what you truly know, what you truly can hold to. Make that your anchor as you move forward into the chaos of the unknown.
Anxiety, in part, is spending your attention on things you have zero control over.
Spend your focus on what you do —
Return to what is real.
Go well!
Arjuna