Hi,

Seems to me like life has presented you with both a great opportunity and learning experience. Sounds like you’re doing OK because the important thing to me is that you have awareness of how you are holding yourself back, so just keep going and you’ll get through it. I used to be one of the biggest worriers around and can still be highly indecisive.

All worry is a waste of time. All your what ifs are a waste of time. Cast out these ideologies which are not even your own, this quote comes to mind: “A man (or woman) must act as if all else were ephemeral except he” – Emerson. Remember, all these ideas about convention, it’s all made up, none of it is inherently right or wrong, none of it is true. People find it so hard to listen to and honour the truth but it makes life so simple when you do, I’m doing this more and more and it’s great. Listen to your feeling, to your heart, that’s what is true, honour this truth. Yes, honour it, above all other opinion and convention. Also cast out your own ideologies/expectations of how things were meant to be, this just creates suffering.

I really recommend trying meditation. It takes some amount of practice, but if you get into it, it could help you big time. It may help you see through all of your worry, anxiety etc so that it no longer affects you, or at least much less so, in time.

Another thing, I know it may sound stupid and difficult, but stop fighting/pushing away your doubt and anxiety. Do your best just to let it be. The more you try to struggle with it the more energy you give to it. At the same time, try not to get caught up in it, in other words when you find the doubts envelop you do something to occupy yourself, or go for a walk etc. Again, meditation is perhaps the best training to be able to do this. You could try just sitting with your doubts and worries, not getting caught up in them but watching them, being a witness to them only, because it’s just your mind making them up, it’s nothing more than that, they’re not actually real, they just seem so real because most of us are so enslaved by our minds, we believe everything they tell us. Meditation will reveal to you eventually how daft it all is and give you freedom. This is the freedom that the Bible is getting at when it says, “the truth shall set you free”. Imagine also the personal strength and energy that you get when you are able to do this!

Good luck,

Ben.