- This topic has 2 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 5 years ago by
Peter.
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October 30, 2019 at 3:11 am #320501
AngelParticipantHi,
I’m a 20 year old girl and I’m currently very anxious. I’m not 100% sure why my heart decided to kick in this morning but I believe it’s due to the fact that I’ve been thinking about how lost I am these past few days. I’m very unhappy, borderline depressed even though I don’t like to admit it. I find it difficult to remember the last time that I was happy. This causes me to become anxious because I feel like I’m wasting my life away. I feel like I’m waiting for life to be this perfect scenario in my head and then I tell myself I’ll be happy then but this scenario in my head is very unrealistic and I just become more and more anxious the older I get because I fear I may never reach it. I want to be happy in the moment but my mind won’t let me and it scares me that I’ll continue to waste my life away. How do I stay happy in the moment? How do I stop being anxious about the future?
October 30, 2019 at 7:03 am #320519
AnonymousGuestDear Angel:
“I feel like I’m waiting for live to be this perfect scenario in my head and then I tell myself I’ll be happy”- lots and lots of millions of people have done just that throughout history- this is what heaven is about, or paradise earth, a “perfect scenario” imagined by people, and when that perfect scenario happens- the thinking goes- then I will be happy.
So how does one become happy in the very imperfect scenario of real life?
Based on your two threads, my answer is this:
1. Stop wanting “to be better than everyone else”- instead realize you are already good, already good enough.
2. “I want to be better than.. and I want people to recognize it”- figure out who in your home of origin, where you might still be living at 20, did not and does not recognize yet that you are indeed good enough, and if you choose to- share about it here and I will reply further.
anita
October 30, 2019 at 11:20 am #320581
PeterParticipantHi Angel
So Much of our anxiety is created not by what does or does not happen to us but by our thoughts on how we view the past and imagine the future. Nothing chases away the opportunity for the experience of happiness then paying to attaching our sense of self to our memories and fears of the future. Identifying ourselves with these thoughts will most assuredly take us out of the present. The possibility of the experience of happiness lies in the present. Seeking it in the past and what might be works against us. (Happiness isn’t something we create but something we experience. These moments can occur taking out the garbage or curing cancer.)
“The car goes where the eyes go” without awareness the eyes tend to focus on our fears, and doing so that is what we crash into. Mindfulness and meditation may help.
In Mindfulness you learn to notice when your eyes/thoughts are focused on the past and or future and how your sense of self is being influenced by that focus. Ask yourself if you notice feeling bad about feeling bad. That would be an indication that you have attached your sense of self to how you feel. Try not to judge or label yourself for doing that. The practice is to notice. Eventually you may notice you can experience your feelings and thoughts about your feelings without “being” your thoughts and feelings.
In Meditation you learn how to detach yourself from thoughts and emotion. You are not your memories, you are not your future, you are not your feelings, you are not your thoughts. There are thoughts, there are feelings, there are experiences… You are not that.
The “quite mind” is not a mind that stops chattering, but a way of being that does not attach identity and or sense of self to the chatter. Your mind is doing what it was designed to do, you are not your mind….
Best wishes
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