PATIENCE, THE KEY TO SYNCHRONICITY
Learning to work with anxiety is an important practice for anyone trying to maintain mindful balance in their lives. How often are we thrown off-course in life due to reacting unmindfully when prompted by our fear. Something feels wrong, and before we can look into what that may be, we spring forward as if to escape the discomfort. I can’t count the times I have made missteps in my life by lurching blindly.
The alternative is to breath out and take a moment to break the blind momentum. Learning to live mindfully requires this application of patience.
Anxiety prompts us to move. And although we register being anxious as a problem, anxiety is natural to anyone with a nervous system. It’s the inflammation of our largely unseen neurological system. In spiritual and wellness traditions this energy system is seen as our lifeforce. Whether we call it “prana”, “Chi” or “Windhorse” this lifeforce is how we feel. Although it holds sway over a good portion of our experience, it remains a silent partner to our consciousness. When we are in balance that life force flows evenly, buoying our spirits. But when the lifeforce is impeded or provoked in a defensive response, we feel uncomfortable. Anxiety has a triggering effect that causes programmed places in the body to seize up and grip in a neurological reaction. This is interpreted as signaling danger. These places of gripping in the body distort the flow of our lifeforce, which in turn, channels our thinking and wellbeing. Anxiety registering in the body triggers what Jon Kabat-Zinn referred to as catastrophic thinking. We go immediately to the “nuclear options” of fight, flight, or freeze.
This unease might register with a tapping of the foot or a clicking of the pen. But before we know it, we are moving. As if trying to shed this reactive skin we need to run, drink, eat, dance or lash out against someone we love. We are barking at the shadows in our mind in blind attempts to free ourselves. Anxiety moves us more surely than any inspiration or aspiration. Yet, the blindness of reaction means that we are not mindful of this movement. So, we often jump further into the fire.
Meditation practice works to calm the nervous system. In time, consistent daily practice will create a buffering space between impulse and action – and specifically between anxiety and reaction. We can train ourselves to feel uneasy and not react in animal action but to pause, just a moment, in order to allow our higher functioning to inform the process. We allow ourselves to feel uneasy long enough to make a beneficial decision.
Buddhist teachings refer to the paramita of Patience as an important practice in allowing us to develop mindfulness. But in our culture, we place a moral spin on this otherwise practical tool. We mistake the tool of patience for resignation as we ‘grin and bear it’. However, in Buddhist Paramita Practice Patience is seen as a pause in our reactic=ve momentum that leads to greater tolerance, understanding and offers us a fresh start free of habitual reactions. Rather than reacting, we are responding. And if our view is to develop mindful awareness in our life, anxiety can be seen as a prompt to take a beat and see what is actually happening. In this case, employing the breath to calm the nervous system is a very simple but effective tool. When in the throes of a panic reaction, the idea of taking a beat, or taking a breath seems innocuous. When we are in an anxiety state we mistake our panic for reality. And we become very important to ourselves. This brings about the catastrophic thinking Kabat-Zinn referred to. The more important we feel our problems are, the more important we seem to become. Ironically, this disconnects us from ourselves as our mind and body become desynchronized and we enter a very impacted state of being.
Yet, the remedy is simple. We ignore our inflammed ego and simply pause and connect to the experience of our breathing. Our breathing is largely happening in the body and our awareness will allow the nervous reaction to settle. As the body relaxes it releases some of its gripping tension and the mind can rest in the present where it can do its best, most effective work. In meditation parlance, this is called synchronizing mind and body. And when mind and body are in synch, our lifeforce returns to balance and flow. We are synchronizing with our life in the present. Rather than agitating our life by reacting to anxiety, we are accepting the anxiety with patience and responding to life accurately.
The practice of meditation is the basic template for developing the patience that leads to a mindful understanding of ourselves that is deeper than the reactive worlds we inhabit when fueled by anxiety. In this way, when we sit like a Buddha we are learning to wake up.