Stress, Anxiety, Fear and Loneliness
N. Brown
Yes, I have been there.
I have been physically assaulted at a Federal Government Agency for refusing to commit fraud and refusing to accept bribes. I had to run out of the building, while running out, fell down and broke my knee, had to have a knee replacement, something went wrong during the surgery, now, I am almost paralyzed.
My father suddenly died when I was twenty. I got the news while in the exam hall. Being the eldest, I had to support a family of six, paid for their education, paid for their weddings, all out of love. However, none of them even contacts me to say hello, not even to ask, “Hey, how are you, how long are you going to live?” I have spent most of my life savings in this prodigious effort.
I was hired for a job on Monday morning, asked to start immediately because I was found more than qualified, was fired on the Friday of the same week by the boss who was an Englishman, because he hated colored people (Englishmen in general, but not all, hate colored people.)
And a lot more of extremely stressful situations.
We have experienced Stress, Anxiety, Fear and Loneliness at some point in our lives or for many people almost all of their lives without a way out. Indeed, for many of us one or more of these become persistent dwellers in our psyche and control our outlook, actions and pursuits. There may be biological reasons or underlying medical conditions for which medical, psychological or psychiatric help will be needed. This article does not deal with such medical conditions.
I am writing this in the first person singular, solely based on my own experience.
What is anxiety? What is stress?
Before we embark on those topics, let us briefly explore a well-known talked and discussed idea commonly known as, “Free Will.”
Is there such a thing as “Free Will”? We put together the two words, “freedom” and “Will”, and form a new phrase, “Free Will”. Is it logically and psychologically valid? These concerns pertain to epistemology.
What is epistemology in simple terms?
Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It is concerned with the mind’s relation to reality. … It requires considering the different psychological routes to knowledge, including different processes of reasoning — logical and scientific — introspection, perception, memory, testimony and intuition.
Returning to Free Will, it is extensively discussed in: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
I am not going to indulge your time in those philosophical discussions from the ancient to the modern.
In our daily experience, simply put, what is “Will.”?
When do we employ Will?
We have multiple desires, each contradictory with another. These desires reside in our mind. But the mind or the intellect cannot tolerate contradictions. This is immediately evident without much pondering. Ignore the philosophers and their philosophies. They are not sitting next to you and helping you resolve your problems.
Contradictions are stress. Yes, you read that right. Contradictions are stress. No, contradictions don’t cause stress. They are stress.
Stress is psychological pain. The mind’s natural instinct is to get rid of pain in all its manifestations.
Are you still with me?
One way to resolve the stress, tension and pain is to run to a psychiatrist and get a prescription for some kind of tranquilizers. Well, you know that. Then again there is the illegal route. Nowadays, marihuana has become legal in many states. But, understand what these methods do. They suppress your contradictory desires to a point that your pain is minimized, not eliminate, to rear again another time when their effect has worn off, and you are ready to consume more. The cycle begins.
You can practice “Yoga”, sitting cross legged, go for a run, practice mindfulness, etc. Yoga will at least do good for your body. But it won’t eliminate your anxiety or panic — because, after all is said and done, you have to come back to yourself.
The other way is to use your “Will.”
Coming back to the original question, what is will?
We saw our mind is comprised of mutually contradictory desires. Some concrete examples are: Wanting a promotion with the current employer or to seek another job with another employer, comparing yourself with your colleague either in terms of salary, accomplishments, looks, his or her ability to interact and seduce the other gender, and so on and on. You can also compete spiritually in your church or temple — who is more spiritually advanced or less advanced, etc. Your neighbor owns a better car than you, and you want an even better car. You are extremely good at what you do, you have gained the admiration of a lot of people, and here comes a person who refuses to pay obeisance to you, and you panic. You get the drift. You begin to panic, nervous, and begin to lose sleep.
Pretty soon, the whole thing is intolerable. Which one will you pursue?
You choose one, and push it forward with all your might, while the rest of your desires drag you behind with enormous force. This effort, the effort you put forth in pushing or pursuing one against the others dwelling in your mind, is will. Don’t you agree? Ignore all the philosophers. It is your life!
Where is “Freedom” in this?
No, where there is will, there is no freedom.
Where there is freedom, there is no need for will.
If your mind, intellect and heart perceive this simple fact, anxiety and stress drop off.
You should read the above sentence very carefully, yes, very carefully.
There are two words; Perceive, and Drop Off.
To perceive is passive. That is, you merely see and do not act upon what you see. You passively absorb all that you see without any action or reaction without acting upon them.
Is that at all possible?
Our instinctive response is fight or flight, either of which brings us back to square one — where we started — torn by the conflicts in our own mind.
In seeing, there are three entities involved: The seer, the seen, and the act of seeing. Call it the holy trinity. Just stay with it — the three entities. When I mention the word “seen”, I do not refer to a chair or the table in your house or the office. I refer to the mental process that is agitating your mind.
Are the three entities real?
We just saw “the three entities.”
We also mentioned “perception.”
What is perception?
Have you ever gone on a train ride?
Have you looked through the window?
Did you notice a lush field?
Did you notice a barren field?
Did you notice anything?
While such noticing, did it ever happen that at some point you were not aware of yourself at all and there was only that scenery?
Have you been to a park, sat on a bench?
Did you look at a tree without naming it or saying, “Oh, it is just a tree!”?
Has it ever happened that there was just that tree alone, without “you” being there as an observer?
There was only an act of observation, without words, without praise or condemnation.
There was no observer, no observed, only the observation or perception.
That observation or perception was passive, without an act of will. It occurred spontaneously.
That perception or perceiving without the conscious observer or the observed is the true reality without being burdened by the past or speculation about the future.
Can we observe our problems in a similar vein, passively without the observer naming whatever one sees? If it is possible to look at a scenery or a tree, it should be possible to perceive our problems without naming or condemnation.
Did you notice that when you came back to yourself that there were no trinities: You, the tree, and the act of observation? There was only one: perception — a passive observation.
In a similar vein, can we hold one problem in our perception without running away? Don’t say no. You did it with the tree, it happened during your train ride.
If you cannot do the same with even one of your problems, why?
What is interfering?
It is the memory as the past. Memory is the past. Memory is you.
Memory is just a bundle of thoughts residing in our mind.
Without our thoughts, there is no mind.
When you are passive, the mind is not active with all its contradictions.
All our desires are merely thoughts.
Are you asking, “Without our thoughts, don’t we all become vegetables?”
No, you won’t become vegetables!
When you were observing the tree, there were no thoughts acting during that passive observation. Yet you were there. There was only a pure observation.
Have you observed a beautiful sunset without naming it, without saying, how beautiful it is?
Your mind was not interfering with your observation.
A Mutation
If you stay with your observation passively, you will experience a mutation in your mind.
No effort. The entity that makes the effort is your own memory, with all its prejudices, judgements.
That mutation, without any effort, drops your anxiety, stress, and confusion.
Conclusion
We have just gone over how anxiety, stress, and fear drops off without any effort. Indeed, any effort only perpetuates them. We also saw that we are not referring to physical effort, but mental effort.
We are human beings, but have become human “doings.”
We can undo what we did to ourselves.
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