Managing Anxiety
Using the Power of Now
It is impossible to affect the past or the future through worrying in the present moment. Being focused in present time means that thoughts are not directing an emotional response to events in the past or the future, in the now there is time to stop and be aware of the present situation.
Everybody has the power to respond to situations in a calm and rational way. Problems dissolve when they are being dealt with. “Problems are mind-made and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of the Now.” says Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now.
Become Aware of Breathing
Living in the present moment is being aware of the breath, the position the body is in, feeling the feet on the ground. How the air feels on and around the body and the temperature – feeling hot or cold. When connecting with the senses of touch, visual, auditory, taste and smell, thoughts are reined in and attention is brought away from thoughts and therefore anxiety diminishes.
Being conscious of breathing is an effective way of being in the body. “Follow the breath with your attention as it moves in and out of your body. Breathe into the body and feel your abdomen expanding and contracting slightly with each inhalation and exhalation...Close your eyes and see yourself surrounded by light or immersed in a luminous substance – a sea of consciousness.
"Then breathe in that light. Feel that luminous substance filing up your body and making it luminous also. Then gradually focus more on the feeling. You are now in your body. Don’t get attached to any visual image.”
Using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to Help Ease Anxiety
When experiencing anxiety or panic attacks, it is thoughts that are racing and creating an overwhelming state of emotions. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy helps to ease the state of anxiety by using practical measures, such as a diary to record the ratio of feeling to a reaction of an event, and breathing exercises, or exercises to bring the awareness back to the body.
Here is a simple exercise that can help ease a condition of anxiety or panic attack by bringing the attention into the awareness of the present moment.
- Name five things that can be seen – (such as the trees if outside)
- Name five sounds that can be heard
- Name five things that can be felt (such as the hands on the lap)anxiety and deep depressed conditions,
- Name four things that can be seen
- Name four sounds
- Name four feelings
- Repeat the exercise with three, two and one, each time naming new things, sounds and feelings.
Using the Power of Now to Change a State of Mind
Eckhart Tolle is a contemporary spiritual teacher and author. During his life he suffered with anxiety and deep depressed conditions, until one morning during a battle with himself he encountered a profound experience that eased his intense suffering. He discovered later that in his intense pressure of suffering he forced his “consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind.”
In his book The Power of Now, he says that it is the thoughts that control the here and now and they are the illusions that govern people’s existence. Tolle once said, “To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted within yourself; otherwise the mind, which has incredible momentum, will drag you along like a wild river.”
Source:
- The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle (2006).
Nature's Gift is in the Present Moment
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