Anxiety

"Anxiety is the gap between the now and the later."

-- Fritz Perls

The next moment is arriving even as I write this. And the next and the next. Now is always becoming another now. There are no gaps in reality. The only gaps are in our thinking.

Anxiety doesn't exist in nature. The squirrel doesn't awaken in the morning all worried and anxious about whether he can still find those dam nuts he hid way last fall. Anxiety only exists between our ears. But since it's taken up residence in the old Cranium Cottage, why not use it in a positive way? Look straight into the face of your anxiety and find out exactly what it is you are anxious about.

If it's something over which you have at least some control or influence, like your grade on an upcoming exam, then use the anxiety to motivate you to get your ass in gear and study! In all similar situations, use anxiety as a wake-up call. Whatever you do, don't just hang out with anxiety, feed it a big fat diet of mental energy and do nothing. Don't allow it to paralyze you.

But what if you're anxious about something that is inevitable, like, say, death? Like it or not, the old Grim Reaper is going to pay you a visit someday. You live, you die -- what's there to be anxious about?

But even though you can't avoid death altogether, you can do your damndest to forestall him! Exercising, eating a healthy diet, not smoking, drinking only in moderation, and not doing any of those stupid things they tried in the movie Jackass, are all within your control, and can possibly put your appointment with Dr. D off to a much later date.

And if you're anxious about what's going to happen after you die, you can clean up your act post haste, or change your beliefs, or read accounts from people who were declared legally dead but then came back to life, or meditate, or... In other words, there are always things that you can do to lessen your anxiety, even when the end result is both inevitable & unknown.

When anxiety rears its less-than-pretty head, there are at least four major strategies from which to choose. You can do something to lessen the anxiety, distract yourself from it and let it die from neglect, deconstruct it, or surrender it up to a Higher Power.

So, today, do an Anxiety Audit. Are you anxious about anything? If not, take the day off and go have a beer. Or two. But if you find that anxiety is present anywhere in your convoluted psyche, apply one of the four major strategies to it, or, even cooler, invent a strategy of your own! Don't hang out in the mental gap between the present and the future and play dysfunctional games with the devious Mr. A. Just do something, anything. Now.