QUESTION
Hello Robina, how are you going? I have been as usual very busy with work and can’t believe the year is flying!
I am wondering if you had any advice for curbing anxiety? I find myself rushing from one anxious thought to another and it has left me so highly strung all the time. I worry about my health, my job, my partner, and the list goes on.
I tend to get really bad after interacting with my family – we have a very competitive dynamic and it really affects me. I come away feeling hopeless and like I have not achieved anything in my life. I know it shouldn’t affect me and that I should feel happy for all of their achievements but when I hear about them, I feel less than and just left with an emptiness. I don’t have children so I often feel like I’m competing with my nieces and nephews which is ridiculous!
I feel so guilty and ashamed for feeling this way. It tends to come out in very anxious feelings. That’s why I don’t see a lot of them. It’s so sad! I wish them well and try to be positive but I find it so hard. And my mind becomes obsessive about it.
I try to meditate each day – is there some mantra or something else that might help?
Much love,
A xxx
ANSWER
Dearest, dearest A,
Glad to hear from you!
I think the advice I’ve been giving you for all these years is exactly the advice I’d give you now.
As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, we can “mold our mind into any shape we like.”
To do that, you have to know your mind, know which delusions cause you suffering, know your virtues.
And then practice being your own therapist every day: hearing the various deluded scripts in your head and arguing with them. That’s it. That’s it, A.
So, what’s the script you have to hear and deconstruct and argue with? The attachment — the addiction, the bottomless pit of emotional hunger — to being approved of by others. It’s the deepest attachment, A, primordially deep, far deeper than attachment to external things.
Your ability to do this job — this really is what it means to be a Buddhist — is enhanced by your daily practices of taking refuge, generating compassion, and purification.
It’s step by step and it’s a long-term job.
So, are you doing it, dearest one?
Love to you,
Robina
QUESTION
Thank you, Robina, for these words. I know I have so so much attachment for approval! It drives me still so much and it dictates how I feel most days! I find it hard to argue with the voices in my head and feel okay about myself.
Is it this deep need which drives my anxiety and anxious feelings?
To be honest, I feel quite lost with my practice. I still do my prostrations, take refuge each day and I pray but I am not strict with purification which I know is so important. I do try to have compassion for people in my life. It is a discipline.
Much love to you,
A
ANSWER
A, dear one:
You have to train your mind in new thoughts. It’s really not different if you were training your mind in music. You have to learn new thoughts, quite literally: the theories are thoughts. Then slowly slowly you put them into practice on the piano.
It takes effort. You say “I find it hard to argue with the voice in my head” — yes, it is difficult, but it is doable. Just like learning musical theory is difficult. But you have to persevere. It takes time!
And you have to actually say the new thoughts clearly. It’s training, really! As part of your practice, every morning and every night, you need to go through a list of the various good things that you have and that you have accomplished. The lamas call it “rejoicing” and it’s absolutely not something we do. We’re addicted to saying the negative thoughts.
Another way to put it is you have to learn to be satisfied with what you have and what you have achieved.
The disease we all have, driven by attachment, is dissatisfaction. And we’re born with it.
Yes, of course it’s related to your anxiety. In general, aversion or anger is the response when attachment doesn’t get what it wants, and this is minute by minute. Anxiety is just a variation on that; it’s a more internalized level of aversion.
And this dissatisfaction, this anxiety, makes us selfish, I’m afraid, because we think about ourselves all the time. For example, when you see your siblings with their grown children, instead of using that to criticize yourself, simply delight for them. Be happy for them.
Again, you have to train yourself to think this way.
Another approach is to be more generous, both in material things and in your time. Do things to help others. Literally learn to think about others.
It’s training, A, but you have to actually engage in it. It’s cognitive behavioral therapy — Buddha invented it!
Love to you,
Robina
QUESTION
Robina, thank you so much for this. It’s so helpful. I just need to put it into action and practice. Rejoicing is a really hard one – for myself, for others. The fear can override it. But as you say, I need to work at it and train!
It is really about being satisfied and thankful, and being generous.
I’m starting today!
Much love to you,
A
ANSWER
Good!
As Lama Zopa says, we can mold our mind into any shape we like.
You need to trust that, A. It works!
QUESTION
Thank you so much, Robina!
xxxx