Control Equals Fear

It’s not that we should ‘do something about fear’ so as to show that we’re not afraid of it (or – if we can – vanquish it entirely) but rather that the helpful thing to do is to do nothing about it, nothing at all….

Anxiety Comes Out Of Denial

There can’t ever be such a thing as ‘a method to stop worrying’ and there’s a very simple reason for this – the universe, in essence, is composed of nothing but pure electric uncertainty with no solid, ‘reliable’ basis whatsoever. This is physics, not metaphysics…

Joined Up Thinking

Out of fear we try to make everything happen the right way, but fear also ensures that this can never happen. Out of fear comes control and control falsifies everything. Control distorts reality itself. Control can never do anything else apart from falsifying reality. That…

The ‘Jinxed Task’

The thinking mind is ‘a machine for turning a profit’. It is there for solving problems, in other words. This is very useful at the same time as being (potentially) highly dangerous; it’s dangerous because unless there’s oversight with regard to the operation of this…

Being Addicted to The Special Experience

We’re all addicted to the ‘special experience’ that the system of thought provides us with – that very special experience which we take for granted every day of our life. This is the experience of ‘being whoever it is that we happen to think we…

Anxiety Can’t Be ‘Managed’

Mark Twain is sometimes quoted as saying ‘worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe’. This just isn’t so however – if this were true then we would be able to stop worrying quite easily and we absolutely can’t. If this were true then…

We Can’t Hang Out’ On Purpose

One of the basic ideas in all anxiety management classes (and ‘anxiety management’ is not actually a very nice term) is that of challenging the avoidance of situations that provoke anxiety in us. This is fine as a far as it goes but we need…

Using Anxiety as a ‘Cue’

Anxiety is never about what it appears to be about – this is fairly obvious since what we are anxious about doesn’t generally warrant the worry that it is evoking in us. If the situation that we are anxious about did warrant the degree of…

Making Peace With Anxiety

There are two ways of approaching anxiety – one way is to approach it with a whole bunch of tools and methods and ‘skills’ (which is of course the aggressive way) whilst the other way is with gentleness and tolerance, and no attempted ‘forcing’.  The…

Strategizing Causes Anxiety

There are no effective (long-term) strategies for anxiety. If we can’t understand the truth of this simple statement then – very clearly – we just don’t understand anxiety! If we can’t understand that strategies and techniques and ‘tools’ aren’t the way to go then this…