The Wisdom of Anxiety

by Sheryl Paul

  MARION WOODMAN

  Bone: Dying into Life

  When I’m working with people struggling with anxiety, they often ask, “When will the anxiety end?” I tell them, “That’s like asking when will my dehydration headaches end?” Just as headaches alert us to thirst, so anxiety alerts us to needs. If we eliminate the symptoms, how will we determine the needs? As you’ve learned throughout this book, anxiety is a messenger from the unconscious. It invites you to listen to your body, attend to your thoughts skillfully, meet your heart with tenderness, and water your soul. With the shift in mindset from seeing anxiety as a problem to seeing it as a gift, everything changes. Then, and only then, can you begin to harness its wisdom and, paradoxically, be released from its stronghold. When worked with effectively, anxiety transforms from an enemy to a friend, loosens its grip on your life, and becomes a portal to freedom.

  As Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart, and love the questions themselves.” When embarking on inner work, it’s essential to remember that life is a work in progress, and there is no end goal to healing. As humans, we are both whole and broken, formed and unformed. But there is a critical difference between having broken parts that need attention and believing that there is something fundamentally wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. You are intrinsically good, loved, and whole. We all have plenty of defenses and wounds; they’re a sign of being human. But we have so much more that’s healthy and right. Your place of wholeness dwells undisturbed beneath the walls and wounds of your defenses and heartaches. You needed the walls to survive the pain of childhood, even the secondhand pain of absorbing the unattended wounds of loving parents, but you no longer need them. The healing work as adults is to soften the walls slowly and gently, with great love, until they crumble and fall to reveal the untouched garden of the true self.

  Like a labyrinth, you follow the symptoms of anxiety as you spiral into the center point of self, then spiral back out again into the world, and back again into the center of self. Inward and outward, giving and receiving, in-breath and out-breath, filling the waters of the inner well until they overflow into the world, and touching the heart of the world as you continue your inward healing path. This is how we serve from a place of fullness instead of emptiness, from joy instead of obligation. The more our hearts open and soften, the more the hardened husks of protection and defense fall away. With an undefended heart, we’re in direct contact with the pain of the world, and we are compelled to act, to give, and to serve.

  This is the wisdom of anxiety: the call to turn inward so that you can fill your well and turn back outward to give to a world that needs you. The time is now.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m deeply grateful to:

  My teachers in the Jungian depth psychology tradition: Robert Johnson, Marion Woodman, Joseph Campbell, and of course, Carl Jung. I am a vessel of this lineage, and this book would not exist without their teachings. I am also indebted to the Buddhist teachings of Pema Chödrön, who has been a guide for decades.

  I’m particularly grateful to Jungian analyst Robert Johnson for coming to me in a dream in April 2015 to tell me it was time to write another book. His words and wisdom are woven throughout these pages.

  My clients, readers, and course members who have bravely allowed me to enter their inner worlds, where we walk together through the terrain of anxiety and learn to listen to its wisdom. You are my true teachers.

  Carrie Dinow, Jessica Hicks, Lisa Dunn, Lisa Rappaport, Kariane Nemer, Nicol Pate, Sarah Peltzie. I am blessed to be surrounded by a circle of wise and loving sisters, and I would not be who I am without you.

  Dr. Bruce Gregory, who guided me through my twenties, and Rabbi Dr. Tirzah Firestone, who is my guide for life.

  My parents, Margaret Paul and Jordan Paul, who planted the love of learning and the seeds of psychological pursuit in me as a child. I have followed in your footsteps in so many ways, and I’m deeply grateful for everything you’ve modeled and taught me.

  Haven Iverson at Sounds True. Thank you for your vision, your support, and for helping me weave the disparate squares of the first draft into a cohesive quilt.

  My sons, Asher and Everest, radiant beings of light who have taught me everything I know about raising sensitive children. The privilege of being your mother is a gift beyond words.

  My husband, Daev Finn, the foundational stone upon which our life of beauty rests, my safe cove inside of which I can bare my truest self, the one who teaches me every day about real love and real romance. As Shams was to Rumi, you are Friend in every sense of the word.

  And to the mystery of the unconscious, what Gary Zukav calls Soul and what Carl Jung calls the Self. I bow down with humility to this abiding principle, which has dragged me into my own underworld, again and again, to wrestle with angels dark and light so that I could shed the habits, beliefs, mindsets, and actions that no longer served and, in doing so, can help others do the same.

  APPENDIX A

  RELATIONSHIP RED FLAGS

  All my work on relationships and anxiety is predicated on the assumption that you’re in a healthy, loving relationship without red flags. Relationship red flags are:

  •emotional, physical, or sexual abuse currently occurring in the relationship;

  •any addiction, which includes alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, and in some cases work and media;

  •unhealed issues around trust and betrayal;

  •severe issues around control — keeping in mind that everyone has control issues, but what I’m talking about is deep control issues where one person feels consistently trapped or unsafe by the other’s need for control;

  •irreconcilable differences around core values like religion or having children — for example, one of you definitely wants to have kids and the other definitely doesn’t.

  Let me say here — because I’ve been doing this work for so long and I can hear when an anxious spike might arise — that having differences is not a red flag issue! Everyone has differences, and many couples have vast differences about things like how they like to spend their time. You’re not meant to partner with your clone. Differences are to be expected and even valued. But I’m talking about core differences where there is simply no way to compromise without one of you sacrificing a deeply held value.

  If you can identify any of these issues in your relationship, I encourage you both to seek support through counseling and/or twelve-step programs. I will also say that almost all red flag issues can be healed if both people are committed to the healing.

  APPENDIX B

  TWO WAYS TO JOURNAL

  The following are basic guidelines for two types of journaling. These guidelines emerged from my work with clients and course members who sometimes agonize about doing journaling the “right” way or express fear about what they’ll discover when they start to journal. Having simple guidelines can alleviate some of the natural anxiety that arises when we begin a new practice that seeks to excavate the hidden contents of our inner world.

  Also, if the common fear arises that says, “I’m scared of what I’ll find when I start to journal,” keep in mind that from the thousands of people I’ve walked through this process, I see the same things arise: more clarity, more equanimity, more serenity, and of course, more love. It’s a simple equation — less fear equals more love — and when you engage in a daily, committed practice like journaling, you will contain and reduce your fear, which will allow your self-love and your love for others to bloom.

  Open-Ended Journaling

  GUIDELINES FOR OPEN-ENDED JOURNALING

  •Remind yourself before you start that there isn’t a “right” way to journal. Set your intention to explore and learn and stay open. Be curious about your inner world. Talk to yourself the way you wish your parents would have talked to you. Make time to get to know yourself. Curiosity is the key. Try to let go of judgment, but if judgment arrives, become curious about that as well.

/>   •Remind yourself that journaling is just for you, and it doesn’t have to be perfect, pretty, brilliant, witty, or grammatically correct. Nobody will ever see it. It’s not for publication, and it’s not for a grade. It’s only for you. Be as messy and imperfect as possible. Let it all hang out. Don’t censor. Don’t edit. Just express.

  •Ask open-ended questions and trust the answers. Try not to overthink. Write before you have a chance to think too much about the answers. One way to do this is to keep your hand moving.

  •If you’re scared about what you might learn or discover when you start to journal, you’re not alone. It takes courage to dive into uncharted waters, and if journaling is new for you it might feel particularly scary. You may feel resistance, and if that’s the case, I suggest that you start by journaling with the fear and resistance itself. Remember that everything inside of us wants to be seen and heard. When you give attention to the fear and resistance, you will notice that it transforms.

  •If you’re concerned about someone else reading your journal, consider journaling on your computer and then deleting the files immediately. The record of the journaling isn’t as important as having a space to unload and examine the contents of your inner world.

  •If writing isn’t your thing, you can also “journal” out loud by speaking into a recorder or simply speaking aloud in the shower or your car. What matters isn’t the form the journaling takes but that you take time to unload what’s churning inside of you.

  •If you start to feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and feelings — as can happen in this open-ended or stream-of-consciousness type of journaling — shift into the guided journaling technique that I explain next.

  QUESTIONS FOR OPEN-ENDED JOURNALING

  •What do I love?

  •What brings me joy?

  •Whom do I enjoy spending time with?

  •How do I feel about my relationship with my mother/father/siblings?

  •What do I want for my life?

  •What’s my earliest memory?

  •What’s my most painful memory?

  •How did my parents or caregivers respond to my pain?

  •What are the beliefs I absorbed about pain?

  •What’s my happiest memory?

  •What’s my favorite place on earth?

  •What do I value?

  •What are my favorite foods?

  •How do I feel about my body?

  •Do I allow myself time to rest?

  •What are my beliefs about rest?

  Many people like to end their journaling sessions by making a gratitude list, especially if they found themselves in painful territory. It’s not about dismissing your pain but about being able to hold both the pain and the gratitude simultaneously, which means feeling the pain but also orienting toward gratitude.

  Guided Journaling: Dialoguing with the Different Parts of You

  Dialoguing is a simple journaling technique to work with anxiety when it arises, and it’s the main tool I use with my clients and with myself. It’s a journaling technique where you will engage in a dialogue between the different parts of you and learn to move toward them with kindness. Like the stream-of-consciousness journaling, it can be done on paper or out loud, and all of the previous guidelines apply.

  Some people do very well with open-ended journaling, but others feel flooded when they immerse themselves in the stream of consciousness without any rational — or left-brain, inner parent — part of them tempering the flood. In the language of the brain, when you’re writing from your body and spending time in the feeling realm, you’re activating the right hemisphere, the part that lives in the world of raw emotion, images, metaphors, and autobiographical memory. This is a beautiful world, but if you spend too much time there, especially if anxiety is activated, you may feel flooded, and the journaling can be counterproductive.

  Before we dive into the technique, it’s essential to have an overview of the parts of yourself, the different characters that are living inside of you at all times. We each have multiple parts that rear up during different situations. When you understand these parts, you can start to name them and create some separateness; then you decide if it’s a part of you that needs more attention and, if so, what kind of attention.

  In the center is the core Self. This is the essential you: the you that is solid and secure, confident and loving. This is the you that doesn’t care about what other people think, that has a clear sense of purpose and direction, that is able to allow your feelings and thoughts to float through you without attaching onto them. This is the part of you that was born whole without having to prove yourself, that knows that you are worthy and lovable exactly as you are. This is the part of you that carries your intrinsic qualities: your gifts, your interests, your passions, your personality characteristics like kindness or a sense of humor — the part of you that is independent from the transitory nature of externals, like looks or salary.

  Then you have the fear-based ego. This is the part of you that struggles with the transitory nature of being human, that clings to the way things are, resists change, believes that the world isn’t safe and that others aren’t safe, and is committed at all costs to preserving its illusion that it can control others and outcomes. Regardless of how loving our childhood was, we all have an ego self; it’s just part of being human.

  Lastly, we have our different masks or personas that develop as we grow up. Carl Jung understood that we all have parts of our personalities that are like different characters — or archetypes — living inside of us. The more we bring these characters to light — which means bringing them from the unconscious to the conscious — the more we can work with them, bring compassion to them, and make choices regarding how much power we give them.

  Common characters include:

  •the caretaker

  •the protector

  •the chameleon

  •the jealous/envious one

  •the good girl/good boy

  •the bad girl/bad boy

  •the judge

  •the bully

  •the taskmaster

  A lot of these overlap, and most are adaptive and protective parts of you that grew from painful situations as a child. For example, if you grew up in a situation where you were abused or ridiculed every time you cried, a protector developed with a belief system that said, “It’s not safe to cry. It’s not safe to be me. I have to shut down parts of myself in order to survive.”

  When we start to move toward these adaptive parts of ourselves instead of trying to push them away or judge them, we learn that underneath them lives the soft, vulnerable core Self. Sometimes these parts can feel like an inner bully — like a judgmental part that is incessantly critical of everything you do — but when you soften into that part and even approach it with love, it starts to crumble and lose its grip. Inside every bully lives a scared child, and the same is true for the inner bullies. Journaling helps you engage with these different parts of you with curiosity and compassion — a mindset of learning — which helps you to de-fuse from them. Being fused with our wounded inner characters causes anxiety. When we journal, we develop our calm, inner adult who allows us to de-fuse.

  Here’s an example of a fictitious dialogue I wrote for a blog post called, “Am I Meant to Be with My Ex?” in which I explain that the first step in breaking free from this kind of rumination or intrusive thought is to name what’s actually happening. It’s a powerful first step, and when you can repeatedly name your experience with conviction, it’s like casting a powerful spell that breaks the allure of the fantasy. Eckhart Tolle says that the ego thrives on control, which is really the illusion of control. Once you identify the ego’s tactics, it begins to lose its power.

  Ego. “There you go, thinking about your ex again. You had such amazing chemistry, and you dream about him (her) at least once a week. That must mean that you’re meant to be with him (or her).”

  Self. “I know that’s what it feels like, but tha
t’s not actually true. It’s an illusion of my mind, your way to distract me from the risk of the here and now, of opening my heart to my present, available partner. I’m not going to indulge those thoughts anymore.”

  Ego. “That’s crap. Just admit it: you’re still in love with him. You’ll never feel as excited about your partner as you did about your ex. Why do you keep feeding me these ridiculous lines?”

  Self. “It’s you who’s feeding the lines. It’s you who can’t let go. It’s you who is trying to convince me that I don’t really love my partner. I know you’re scared. I know you don’t want me to risk making myself vulnerable. I know that when I think about my ex, I feel safer in some way, sequestering myself in that same, familiar room in my mind. But I’m not going to do that anymore. Instead I want to know what you’re afraid of.”

  Ego. “I told you: I’m not scared! I’m telling you the truth, and if you choose not to listen, you’re going to settle for less than what you deserve.”

  Self. “You sound incredibly convincing, but every time I listen to you, I feel anxious and confused. Listening to you ramble about my ex isn’t serving me. But if you want to tell me what you’re scared of, I’m happy to listen.”

  Fear. “I’m scared that I’ll get hurt. I’m scared I won’t be good enough. I’m scared that once my partner really knows me, he’ll leave. I’m scared to be vulnerable. I’m scared to show him my heart. I’m scared to really, really let him in without having a wall up. I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m scared.”