But when we aren’t successful at pushing it away and sweeping it under the rug, we’ll become more anxious than before: “Oh no, I just can’t get rid of this, and it’s too awful for me to tolerate, and I’m not in control of it, so this is really, really, really awful!!!” Attachment to avoiding anxiety increases the very thing we’re trying to rid ourselves of. Flight to Light perpetuates fear of anything labeled “not-Light”—including our fears themselves.
So the practice of truly transforming our anxiety—turning the unwanted food scraps and garbage (i.e., your worries and stress) into desirable compost and soil (spiritual awakening)—can only happen when we consider that feeling the anxiety (or any other “negative” emotion) might be OK. We increase our tolerance and resilience in the face of it, and we let go of trying to hide or control it. Don’t worry, I have a plan in Part III that will help you be able to do that successfully. You can return yourself to the inner peace that was yours from before you were born.
The Transformational Power of Those “Negative” Emotions
So-called negative emotions, like anger, hate, fear, jealousy, etc., have power in them. If you just gloss over them and run to the positive—the “Light”—you’ll miss a big opportunity, because they are essential for spiritual and personal growth.
Fear brings to our awareness what lies outside of our comfort zone and what we have allowed to have power over us in some way. Anger clarifies what truly matters to us, calls us to set boundaries, and gives us the vital energy to speak up to take necessary action. Any emotion that we might label as “negative” can be understood in this new perspective. Worked with on a conscious level, you can walk through the dark or “Shadow” side, claim the treasures of healing and empowerment, and come out on the other side no longer at the mercy of those feared emotions. That will definitely reduce anxiety and build your courage muscles. I’ll detail how to use anxiety to empower you in Chapter 15, “Empowering Action.”
Rather Than Splitting Off the Dark—Wholeness
Wholeness is essential to the spiritual path and to overcoming our fears, for at the roots of anxiety is trying to split off what we’re frightened of or uncomfortable with inside ourselves. The path of healing and awakening is welcoming it all back in while knowing we are capable of being with it. This takes time and practice with the techniques I share in this book, but it is definitely possible. Rather than chopping ourselves and our experiences of life into acceptable and unacceptable pieces, we learn to love the whole of ourselves unconditionally and to embrace life with whatever appreciation and acceptance we can muster.
In yogic philosophy, two of the five causes of suffering are raga (pronounced RAH-guh), or “attachment,” and dvesha (pronounced DVAY-shuh, with “dvay” rhyming with “bay”), or “aversion.” This is the dance of the Flight to Light and avoiding our Shadows, and it is a source of our afflictions.
Yoga philosophy also gives us a wonderful practice to help us out of these problems with avoiding the dark material. It is known as upeksha (pronounced like oo-PAKE-shuh, rhyming with “take”). This roughly translates as “even-mindedness.” When life is good, we can be happy and appreciate it, but stay even-minded and not become overly attached to it. When life is difficult, or when we encounter situations, people, and aspects of ourselves that we judge as “bad,” negative, or even wicked, we need even-mindedness all the more. It is the ability to step back and see what is without reaction, assumptions, jumping to conclusions, or blaming ourselves or anyone else.
Even-mindedness helps us to accept the unacceptable without condoning it. We can still take action to work with our less-than-desirable selves and help those aspects heal and transform. We may still feel called to help right the wrongs we see done in the world. During our current times, the Shadow may seem to be looming larger than ever. But it’s important not to give in to the fear and run away. Upeksha helps us stay steady and aware without reacting so that we can respond effectively to whatever provokes our worries. We can remain rooted in our inner calm, even in the moments when the dark seems to overtake the light and our anxiety rears its head.
Spiritual Mistake #3 Leaving Your Body
“It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that the ‘I am,’ our real presence, can awaken.”
—G.I. Gurdjieff
Often, a spiritual person may find comfort in out-of-body experiences, spending time up in the head (in thinking, imagining, and visioning), and going to other dimensions or divine realms. I consider all of these some form of leaving your body.
There certainly are benefits, both spiritual and psychological, to leaving the body. It can temporarily relieve some of the anxiety that troubles us, and these experiences can be inspiring and awaken us to transcendent realities. When we’re being creative, whether dancing, painting, singing, or writing, we often tap into other realms and allow them to be expressed through us. Experiencing an altered state of consciousness can be a positive and life-changing experience. Leaving your body, whether literally or in the imagination, can help us to gain perspective to be able to step back from ourselves and see our situation differently.
Dissociation
From the psychological perspective, leaving the body is referred to as dissociation. Much of what I’m talking about isn’t clinical dissociation, though. Many of us experience a bit of dissociation. The Sidran Institute, an organization dedicated to helping people understand, manage, and treat trauma and dissociation, defines dissociation as “a mental process that creates a disconnection between a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of who he or she is.” Daydreaming, becoming lost in a book or a movie, or driving down the highway and realizing we have lost awareness of what we passed are all examples of mild, common dissociation.
Dissociation often kicks in when we’re faced with trauma or situations that cause us great anxiety. In the moment, just as in a car accident, it can assist us in dealing with a frightening, painful, shocking event so that we can get to safety or get medical care for our injuries. It’s a defense mechanism to help us get through situations in which panic would likely reduce our chances for survival.
If we were abused as children, or even at other times in our adulthood, we may have employed dissociation in order to survive through those traumatizing times. It may have felt unsafe to be in the body, and dissociation, to some degree, may have become our go-to defense mechanism. Then as we grow up, we might begin to employ dissociation any time we’re faced with something uncomfortable. This can become an unhealthy pattern.
Enter Out-of-Body Experiences
If we have found dissociation to ease our fears and distance ourselves from them (another subtle method of Flight to Light), discovering that many spiritual practices encourage some form of leaving the body or spending time in visualization can seem like a boon. Hooray, I can spend more time in some beautiful, transcendent experience and out of this painful, frightening world and body! We may feel we’ve found paradise in the spiritual realm.
However, if we are habitually depending on leaving our body in order to deal with stress, anxiety, and upset, we move into the realm of unhealthy dissociation. In the long term, this is likely to increase anxiety.
Nobody Home!
Here’s why leaving your body backfires as a way of deflecting anxiety. Think about a young child, maybe a toddler. Toddlers need to stay very close to their primary caretakers (usually, but not always, their mothers) in order to feel safe. They may test the waters and walk away a bit, but they always want to be nearby so they can come back to their mothers and receive physical contact and the reassurance that they are safe.
Imagine what would happen if you left a toddler alone in the house for fifteen minutes or an hour. How would they respond? They’d likely