What is stopping you?

Have you ever wondered why most people ex­pect the worse to happen and why we suffer so much? Dr Robert Anthony believes that suffering is the payoff that we get for being miserable in order to be happy. “Make no mis­take, there is a tremendous payoff in being miserable and having to suffer. Suffering is socially accept­able behaviour. It is even encour­aged. Perhaps your whole belief system is based on that.”

According to Dr Anthony many people go to sleep at night replaying role dialogues about the way a boss is going to fire them, or about the disease that they might get, or about the loved one who is going to leave them. He proffers that the solution is to recognize that we have a choice about turning away from negative anticipation. He is not referring to ignoring problems, because it is important to face the challeng­es that we have today. But if we face them with clarity of mind that is free from negative antic­ipation, we have infinitely more wisdom and energy with which to handle these problems.

Breaking the pattern of worry

The most regrettable aspect of worry is that we have lived through the anticipated event before it ever happens. When the event finally does occur, it is rarely as we anticipated. We have therefore unnecessarily experi­enced it in the worst possible way hour by hour, and day by day. Even when things are good, we worry that they would not last. Or, we create a beautiful relation­ship with another individual and through worry destroy it out of the fear of losing, or we have a marvelous job and we are very successful at it, but we worry until something goes wrong and we lose it.

When you are worried, ask yourself, “Am I worrying constructively? Is this telling me something that needs to be changed? Or, is it out of fear; fear of loss, fear of abandon­ment, fear of rejection, fear of failure, or fear of what may not be in the future? Face your worry and see it as an illusion. It cannot exist unless you give it power and give it life.

Worry really makes no sense at all. So why is it that we tend to believe in the worst? Why do we leap to illogical conclusions to the unlikely negative possibilities? Have you ever noticed that we often say that something is “too good” to be true, but never say that something is “too bad” to be true? This shows, at a deep inner level, that we usually expect the worse.

Worry is a habit that we have picked up through IMITATION. It seems that deep down inside we do not have a fundamental trust that Life supports us. Our bottom-line belief is that Life is out to get us, and if we do not worry, we will be caught off guard.

Put very simply, worry is a choice. You always have the choice to worry or not to worry. Worry comes from the belief that you are powerless. But the truth about you is you are never powerless unless you think you are powerless.

The problem with worry is that we attract the very thing we are trying to avoid. We live a self-ful­filling prophecy. Life keeps its agreement with us through our beliefs, because whatever we think about, we bring about. Life is like a mirror. It reflects back whatever image we present to it.

We always know what to do

Perhaps you are worried because you do not know what to do. Have no fear of not knowing what to do. When you stop resisting the unknown, you will begin to know what to do. Whenever you have a problem or a crisis, look for your own solu­tion. Do not share it with others. You dilute the intensity of a problem by spreading it around, and you dilute your power and understanding necessary to re­move it. Of course, this is exactly what everyone else does. But you no longer want to be confused by everyone else.

There may be times when a problem in business, finances, health or relationships seems like a mountain in comparison to the particle of truth that you presently possess. Do not believe it for one second. Behind that particle of truth is the whole truth. It will reveal itself to you, if you will stay with it.

The next time you find your­self in a perplexing situation, do something entirely different. Notice first of all how your mind seeks anxiously for an answer, or relief, and for reassurance. Now, break this pattern. Simply remain silent and say, “What if I do not need the kind of answer that I assume that I do?” And then stick to that. Do nothing else, and you will be amazed at the new solutions that will be revealed to you through your intuition. When you say, “I do not know what to do,” it usually means you are afraid to make a choice. At a deeper level you do know what to do, but you are afraid of making mistakes or what others will think if you car­ry out your own solutions. “This attempt to escape the problem is the problem.” See the logic of this. When you see that you are the problem – that you are one with the problem and not sepa­rate from the problem, and that you should stop trying to escape the problem – it will be resolved.

Finding the real problem

Do not try to use your mem­ory or past experiences to solve problems. Why? When you try to use what you already know to solve a problem you are using the same logic and reasoning to solve the problem that created the problem in the first place.

When a person says that he or she has a problem, there is usually a deeper problem beneath it. People seldom mention the deeper problem, partly because they are unaware of it and partly because they dislike admitting it. Always look to the deeper prob­lem or to the causative factor.

Never ask, “What can I do about my problem?” In all the history of mankind, no one has ever found the answer to that question, because none exists. Always ask, “What can I do with MYSELF?” This is an honest question and will attract an hon­est answer. The mind becomes panicky when it meets a problem that it cannot solve; and in its anxiety to relieve the tension, it usually turns toward a false solution, which creates another problem. And so we keep going in circles.

There is a way to end it. Do not force a solution. A lot of solutions will be revealed to you. The right one will be revealed to you if you are not in a panic to find a solution. “By shaking a compass, you can make its needle swing around to any number of wrong directions.” When you stop agitating it the needle settles down to point to its true and natural direction. This is a good lesson in problem solving.

We can practice quiet refusal to accept agitation and confusion as normal and necessary. Sup­pose a patient consults a doctor about an illness, and the doctor says, “Very well, I am going to prescribe some medicine for your neighbour.” And the patient replies, “Thank you, I will feel much better.” This absurd logic is played a million times every day in the minds of unconscious people. But few see it. An un­conscious person always thinks that he is going to feel better if someone else changes. But the conscious or wise person realises that medicine can heal the patient only if taken by the patient.

People say that, “He made me unhappy,” or “It is her fault.” But the only way to get rid of the self-punishing illusion is to ponder day and night upon this simple fact: “When you bump your knee against a chair, the pain occurs because of what happened in your knee, not what happened in the chair.”

BY CAPT SAM ADDAIH (RTD)