On Anxiety and Meditation
“They lose the day in expectation of the night,
and the night in fear of the dawn”
– Seneca
[The citation is from the book Letters from a Stoic]
It wouldn't be a proper way to start this post without talking about in my opinion the greatest thinker of all time; Seneca. I am in fact citing him for the first time. And I am trying to teach as many people as I can about the stoic philosophy. This man has arguably given some of the greatest lessons in everyday life. From being a slave to money and taking care of yourself, to living in the current moment. In the now.
Born in wealth. Became a prolific orator and was destined to become the head of the Roman Empire. Until his exile that is. Exiled because of jealousy and fear. The Roman emperor Caligula ordered Seneca to commit suicide (Yep, you read that right, that was a thing back then). The only reason Seneca survived was because he became ill and Caligula was told he would die anyway. But Seneca continued on his bad luck roll even when the new emperor Claudius came into power. The senate ordered the death of Seneca after he was accused of adultery. After which he spent eight years living in exile on the Island of Corsica. He later became a tutor to a son of a powerful roman woman and the advisor to the emperor Nero. How? well through his teachings. He obviously took his time on the island. Reflected on his life and extrapolated lessons from it.
And his lessons lived through millennia and got here to us. His book, Letters from a Stoic, it changed my life. Taught me so much about controlling anger, loving everybody and making everything that happens to me into a lesson.
So why did I select this quote for the first post about Seneca? Because it's short, straight to the point and packs a big powerful punch to your life. Just like you and many other people today. I used to get very anxious about every event in my life. My thoughts were occupied and my mind was anxious the whole day if I had something planned later that day or the day after. The whole day I would be grumpy, stressed and unmotivated to do anything until that planned moment passed.
This quote, and his whole book really. Opened my eyes to change. And it wasn't until I started meditating and getting further into philosophy when this bad habit started to weaken and almost disappear. So let me tell you what I did to get rid of this nuisance. There are a few methods I used while meditating. I started with the regular breathing meditation where you focus on every breath you take. Trying to clear your mind every time a thought comes. What many people get wrong in this meditation is that they let themselves get irritated and angry at their thoughts and that only worsens the problem. You have to observe your thoughts, not get angry at them. Then slowly let your thoughts go, focusing back on your breathing. Start small. Don't go into an hour of meditation on your first day. You will only realize how slowly time passes because your mind is not used to this. You'll get scared and give up. Start with FIVE minutes, add one minute to your total every day. For instance on Monday meditate for FIVE minutes, on Tuesday for SIX minutes, on Wednesday for SEVEN minutes and so on. And don't give up.
But my favorite meditation is the itching meditation. The whole point is to focus on every itch on your body while you are sitting still. Trying not to scratch yourself. Observing every itch spot from when it starts to when it goes away. You might think. Well, that's easy. Let me tell you. It's not. There will be small, easy itches. And there will be those where you almost want to jump out of your skin how strong and irritating they are. Those are the ones you are waiting for. This meditation really helped me with my discipline and sticking by even when it get's hard in life. It helped my with my procrastination. With my patience with people, and with controlling my anger. And it will help you too.
Try it and stick by it. It won't make the problem disappear, but it will be a lot easier to cope with it. You will have an easier time relieving your anxious moments. Trying something may not solve your problems, I won't guarantee it will work for you, but trying nothing does guarantee that nothing will change.
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