Gripped by Anxiety

Last night, I woke around two a.m. and slowly realized I was caught. I often drift into awareness at various points in the night, only to float back into a deeper sleep. In fact, sleeping has been one of my life-long talents. I’ve been told that one afternoon the four-year-old me went missing. After some increasingly frantic searching, I was discovered—peacefully sleeping behind the couch. But that wasn’t last night.

Last night I woke up entangled in the mind of anxiety and fearfulness. It happens to me sometimes, so I’m beginning to know its contours. This mind-state appears first as thoughts about some important issue that needs immediate attention. The thoughts are accompanied by a feeling of unease, sometimes quite subtle, sometimes quite strong. At first, it all appears quite rational – ‘Oh, there’s an issue in my life that needs some attention. I’ll try to figure out what to do about it.’

But looking closer, the thoughts are really quite repetitive. It’s not thinking as much as obsessing. If I turn my attention to something else, that subject too appears as disturbing. But often, the mind refuses to be diverted from its important business of ruminating.

Last night, the great issue I was grappling with as I lay awake in the post-election darkness of a new President appointing men of questionable character to his cabinet, was the bathroom door of our new house. I have come to the firm conclusion that our decision to have it open from the left was incorrect and it should open to from the right. Now, I have to admit that most of the time, this matter is not one of my bigger concerns, but last night I was stuck amid the looming Trump presidency and the ongoing affairs of the Temple and my life. But last night, I was stuck going over and over the urgent issue of the bathroom door.

From time to time, I would escort my attention to the sensation of my breath. For a little while, I would rest there, but my mind would eventually return to the disastrous situation of the door. I also tried doing a ‘body-scan’ — just being aware of the sensations in my body lying in bed. I tried thinking of other things. There was momentary diversion, but the beast in the dark pit of anxiety appeared to have no intention of allowing me to crawl out.

Then, after what felt like a very long time, I realized that I was where I was—caught in the mind of anxious fearfulness and that it was really unpleasant. I remembered that part of geography of this mind-state is the not wanting to be here—the feeling that I must get out. And somehow, realizing that I was simply in mind-state I didn’t want to be in and was feeling things I didn’t want to feel—I was able to relax and struggle just a little less. Then it was morning.

I report all this as part of an ongoing investigation of how to live with the full range of our human experience. Also to illustrate that the political uncertainty and anxiety may express itself in indirect ways—less flexibility of thought, less reserves of patience, more easily upset. This is normal as the line between personal experience and the political landscape is not as clear as we might wish it were.