Peacefully Serene

I have a huge collection of Deuter's music.  This piece is breathtakingly beautiful!  This is what "peace" must sound like.

Last night, I went to dinner at Linda and Saul's house.  We ended up talking about the economy in the United States and how hardship makes people more creative (thanks "C" for the idea for this post).  Which reminded me of Simon Schama's video series about artists, especially Vincent Van Gogh.  Mr. Schama posed the idea that Van Gogh's mental hardships changed him and was the energy or catalyst behind his paintings.   The idea is that Van Gogh's paintings were a grounding element in his life and they were fueled by his hardships.  Without his depression/anxiety, he wouldn't have been such an amazing artist.  During Vincent Van Gogh's life he was a failure in almost every sense of the word, from love life to friendships to art sales, and yet he kept working.  Van Gogh could paint a painting in a day.  After all that work, he only sold one painting during his lifetime. To put things into perspective, what is your anxiety fueling?  W...

I love this chant! It is great to focus on something so beautiful. It is an easy way to remove yourself from negative thinking. "Here is one God, truth by name, the creator, without fear, without hate, timeless in form, beyond birth, self existent, known by the grace of the guru."

Part of the problem that many of us face is that we are so critical of ourselves.  We feel intrinsically flawed for being afraid all of the time.  We feel weak.  I know I felt like I was crazy all the time.  The good news is that the fear is changing us, like coal under pressure eventually becomes a diamond.  We are transforming and the only way to end the process is to go through it.  Be gentle with yourself.  Let this play out.  You are a child of the Universe!

Have you given up hope?  Have you gone to every doctor you can find only to be told that you need to try (fill in the blank) and you will get better?  Have you scoured the internet looking for articles about anxiety only to find that you can't find any help?  Is that what you are doing right now?  Have you searched for so long and tried everything and are giving up ever finding a solution?  Well, good! It is when you have given up hope of finding a solution that you realize the problem can't be solved by someone or something else.  If you take medication (in my case, for years) you still have the underlying problem, you are just covering it up.  The fear is still lurking around the corner, waiting for you to stop taking your medications.  You are the problem and the solution.  The problem and the solution are both within you.  In a way, this is a gift.  How many people do you know are overcome by their fears?  Probably a lot....

How many things did I try before I finally gave up?  I probably need to add at this point that I was forced to quit searching outside of myself because I was running out of money!  I went to psychiatrists who prescribed several different medications that were supposed to help me but I eventually became addicted to Xanax.  Wow, getting off of that was tough but it's been more than a year since I have taken any.  I had to have a doctor's help because it was dangerous to go off of it cold-turkey.  I also spent a fortune on books that I just knew would have the answer.  I have boxes of them.  I am not saying that all of the things I tried and all of the doctors I visited didn't help.  What I am saying is that searching outside of myself was giving away my power.  This is a struggle every day.  It feels as if the fear is just at arms length and that I could be overwhelmed again at any moment.  The answer, for me, is allowing it. I have...