Never accept the lingering presence of any negative state. These unconscious forces must appear within us, but they must never be allowed to define us or our actions. The awakening mind — or even one disposed toward such an end — is fully capable of recognizing the difference between states of darkness and light, between what “serves” and what “steals” the new life stirring within us. Here are a few notes about one of these dark forces that seems to serve, but that steals from whomever it can deceive.

Anxiety is a negative state produced by a divided mind as it rushes to close the gap between these two (self-created) opposing thoughts: where I am right now, and “where” I want to get to, which is the same as what I want “to become,” i.e., at peace, content, safe, etc.

This imagined pleasure of “arriving there,” or in “getting it” done is the secret opposite of the pain born in not wanting to experience what is at hand. Understood properly, what these facts mean is that the only “answer” there is to an anxious state is to not answer it at all…but to see the state for what it is: an illusion.

Do what you are doing; be where you are. Give your full attention to the duty of the moment, and the feeling that “there isn’t enough time” will disappear. The prison and the pain of psychological time dissolves as you withdraw your attention from the divided mind that creates its demands.

 Guy Finley write the "Letting Go" blog on Beliefnet.