Anxiety has a large extended family. Anger and depression are its siblings. Loneliness, disconnection and unworthiness are cousins on one side of the family and blame, shame and guilt are on the other. Fear is the parent as all anxiety is born of fear. The black sheep who nobody likes to talk about are violence, revenge  and hate. They make the rest of the family nervous but are relatives nonetheless.

The Peace of Mind family is tightly knit with love and happiness as the indulgent patriarch and matriarch.   There is joy, contentment and connection but it is sometimes hard to distinguish one from the other. The relatives of anxiety appear diverse and plentiful because misery has many forms. Tolstoy famously observed in his novel, Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Tolstoy’s words have endured because they resonate. Happiness and peace of mind has a homogenous feel but there is a way that all unhappiness is also more similar than it first appears. From an energetic perspective, the Peace of Mind family represents the expressions of love or the true self.  (See Blog #3- What Einstein Knew.)  When you feel love, gratitude and joy, it is because you remember you are connected to the Peace of Mind family.  No need to pack your bags and search for where you belong, it is and has always been your true family.  Everything that is ‘not love’ and that list is long, is in the Unhappiness/Anxiety Family.  The many forms of misery are what happen when you get forget your ancestry is love.  All unhappiness is the same ‘not love’ just as all happiness is a version of love.

All of the energy of ‘not love’ is generated by fear, much of it justified. Everyday someone is shot, assaulted or eaten by a shark. Your job could be moved to India or given to a robot.  There is always someone younger, with 6-pack abs or more fun that your partner may prefer. Over a lifetime, someone will break your heart or betray you no matter what you do or how you protect yourself. Even if warranted, fear must be resolved or anxiety naturally follow. You could identify and tackle your fears one by one but there will always be another so you will run out of life before you run out of worries.   Better to take on the root of fear itself which is ‘not love’ than wrestle with its manifestations.

What is the fear behind the election of a corrupt politician or a lost job?  What does it mean if you catch the flu or your kids won’t talk to you? A gun in every school incites fear because of what you decide this idea means.  An incident or thought stirs up the energy of ‘not love’.  Because of (fill in incident or fear), I will be alone, am unworthy or unsafe.  Somebody could harm your body or hurt someone you care about so the challenge is how to connect with your family of love in a world full of ‘not love’.

The crazy idea you have to accept to unravel the paradox of feeling safe in an unsafe world is to not identify yourself as a body. The real ‘you’ is a bundle of love energy temporarily encased in a physical body that you cannot keep safe because no bodies survive life on earth. If your body is ruined, your friends desert you and you die alone, you are exactly the same energy of love. Love remains because you cannot destroy energy. Eat Brussels sprouts, exercise and be kind to others so you can feel as good as possible while here but the reason nothing can hurt you is because you are not that biological mass with brown eyes, ten extra pounds and irritable bowel syndrome. That is just the temporary house you inhabit. You are love. All the anger, fear and loneliness you feel is a manifestation that you temporarily forgot your roots and thought you were somehow worthless, unlovable and in danger.

This may be a bit much to accept but consider how this concept can free you.  If true, nothing can hurt you.

Post #12

Next time: What Would Your Life Be Without Fear?