Suspension of Posts

Just a quick note to say there will be no posts until about July as my A level exams are coming up and revision has taken over!

Thank you, and may compassion and wisdom guide you through suffering.

Dealing With Stress and Anxiety

For the past few weeks I have been experiencing an extended period of anxiety and worry. The youth of today are very quick to assign labels to these troubled times such as ‘depression’, and are desperate to classify it as an anxiety disorder, and hurry to the pharmacist to neck as many anti-depressants as feasibly possible. But really, these periods of up and down, worry and stress, good times and bad are, in my view at least, a completely natural part of being a teenager.

Although this sounds dangerously close to a generic website to help young people who are feeling low, it is completely valid. I personally was never prone to wild mood swings – a good mood lasted a few days, then back to neutral, then maybe feeling slightly negative for a few days. These feelings were never particularly strong, and it was very easy to distract myself and make myself feel better. However, these last four weeks or so I had been stressing and worrying about every little thing – what my exact plan was going to be the following day, mapping and planning it out to the point of writing down on a post-it note’12.30 -have lunch’ as if I was afraid I might forget to feed myself (if you insist on putting a label on it you might term it a mild form of OCD). I would stress about the organisational side of going to university – how I was going to do grocery shopping, wash my clothes, even down to wanting to make a list of exactly what I would bring to university, a full five months before I’m due to leave.

I tried thinking of Buddhist ideas to calm me down and make me feel better – that all thoughts, feelings and emotions are temporary and that happiness comes from within, not without. However, ironically, this only temporarily got rid of the stress. It seemed anything I thought of or tried only led me back to that familiar feeling of worry.

But then just last week it started to get better. I read and re-read dharma books. The teachings of equanimity really answered my questions about Buddhism, and addressed the problems I was having with stress. I think the reason Buddhist principles were not helping me when I felt low is because I was questioning Buddhism – it just seemed like a collection of useful sayings and ideas, but there was no way to fully express and almost ’round them up’ into practical, day to day application. The idea of equanimity and mindfulness snapped me out of this negative mindset. I realised that if I maintained a mind of equanimity and mindfulness of both the external world and my internal world – my emotions and feelings, this fully covered all the major Buddhist teachings. If I was mindful of my emotions, I would always see when a negative mindset was approaching and become aware of it. I let it flow through my body, and rationalise with it. I could feel the negative emotion or feeling diminishing. I genuinely felt calm and content no matter what situation or feeling arose. Coupled with this, when being mindful you can always develop metta, or unconditional love for all beings as it is always at the very forefront of your mind. These two huge aspects of Buddhism were brought together into a remarkable revelation.

For the first time, I felt as if instead of living my life with Buddhism laid over the top occasionally making an appearance, it was as if I was living a life with Buddhism and Buddhist principles woven into it, ever present. This made me feel, what I can only describe as fully awake and a significant step on my path to enlightenment.

It is my hope that you can read this, and can find comfort and inspiration. That sounds quite arrogant, but my wish is to share my experience in the hope that it can bring happiness to a lot of people. To be mindful and maintain equanimity in daily life is a glorious feeling, and has enriched and enhanced my life almost immeasurably.

Thank you for reading and may compassion and wisdom guide you through suffering.

 

 

 

 

 

Picture credit – https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/10/13/can-stress-be-healthy/