I believe this article does a great job of exploring the phrase we hear in the rooms ‘what we resist persists’ specifically in the context of anxiety.
The long version of the Serenity Prayer includes the verse “accepting hardship as the pathway to peace’. You can use this article to explore how to apply the Serenity Prayer to the hardship of our painful emotions, thoughts, sensations, and memories.
Many of us have developed a very self destructive coping skill of experience avoidance where we use addictive behaviors to avoid these painful experiences.
Dr. Hayes, one of the founders of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) explores a very different way to relate and respond to this pain. This process begins with us clarifying our values to what grounds our lives with enduring meaning and purpose. Our lives are not meant to be driven by what we resist or avoid but rather the North Star which moves us toward this meaning and purpose.
I’ ve also included two short videos. The first helps us understand how we can respond differently to these painful emotions using the ‘Struggle Switch’. The second short video examines the difference between a value focus and a goal focus that u might find helpful in putting on a ‘new pair of glasses’ of enjoying our journey – Bruce M.
Sometimes I’ve felt really good for an extended period of time, only to have anxiety return, and for it to appear unresponsive to my attempts to get rid of it. The key phrase here is “my attempts to get rid of it”. I know that for myself, I would continue to engage in daily activities, but I would do so in a way that was still unwilling to feel the feelings; still trying to push the feelings away.
Any time you sense yourself trying to push the feelings away, that’s experiential avoidance, which is the core pathology of anxiety disorders. It is very important to recognize this mode of mind for what it is. In these circumstances, it has been useful for me to be very clear about what I can and cannot control, and where I can make choices.
…In essence, the practice is always the same: instead of falling prey to a chain reaction of blaming others and self-hatred, we gradually learn to catch the emotional reaction and drop the story lines.
Life is a choice. Anxiety is not a choice. Either way you go, you will have problems and pain. So your choice here is not about whether or not to have anxiety. Your choice is whether or not to live a meaningful life.
You choose a path; a direction, not an immediate outcome. You don’t choose how to feel or what pops into your head. You can choose a path that leads towards what you value or you can choose avoidance and fusion. Your choice. Willingness is a skill you can learn. It just takes practice and patience. But you can learn it. Because we don’t control our feelings or thoughts, it’s not our job to worry about them. They rise and fall of their own accord if we don’t struggle with them. Instead, we can focus on what is within our control. We do choose:
- What we pay attention to.
- How we pay attention; struggle or willingness: Am I willing to move “with” thoughts and feelings? YES or NO. Am I willing to let them be without either trying to push them away or pursue them? YES or NO. Will I “Leap”? YES or NO. Will I love? YES or NO.
- What we do.
Rather than disavowing pain, you can learn to just acknowledge it, let it be as it is (a temporary uncomfortable feeling), not as what your mind says it is (a bad, terrible, dangerous, solid thing), and bring kindness and a nonjudgmental quality to that experience. When you do that, there is nothing to fight against, nothing to eliminate. There’s nothing to be fixed. Nothing to resolve. These are not solid things. No need to be anything other than what you are experiencing. This stance is powerful, and cuts the suffering right out of anxiety and fear. This is critical to understand. Fear will keep you trapped so long as you are unwilling to have it, touch it, and let it be. Life is about pain once in a while. And, when we step in the direction of something we care about, we often risk experiencing something that we’d rather not experience — hurt, regret, sadness, loss, anger, abandonment, anxiety, fear, remorse. If we operate from the perspective that our pain is something that mustn’t be had, the trap is sprung. Pain transforms in that instant and becomes a problem to be solved just like other problems that must be solved. Yet, we cannot problem solve ourselves out of our own pain. All that effort to get a foothold on our anxiety can pull us out of our lives in a flash.
2 thoughts on “Accepting The Hardship Of Anxiety As The Pathway To Peace By Stephen Hayes”