Breaking Up with Anxiety: It's over. It's not me, its you.

Mmbone Umbima
Aug 6, 2020
7 min read

Updated: Jan 24, 2024

This story is about a vacation but first you need to get through the first 2 paragraphs as your foundation.

Anxiety is the heightened energy of resistance to the reality of what you don’t want. If what you don’t want is happening or has happened, this is no longer anxiety but some form of pain or discord. If what you don’t want is an alternative scenario of an outcome, in relation to anxiety, you are introducing the alternative outcome into the possibilities of the result.

Here is the good news! Your well being is dominant. Otherwise you would not have made it this far. This is the starting place that is available to you when you have moments of anxiety. This is applicable to all matters that arise and create anxiety. Your well being is dominant. Once you recognize that wellness is dominant you can reach for thoughts that present evidence of wellness – thoughts that serve you.

It is advisable to not try and “positive” your anxiety away when the anxiety is occurring. You are a highly intelligent being and the intelligence in you can see what you are doing. You can stop thinking about what is creating the anxiety or if you must, you can determine what you want as a result of what you don’t want. Once you determine what you want, stop and shift gears onto something else that does not carry any polarity. For example, go drink a glass of water and focus on that – drink the entirety of the glass of water – water is good for you.

Imagine going on vacation to a beautiful beach resort. You are in this beautiful pool in Maui or wherever you think is the ultimate beach destination – there is one of these overflowing pools - infinity pools that drains into the ocean, at least there’s the perception. It’s gorgeous. You are in the swimming pool. You can see the ocean and you know that there is so much to see and do in the ocean. While taking a lap in the pool you spot a few weights at the bottom of the pool. They are about 200lbs each. You swim to the bottom and try and pull one up to the surface. They are too heavy. So you get back up to so that you can breathe. The next day you notice a new weight at the bottom of the pool. So you get back in the pool and try and pull one up. This time, after a lot of effort, you’re able to move one along about 5 inches. Each morning you wake up and get into the pool and pick a weight that you try and move. At some point you recognize that you will never get the weights out of the water but you have established a routine so towards the end of the vacation, you now are on auto pilot. You wake up every morning, at a reasonable time then you set forth to the pool and hold on to weights under water. You come up for air in sequences since you have now established a routine. Sometimes, you feel anxiety about the weights being in the swimming pool, so, coming up for breath goes out of whack. But for the most part you have the routine down to a science and can manage your breath. For your entire vacation you never go to the ocean.

What do you think of that? Going on vacation to a world class resort and only going to the pool and holding onto weights at the bottom of the pool?

Going on vacation is the metaphor of your life. There are even more scenarios available that reflect how many people carry out life. Sometimes we chain ourselves so that we can barely move and then we go underwater and hold onto some weights periodically coming up for air to survive.

When we experience anxiety, we are repeatedly going under water and comparing the view under water and above the water so frequently that we feel so out of whack.

When we choose to hold onto weight, swimming in the ocean is simply out of the question. The ocean is gorgeous with so much to see and do but you will die out there if you go with your weights. Ideally you want to go with an oxygen tank and scuba diving suit so that you can safely explore. When the oxygen is done you rise to surface. Even get back onto the boat, relax, put on some sunscreen. Get some sun, take a nap, replenish. At that point you can go back to shore to your lavish hotel and have a lovely evening. Isn’t that ideal for a vacation?

Every morning we have choices. To stay in the hotel room, go to the balcony, look at the view, go to the pool, go to the ocean. You can go to the pool and get your laps in without picking up the weights. By now you have figured out the weights are the things you have listed above. There is value in swimming in the pool, but there is no value in picking up the weights.

The choices are plentiful. At the resort, some people leave the basic room and upgrade to an ocean view suite and go out to the ocean every day. However, often, some vacationers loose the diligence and focus required for ocean excursions and on a trip to the ocean have knowingly or unknowingly taken a weight instead of an oxygen tank and jumped into the ocean with the weight. They usually abandon the weight to come up for air and find that the boat they came out with was gone. Happens all the time! Majority of the time they get back to shore but the trauma of the experience puts them at crossroads. They have the opportunity to “assess” what happened, learn from it and go back into the ocean. Many vacationers however manage the trauma in strange ways - they just wanted to stabilize so they got back to the hotel and down grade the ocean view suite to a basic room on the ground floor with no ocean view. For the rest of the vacation they go to pool and chain themselves in the shallow end and identify a number of weights to hold onto and come up for air as needed. Why? This feels safer than going out to the ocean where you really want to be but the trauma hasn’t been processed.

There is no wrong or right way to be on vacation. There are just a series of choices that can make the experience great or not great. And when you’re on vacation, something can go wrong. How you handle it will determine the experience of the vacation. You will have to go home at the end of the vacation so you have to decide what maximizing the vacation means to you. Is it staying in the room and watching TV which is a whole other analogy, or sitting at the balcony every day? Or exploring every day? swimming in the pool? Swimming in the ocean? All of it? Some of it?

The next time something rises up, visualize it as the weight it is at the bottom of the pool and feel repulsion when you think of lifting it. There is no value in going to the bottom of the pool to hold on to it. You won’t pull it to the surface and even if you do, it’s dead weight. Go out into the ocean and explore. The options are endless and what is required of you is intention and then focus.

Finally, what you are not changing you are choosing. Yes. What you are not changing, you are choosing.

Anxiety is the heightened energy of resistance to the reality of what you don’t want – so you can think of it as a lighter weight – maybe 25lbs. You can actually move it around. If what you don’t want is happening or has happened, this is no longer anxiety but some form of pain or discord. Pain or discord could be a programable weight – based on what you assign it. If what you don’t want is an undesired alternative scenario of an outcome (in relation to anxiety) you are introducing the undesired alternative outcome into the possibilities of the results.

Your well being is dominant. You're well being is dominant otherwise you would not have made it this far. This is the starting place that is available to you when you have moments of anxiety. This is applicable to all matters that arise and create anxiety. Your well being is dominant. Once you recognize that wellness is dominant you can reach for thoughts that present evidence of wellness – thoughts that serve you. Recognizing that your wellness is dominant is being in the pool and letting go of the weight and standing up above the water.

It is advisable to not try and “positive” your anxiety away when the anxiety is occurring. That is the same as squatting to hold onto the weights but positioning your head at an angle that allows you to breathe. You are a highly intelligent being and the intelligence in you can see what you are doing. You can stop thinking about what is creating the anxiety or if you must, you can determine what you want as a result of what you don’t want. Once you determine what you want stop and shift gears onto something else that does not carry any polarity. For example, go drink a glass of water and focus on that – drink the entirety of the glass of water – water is good for you.

This too shall pass. Remember that nothing is permanent, be it of joy or sorrow, this too shall pass.