Who is the one experiencing anxiety?

Over the past year or so, I’ve recorded a variety of shorts on my YouTube channel (go and subscribe if you haven’t already!).

My latest one yesterday seems to have gotten some traction and has just crossed 400 views.

It is 15 seconds long and addresses the topic of anxiety / anxious feelings via ONE question:

“Who is the one who is feeling anxious?”

Now, you might be saying “Err, me??”, but I have not yet had any comments to this effect. 🙂 Instead, I’ve had several likes and lots of engagement on those 15 seconds of film (given the view count).

So overall, it must be “clicking” for people.

Maybe you’ve watched it and are now thinking “Hmm, who IS the one experiencing the anxiety” (or insert any emotion you’d rather not have here).

Here’s how I see it (tell me on the video what you see in this):

-We spend all our lives experiencing thoughts and feelings (our inner narrator who loves to chat, judge, compare, infer, deduce, analyse - anything “computer-y!!”)

-Thoughts and feeling aren’t OURS! Ever notice how you can’t locate a thought/feeling, you don’t create or conjure them up yourself, and you have zero control or ownership over them?! If you could actually control them, wouldn’t you just choose to experience 100% happy fluffy thoughts all the time?

-If you close your eyes and ask “what will my next thought be”, everything seems to go silent… ;)

-On the last point, it seems asking such a question gives space for silence to be experienced instead. More specifically - the silent awareness behind it all.

Space to feel your actual being - consciousness itself you might say (or however you choose to call it).

So we have thoughts - the flotsam and jetsam of the mind.

We are the one who experiences them.

And if we are the one experiencing them, they cannot be “ours” or “us” (closing the circle there).

But what is the cause of anxiety, stress, depression, regret, anger, frustration, resentment?

Attachment to all of those. Identification with all of those.

Ever notice how positive feelings aren’t a problem to be fixed? They are free to come and go - we don’t latch onto them or make them “personal” to us.

But when it comes to the ones we decide we don’t like, well, we attach a big fat “I” to them.

I have anxiety.

I have regret.

I am angry.

But without the “I”, we are left with only the energy of those feelings - inherently fleeting.

Unless we attach. In which case we feel the tightness, constriction, and fog of those feelings.

I had that myself just after Christmas - a sort of fog or fuzziness that dragged me down a bit for several days. You might be familiar with that “disconnected” feeling where it feels like you aren’t quite able to fully appreciate or enjoy what you normally do, or what’s going on around you.

It was because I was identifying and attaching to memories, thoughts, sensations and feelings from the past.

Part of the reason for that attachment was following a familiar habit of feeling something I didn’t want and then browsing videos and books about all of this stuff to make the feeling vanish.

Because I get this stuff…I KNOW this stuff!

This was all in an attempt to feel better, but that’s not leaving it alone!! Nope. That’s still more thinking, more “figuring it out…”

Thinking layered on thinking. You can’t figure out thinking with more thinking.

When you find yourself in a similar situation - and we all do - resist the urge to figure it out.

Take your hand off the hot stove, and back away, as best you can.

It’s the act of figuring it out that hurts - not the emotion. It’s the “efforting” that’s painful (much like the hand on the stove), when you can just choose to let it be instead.

Years ago, I recall an occasion where a thought popped up, and the inclination to reach for the podcasts and videos also popped up.

I literally stopped and sat on the couch for a few minutes.

Sat, observed, relaxed, and did absolutely nothing.

Within minutes, the feeling started to lift.

If I had gone down the rabbit hole of theories, words, techniques, pointers (all of which can and do help, absolutely!), I am sure I would have prolonged the feeling.

But instead, the feeling started to fade. I got up and got on with enjoying the day.

If attachment causes suffering, detachment does the opposite.

Next time you feel that tingling of stress, anxiety, or familiar painful memories, try the couch approach. Be with it and let it do its thing - even just tell yourself you’ll let it be for a while.

Go for a walk, get into nature, do whatever you feel makes sense too - if you wish.

But above all else, look to the silent awareness behind it all. The silent witness just observing the trains pass by. Not hopping on board any of them.

There is no rule that says you have to hop on the train.

And not doing so may just lead you out of the station, to a new view just beyond.

Can I ask a favour?

The only way I know if this is helping you is if you give me a sign 🙂 So feel free to reply to this email if it did. It would be an honour to hear it helped.

Or simply hit like or leave a comment on that YouTube video. I’d appreciate it.

Until next week - have a great weekend!

Anton

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Anton McCarthy

Coach & Content Creator

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All we are is peace, love and wisdom, and the power to create the illusion that we are not - Jack Pransky