“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.” – Amit Ray
All throughout my life, I would constantly fret about the future.
In high school, instead of studying for an exam or doing homework, I would be researching what my career should be and/or what I should study in college, both completely irrelevant topics at the time–and looking back in hindsight, I wasted a lot of time.
Even today, I have anxiety about certain events in my life, however, the frequency of this anxiety has decreased greatly.
Why?
Because of one thing and one thing only: meditation.
In the past, I would try to escape from reality through vices.
In the now, this need to use vices has been eradicated thanks to the practice of mindfulness.
Although there are many gurus that can teach you how to meditate, the simplest definition is to just be: to quietly sit in a room by yourself and to observe your thought patterns as they pass over.
Remember the last time you had a gut feeling telling you not to do something, but you did it anyway and the outcomes weren’t the best?
If I tell you not to think about a cow right now, you’re automatically going to think about a cow.
Crazy, right?
That right there was a conflict between your conscious and subconscious minds, and this distinction has arisen due to our evolution.
We’re evolved to avoid pain and to seek pleasure, and thus, we have a natural tendency to have negative thought patterns: it’s simply the ego looking out for our survival.
Now I could go more in depth, but this isn’t the main point of this article.
The main point is that it’s paramount for you to recognize whether a certain thought is derived from your ego, or if it’s derived from your actual conscious mind–and the only way to practice this is through daily meditation.
Not only has meditation decreased my anxiety, but it has also improved my overall well-being.
Before, I would be controlled by my emotions, and they would determine my reactions to external events — which weren’t made rationally looking back in hindsight.
Now, rather than be overwhelmed, I’m able to observe my thoughts when undergoing a certain emotion and then narrow my focus towards just the positive ones.
After all, we all have emotions (unless you’re a robot), and oftentimes, we let them distort our decision-making abilities.
Meditation is the cheat code to life, and I hope that you can use it to your benefit.
JL