Taking the High Road

When anxiety grabs hold of me, I start obsessing. I feel like a monkey in the jungle, skipping and leaping, hanging from a long, hairy arm, flitting from branch to branch, stopping for a moment when I finds something compelling or aggravating enough to get my attention, and in a few minutes, taking off again.

When the negativity hits me square in the face, I feel inner chaos as my mind spins out of control and makes up negative stories. The Buddhists call it “monkey mind,” when your thinking takes control of your mind and won’t let go. And even if I recognize it, it’s like a cat, moving around on its own trajectory as I flip from thought to thought. I’ve developed a variety of tools to work with this kind of anxiety. I place my hand on my solar plexus and breathe. I focus on a creative project that requires my full attention. I click an imaginary remote and change the channel. Sometimes these things work for a while, but it takes constant concentration and unremitting awareness to keep it in check.

In this election year, we are deeply challenged. The pundits on TV tell us the bad news to keep up their ratings and they scare us so much, it’s as if we become paralyzed and we can’t turn off the television. I used to be a news junkie but today, I can’t watch five minutes of it without breaking out into an anxiety attack. Maybe that’s just me but I don’t think so. People I know who are anxious and frightened often tell me, “I’m watching too much news. I have to stop.” But they can’t. Once you buckle into the car on the roller coaster and it starts moving, you can’t get off. That kind of ride has a beginning, a middle and an end, but when you get caught in the worry and anxiety loop in your mind, finding a way out requires serious mental discipline.

When I’m connected to myself, I manage to hold the anxiety at bay. When I’m not, I get sucked into the drama and coming back out is a gargantuan task. I resent being manipulated so I’m practicing a balanced action that often works for me. I don’t allow myself to get bullied by reporters whose hunger for fame and fortune overrides their jobs to report the news. But I don’t put my head in the sand either. There has to be a happy medium between hiding from and seeking out the truth. I try to detach emotionally as I read the headlines in the daily newspaper (am I the only one who reads the paper anymore?) so I know if the world is still spinning on its axis. I want only the facts, I’m not interested in anyone’s opinion, and after I do the crossword puzzle and wake up my brain, I go to the computer and get on with my writing life.

For those of us who have a spiritual bent and believe that focusing on something might draw it closer, why not visualize what we’d like to happen instead of what we wouldn’t. Dale Carnegie, renowned author and lecturer said, “Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad will ever happen. That can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, hoping the good will outweigh the bad.”

You know the old expression, “Ride the horse in the direction it’s going.” When my brain takes off, I try to resist fighting the inevitable but what if the horse is going off a cliff? Am I supposed to stay in the saddle? I’ve worked hard to find the courage to stand my ground and not go with the grain when I don’t like the grain. I point my horse in a different direction, dig deep to find the willpower to take the bumpy ride and head toward a peaceful place where I can breathe easy.

It seems to be the human condition to drown in powerful waves of discontent. In 1986, I was planning a trip, my eighth, to the Philippines to research the faith healers. It was three weeks after the revolution that overthrew Ferdinand Marcos and our newscasters were reporting riots all over the islands. They scared me so much, I nearly cancelled my trip, but after some contemplation and a few phone calls to my Filipino friends, I decided to go. When I landed in Manila and took a taxi to my hotel, there were no signs of violence anywhere. Nothing like the photographs that the talking heads had aired, over and over. In fact, it was the opposite. The people were uplifted because without resorting to violence, they had gotten rid of the 20-year reign of an evil dictator. They had declared their independence and although Muslim separatists’ holy wars were going on in the South (they were always going on and they still are), the Filipinos in the rest of the islands had newfound hope.

In our country today, that’s what we are missing. Hope. I’m not referring to “pie in the sky” hope, filled with unrealistic expectations or blind denial. I’m talking about hope for the possibility of a better future. Hope for healing our wounds and our relationships. Hope that nourishes us and makes us want to get up in the morning. Hope that the good will outweigh the bad. Hope that we can find the light in the darkness.

In order to get in touch with our center, we have to stop absorbing the onslaught of bad news that closes our hearts and permeates our lives. When the weapons are pointing at us, we can step out of the line of fire. We can turn the other way and choose to walk the path of caring, encouragement and service. We can take the high road, a simple but challenging choice that can improve our lives and open our hearts to new possibilities.