There was a time in my life
when I was content to be “normal.” I worked, I socialized, and
for the most part I lived in an unconscious vacuum. I did things out
of habit, lived without thinking. If ignorance is bliss, I was happy.
Except that I was wearing myself down. I noticed and ignored little
things at first: small stresses.
At this time I experienced
tension headaches and severe sciatica. It was harder to wake up in
the mornings and to stay awake in the afternoons. I was always
agitated. Instead of slowing up, I worked harder. I wore myself down.
I thought my problems would go away, then the dam broke and my stress was finally too much to ignore. My panic attacks from earlier in life returned as I found myself in new and uncertain
circumstances (having moved to another state), and for months I
reeled from my phobias and anxiety.
I was forced to look into
myself to figure out what was wrong, because nothing on the outside
was helping. To me, this meant venturing on a spiritual path.
When I was 18 I stumbled
upon Taoism. I lived in Florida by that time, was in counseling,
but living in a cocoon. I had always had an inclination toward the
spiritual, but my attempts at studying major religions like Buddhism
and Hinduism were coming up short. Nothing I read—mostly commentary
from modern practitioners—made sense to me or seemed practical at
the time.
I needed to go to a source
and I finally found it in a short book of poetry called the Tao Te
Ching (the Way and its Power, written by Lao Tzu around 500 B.C.E.),
the preeminent book of Taoism. Taoism was not a major religion—it
has just 30,000 followers in North America, and only a couple of
million throughout the world—but it was just what I needed at the
time and what I continue to use today.
Taoism is a
philosophy/psychology of ancient China brought to a small prominence
in the West during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by scholars
like Alan Watts, Huston Smith, and James Legge—the first translator
of many Chinese works into English.
What immediately drew me to
Taoism wasn't necessarily what the Tao Te Ching said, for I didn't
understand much of what it was saying the first time I read it, but
the sense of quiet peace that I fell into as I read it. This
relaxed state was something I had never felt before, as if years of
tension were released all at once and I was calm for the first time.
Today, I can still pick up a copy of the Tao Te Ching and read it and
experience this peace.
It was an easy jump from
there to deciding to take up Taoism on a deeper level. Anything that
made me feel calm, when finding calm was like finding the fountain of
youth, must have been worth more than a cursory glance.
This put me on a journey to
using Taoism as a way to cope with my panic and generalized anxiety
disorders. In the coming years I have completely overcome generalized
anxiety, something that was a great burden throughout my teenage
years, and though I still have occasional panic attacks, I can shrug
them off like so many dried leaves from a warm coat.
If the Tao Te Ching contains
a theme, it is simply that the world is what the world is, and that
instead of fighting against what happens to me, I should flow with it
(this was new to me, as I had always fought against everything,
making life a constant struggle). It took me years to verbalize this
theme, but at the time I understood it intuitively.
The Tao, the way of the
world, is often compared to or symbolized by water for water's
ability to overcome hard objects by seeming passivity—though in
reality water's virtue is that it does not give up or turn back, but
seeks the easiest path against difficulties, never forcing its way
through rock, but overcoming it in time to form great canyons.
As someone in a state of
constant worry, this new worldview was enlivening. As I searched
deeper into Taoism, studying Chuang Tzu (a near-contemporary of Lao
Tzu) and Alan Watts (a twentieth century philosopher), I found more
meaning and deeper explanations of what I was reading in the Tao Te
Ching.
There were many stories and
parables explaining what it was like to simply be. Chuang Tzu
expresses the idea that we can live without outside influences
effecting our emotional state of mind. This is not unlike Western
cognitive psychology—except 2,000 years older. Reading and
listening to Alan Watts, I learned to find unity with the world.
I realized that as a
teenager I lived closed off from “others.” That I was living in a
vacuum, where I could not connect and feel like I was part of
anything. This lead eventually to my phobias, exacerbating my anxiety
symptoms. What I found in Taoism was a way of life that desired
unity—that went a step further and showed why unity was not only
possible, but was the way of the world.
~*~
It's difficult to
put it into words exactly how Taoism effects anxiety, because I “live” it more than I “think” it.
It's a feeling, an intuition, and the right words are seldom there
for me to describe the experience. But it has worked for me and
continues to work for me today. I'm no longer a worry-wart, my
anxiety attacks have all but vanished, and I hope that some day this
will help me overcome my phobias.
But perhaps Taoism's
advantage is not what it has given me itself, but how it has worked
in tandem with cognitive psychology. It fits everything behavioral
psychologists have to say about anxiety. As a tool alongside
cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) Taoism is an excellent gift.
Each has given the other a
different, fascinating perspective. I feel that, in light of Taoism,
I understand CBT better; how it works, why it works, what it can
accomplish for me. And in light of CBT I understand Taoism better;
why the ancient Chinese latched onto it, and that it is an accurate
and practical way of thought and life.
Further Reading:
Tao of Anxiety: Series
Further Reading:
Tao of Anxiety: Series
Posts
I also found this book at a time of stress and it gave me that immense peace flowing feeling too. I lost the book and found another copy much later on.
ReplyDeleteI've never taken up the detailed study of it tho.
It's worth a looking into. Fortunately there are many more resources online today than there were even a few years ago, and they're growing :)
DeleteJR, I'm glad that you found a way to calm down and something that works. And really, people are just running the rat race when they need to find time (at least schedule some time) to meditate and to relax. I enjoyed yoga today, and it was relaxing. Usually I'm on the treadmill or doing martial arts, but yoga was a nice change. I did feel refreshed afterwards. There is knowing and then practicing, so I'm very glad that you are practicing what you know. Take care!
ReplyDeleteTotally, Lena! Even 20 minutes of "me" time can go a long way to reduce stress. I envy no one who can't take that time, no matter what they have in life.
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