Letting go of chronic anxiety

Question: How do I stop feeling this chronic anxiety?

Devean: Anxiety means that you are not at home. At home, you feel safe. Away from home, you’re lost, you’re alone, you’re afraid. You’re wandering through dark streets.

An anxious person is never at home. Even in their own house, they are not home, because they are not at home in their body, and not at home in existence.

If a person feels safe and at home in existence, they feel safe and at home anywhere. They are never anxious because they are aware that they belong in existence, in each moment. There is nowhere else to be.

They feel that existence, and their place within it, is all that should be. All that can be. It’s where they are meant to be; it is where they live; it is always home.

The mind takes you away from home. The mind says you should not be here…you don’t belong here. Look at where you were before…look how stupid you were. Look at where you are going… that is where you need to be. The mind comes into your home and tells you that it is not where you should be. The mind makes you feel anxious, and unsafe, even though you are at home.

The mind can only speak about the past and the future. You might think that the mind can speak about the present, however, it is only speaking about the past or future. Even when the mind begins to describe the present, you look out and see the sunset and the mind thinks “this is beautiful”, it is only describing what it has seen in the past, moments ago.

Anxiety is a person’s reaction to the past and the future. However, the past and the future are only illusions within the mind. They are dreams made by the mind. They are not reality. If not in the mind then where is the past? Where is the future? Where can they be found? They are dreams.

Sometimes the dreams give you pleasure, so you hold on to dreaming. But sooner or later the dream gives you negative emotions. The negative emotion that you feel within these dreams is anxiety.

If you wake up from the dream, then you will realize that you are safe, at home. In the now, in the present moment. There can be no anxiety in the now because there is no past and no future in the now.

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said in one of my favorite books that he rid himself of anxiety because he realized that it was within himself, in his own dreams, his own perceptions, not outside.

Anxiety occurs because dreams are always happening. Because the mind is always active. The mind is always been trying to maintain control of the body. Now, do not confuse the mind with the brain. The brain controls the functions of the body. The mind is only a process of thinking. The mind is only action within the brain.

The process of thinking was never meant to be constant. However, it has been so constant in your life that it has taken control.

The mind was never meant to have control. The mind was never meant to be the master. The mind was meant to be a slave to the soul. In the way that the body uses the hands, the hands are a slave to the body.

The mind should act as a slave. The slave is not equipped to be the master. This is why the mind uses many voices and many opinions. It is uncertain. It wanders into the past and into the future. It is lost, it is not masterful. The mind leads you astray, the mind leads you away from reality, away from safety, and into anxiety.

If you want to reach the end of anxiety, first understand that anxiety is only a reaction to the illusion. A reaction to a dream created by a mind that has been given too much authority. Realize that a mind can only create dreams that take you away from reality, away from home.

Once you begin to realize this, the dream will slowly begin to break. Reality will begin to become clear.

But you must remain aware. It cannot be expected that awakening from this dream will be a spontaneous act.

However, once you wake from the dream, there can be no anxiety. But only then will you feel safe. Only then will you feel at home.