Almost every human being has experienced anxiety in their lifetime. We are all prone to our own anxiety which may have been caused by either our own insecurities or through others. However, anxiety isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it can motivate you and help you stay focused under pressure. Having anxiety is normal unless it's prolonged and starts distracting you from your work.
Sometimes when you don’t have any particular work to do and you are absolutely free, at times like that you tend to stress a lot and start thinking negatively about your own self. This dullness carves your mind towards negative thinking which, consumes you entirely leaving you with anxiety and stress. Anxiety isn’t something that appears on its own. However, it’s the circumstance which you’re consumed by, or at times it could be your surroundings and even the people you’re surrounded by. You might feel that people around you are doing so much, some are busy with their jobs, and others busy with their college lives whereas you don’t have such responsibilities. You feel like you’re not making enough effort or simply not participating enough. It’s surprising how our mind tends to think so negatively effortlessly just because we’re sitting idle or have very little work compared to others, which in-fact is absolutely fine. We tend to dig up past sad experiences or start imagining negative scenarios which have no essence. Or may just overthink about our own personality.
You might start to think that “you aren’t doing enough” or, “you’re feeling useless”. Moreover, your people might tell you that you’re not doing as much as they are doing making it a competition. And all these talks make a huge impact on our behavior and mind that one may start feeling left out. You overthink and lower your own self-esteem. It’s very easy for our mind to feel negative, stressed, or even overthink and that’s the sad part because it totally destroys all our efforts of self-esteem and optimism which took so long to get there.
To what extent is anxiety is normal?
Anxiety isn’t something to be ignored. As we all face it in day-to-day life. Ignorance towards anxiety only leads to the feeling of depression and stress. And why should one ignore the feeling of anxiety? Why do we ignore it?
Instead, let’s make an effort to normalize your emotions towards work, personal life, or any other unforeseen situation and accept why you feel that certain way. Sometimes, we all may feel very offbeat towards something so small and we may not even share it with anyone but accepting that ‘feeling’ is okay.
You don’t have to share your emotions every-time with someone. It’s okay not to share. Instead, stealing even 5mins of your time from the day is all you need. Taking that time and accepting your emotions, rather than normalizing it does make an impact on your healthy life. Anxiety starts to appear when you judge yourself, you judge your emotions by saying no to them when you criticize yourself. All you need at that time is to normalize how you’re feeling by simply agreeing to it. For instance; when you have had put your heart and soul into something and still got lectured by your boss or when you have things piled up and not being able to complete it because you’re going through a lot of emotions, that time agreeing and accepting how you’re feeling by just being true to yourself is helpful.
What is the true meaning of emptiness of mind?
Yes, it does mean having an empty mind which is not absurd. Having an empty mind is the “best” thing to have. So, when you’re sitting idle, and those negative thoughts start pounding, change it with a feeling of gratitude, self-talk about your difficulties and emotions. Listen to yourself. “Emptiness of mind” simply means finally having that calmness, quietness within yourself, no burden just peace in that free time you have. You can only achieve that emptiness when you stop judging your emotions and start accepting them. There are plenty of self-care tips that can help you get through anxiety. For instance; you can write down your feelings. It releases a lot of stress and gives you ease. Take out time for the things you absolutely love doing. Have self-talk about your emotions and accept why you feel in that certain way. You can also confront your negativity on “paper” like, write down the negative self-talk, self-doubt, and then combat that with what you know to be true, what you are capable of. Putting that on paper helps you acknowledge the negative. Have a detox from technology and work by simply going out with friends or doing something you love.
With the help of these steps, one can overcome anxiety and can achieve control of their emotions by being truthful to yourself. Remember anxiety or stress can only occur when you tend to hide it from yourself.