Go Ask Heidi

Dearest, Anxiety.

First and foremost let me greet you with a long over due Hello. I’ve been avoiding you for decades and have come to realize that ignoring you is only making you more angry and agitated. I hope it’s not too late to make nice. You see, when you would arise inside me, I didn’t like the way you felt. My mind put judgement on the feeling. Instead of alerting me to something, you were inconvenient, pushy, loud, and made me feel insecure. Lots of judgement. My mind wanted nothing to do with you.

As I’ve grown older I have become more humble. It turns out the more you acquire in knowledge, the less it seems you actually know. This is because the mind is designed to collect data and analyze but the spirit is designed to intuitively navigate through this information. The spirit already knows what to do. If you identify with your mind then you know lots of stuff, if you identify with your spirit then you know only what is. No judgments.

For years I tried to find ways of getting rid of you. Workshops, books, therapy, talking to friends, writing, thinking, analyzing…trying to squeeze you out of existence - with my mind. It never occurred to me to sit with you - with my heart. To listen to what it is you’ve been so alarmingly trying to say. Maybe you just needed to be heard.

Maybe you just needed to be held.

And so now we meditate. Together. I excuse my mind from the table so that a real conversation can begin. I want to apologize for having judged you for so long and I am grateful for your persistence. Your clattering and tasering led me to the greenest meadow in the deepest forest where we breathe in the same crisp air and share the same existence. 

Anxiety has a cycle and it exists in our mind: pain, fear, (yesterday - in our mind, life is OFF), anger, judgment, pain, fear, (tomorrow - in our mind, life is OFF), anger, judgment.

Love has a cycle and it exists everywhere: acceptance, surrender, (now - presently happening, life is ON), joy, acceptance, surrender, (now - presently happening, life is ON), joy.

(The now is sacred. Life is happening, breathing, existing right now! Stay in this moment and live in the now. There is no life left in yesterday, no life yet to be had tomorrow. The juices of life are flowing only in the now. Right as you read this you can hear, feel, laugh, love. Only right now. Yesterday and tomorrow can only be thought about in our mind but not lived. One has passed and one has yet to come. Only now can you live.)

To get to the love I had to meet you. Feel you. Heal with you. So that I could accept, surrender, and laugh again.

We deserve love.

Humbly yours,

Now