Hi G.S.
Being fairly new here I'm not familiar with everyone and their battles and victories and am often not able to put into words what is helpful to say in many instances. But, I can give you a link to a wonderful website run by Gwen Randall-Young. I'm sure you will find her essays immensley moving. I have pasted below, an article of hers which I saved some years ago (but I can't locate it on her new website).
http://www.gwen.ca/resources/articles/-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anxiety is Ego’s Shadow by Gwen Randall-Young - from her "The Universe Within" essays
In my practice, I treat many people for anxiety, which probably everyone has experienced at some time in their lives. In certain situations, anxiety is normal:
when someone close to us experiences a sudden serious illness, if we have momentarily lost sight of our young child, or there is a terrorist threat.
Many people, however, suffer anxiety over the ordinary events of life, and I became curious about how we could understand anxiety from the perspective of
ego and soul. It seems clear to me that anxiety is an ego reaction, based on fear.
While in scientific terms, the opposite of an anxious state would be a relaxed state, in ego and soul terms, the opposite of anxiety is trust.
I say this because when we experience anxiety, it is generally because we do not feel in control of a situation. We fear things will not turn
out the way we hope and that we will experience loss, failure or embarrassment.
Ego, as we well know, has a mind of its own. It experiences the world in terms of good/bad, right/wrong, win/lose and other polar opposites.
For ego, it is as though life is full of coin tosses, and ego wants to win the flip every time. Statistically, this is impossible, so ego must work in
a variety of ways to achieve the outcome it desires. If the outcome is not guaranteed, ego begins to fret.
Not only does ego worry about the outcome, but it also conjures up all manner of consequences that would follow an undesirable result.
Hence, this kind of thinking: “If he doesn’t ask me out, I’ll probably be alone for the rest of my life. Then I will undoubtedly struggle financially,
and end up being a bag-lady.” Or, “If my child disobeys me when he is five, what will he be like at 15? He’ll probably have a bad attitude and
get in with the wrong crowd. Then he’ll get into drugs and end up on the street.” These catastrophic, ego-based prophecies are a perfect
formula for generating anxiety.
If we come from the perspective of soul, our world looks and feels different. Soul recognizes that our lives unfold and that our circumstances
form the curriculum of study for this lifetime. Things will not always go according to our plan. That would be too easy. Rather, life will surprise,
disappoint, confound, dismay and puzzle us. Just when you think you have it all figured out, it changes. We learn that we can either play it safe,
sticking with the familiar, or we can take risks, try new things and stretch ourselves.
The choice is not always ours. Unplanned occurrences can reshape us in ways we never dreamed possible. Sometimes, the worst thing that could
have happened to us turns out to be the best thing that ever happened. It is easy to see why this is a difficult, challenging and frustrating game
for ego to play. There really are no rules one can count on. Ego only frustrates, worries and agitates itself, trying to beat the system.
Soul, on the other hand, trusts the big picture. Soul accepts that life will be an interesting adventure and we will win some and lose some.
That doesn’t matter so much, as long as we are growing, learning and gaining wisdom, perhaps even enlightenment. Soul patiently waits to see
how long ego will struggle before figuring it out. Soul knows that ego needs only to surrender in order to cease the struggle. When ego does surrender,
life becomes calmer, smoother and more relaxed. Life is still what it was; life was never the problem. The difference is that ego has given up resisting the irresistible.
As for anxiety, the minute we surrender, release our attachments and trust in the flow of life, it disappears, for it was never real. It was only ego’s shadow.
Gwen Randall-Young is an author and psychotherapist in private practice. For more articles and information about her books and CDs, visit
www.gwen.ca---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Be courageous and strong.
Patrick