Direct your attention outward, certain anxiety states, especially panic, social and anxiety and illness
and anxiety, lead to a focus on ourselves, our own anxiety symptoms, our heart rate worry, physical
sensations, how we're coming across to the person we're talking to and so forth.
This preoccupation only intensifies our anxiety and discomfort.
Mindfulness offers the possibility of turning our attention outward to what's happening in the rest
of the world.
For example, we can notice what the people around us are doing, what the sky looks like right at this
moment, or the shape of a tree.
We've seen a thousand times, but never really noticed.
We might find that we not only interrupt our anxiety fueling cell focus, but we also step into a richer
experience of life.
Except that what you're afraid of could happen.
Part of what maintains our fear and worry is mental resistance to what we are afraid might happen.
We cannot know for certain how things will turn out, and yet we keep trying in some way to control
the outcome.
When we accept that we cannot control what happens, we can step out of that tension.
We can recognize that our two could go really badly.
We might lose our our have we we could be in an accident and a tragedy could be full of the people we
love.
This kind of acceptance is likely to raise an anxiety at first, which is probably why we avoid it and
then can lead to a greater sense of peace as we give up the control we never had in the first place
at a certain age.
In the same vein of acceptance, we can acknowledge, even embrace the inherent uncertainty in our lives.
Who really knows how things will go?
That mystery can be terrifying, especially when we prefer to control everything all the time.
At the same time, it's liberating to align ourselves with the nature of life, which is fluid, surprising
and unpredictable.