Anxiety about the economy etc

shadowleaver

Hello, Folks!

For as long as I can remember, I've periodically succumbed to intense feelings of fear and anxiety about various social and political problems in the country where I live. For example, I'd become obsessed about crime, illegal immigration, poverty or lack of afordable medical care. Today it is mostly about the present economic crisis, even though my personal situation is quite good.

The "subject" of such negative emotional states can change but the symptoms are more or less the same. I feel this uncomfortable worrisome itching somewhere inside and next thing I know is that I compulsively browse the Internet (or a bookstore) looking out for the materials about the "subject" that's bothering me. For hours (and sometimes days) I just can't leave reading up on and ruminating over the issue at hand, and bringing it up in conversations with others, should such an opportunity arise. I know intellectually that such a use of time or energy (worrying about bigger issues I have no control over) is unreasonable but I can't do much, I feel stuck in my negative thought patterns. Afterwards, I feel energiless, confused and guilty.

It used to be more severe than it is now, to the point of being disruptive to my life. In the last few years it has abated somewhat, maybe partially thanks to my attempts at embracing and following Buddhism more. The "attacks" do not last as long as they used to and I have more ability of switching my attention to something else. Nevertheless, I am far from achieving mastery over this unfortunate tendency of my mind.

Has anyone reading this experienced the kind of anxiety/obsession that I'm describing? Do you have any insight into dealing with this?

Thank you!

BlackFlag

I cannot offer any insight because I do not feel I'm experienced enough to give advice in this regard.

However you were wondering if I've felt anxiety such as this? Yes, I have. However, it was in the form of social relationships. Constantly worrying what other people thought of me and that sort of thing. It was quite horrible. I'm getting better, but its still there a little bit.

Anupassī

I find that dwelling on the brahmavihara is extremely helpful for this sort of thing. They push the mind in an entirely different direction from the normal track of obsessive thoughts, which often seem more to relate to objects than to anything else. The brahmavihara are about relation between one sentient being (you) and other beings, rather than between the sentient being and a world of impersonal objects.

In case you aren't familiar with them, the brahmavihara are: metta (a bit rough to translate, but generally meaning "unconditional acceptance"), karuna ("compassion" or "mercy"), mudita (sympathetic joy at the wholesome achievements of others), and upekkha (equanimity, evenness between excitement and fatigue).

May all beings be at ease!

Edit: Oh, and I am rather used to this. I have a very quick mind when it comes to thought-streams, so if my mind gets "hooked" on a certain thought-pattern, it just keeps coming back again and again, rapidly. I simply let it be, without internal emotional commentary on it, and turn my mind towards the brahmavihara or to simple absorption in the present. Obsessive tendencies haven't been entirely eradicated, but they no longer really trigger any dukkha as far as I can tell, other than the basic sankhara-dukkha of all thought.

Mountains

I'm surely not qualified to provide any kind of deep Buddhist insight on this, but I share much the same difficulty sometimes. As I've read more about Buddhism though, it occurs to me that when I get caught up in that kind of a thought stream, if I simply try to "pull back" a bit and think of it from a different perspective, it changes my feeling about it. For instance, when I consider how hopeless a situation related to the political mess we find ourselves in seems to be, start to consider how utterly small and insignificant that problem (no matter how big it may seem) really is compared to (for instance) the amount of nothingness contained within every atom in my body. Compared to the vastness of the distances between planets in our solar system, and how utterly insignificant those vast distances are compared to the distance between galaxies. Just get a "bigger" perspective. Think of all the day to day problems that humans have had every single day that there have been humans, and how we only see the ones that are in front of our noses every day. Does it concern you that hunters in prehistoric Africa were starving because of poor hunting due to a drought 300,000 years ago? It was pretty important to them I'd bet! Do you fret over the way 'heretics' were treated by the Spanish Inquisition? I guarantee that was a mighty big problem to the accused at the time! But looking at it from today's perspective, it's pretty insignificant. Likewise, today's mega-problems will seem insignificant in the future.

If you believe in rebirth as many Buddhists do, it's not hard to believe that what seemed mega-problems to us in our previous lives are utterly unknown now. Likewise, problems we will have in our future lives are unknown to us, but will undoubtedly be just as gut-wrenching as what we're experiencing today in this life.

Don't know if that helps at all, but it seems to work for me. Also, trying to focus on positive things you see around you - from the perfect symmetry of a butterfly's wings to the wagging tail of a dog who's happy to see you come home to the taste of a nice bottle of wine all seem to help me get past focusing on those big problems.

Peace

Mtns

shadowleaver

Anupassi,

Thank you! It's good to hear someone has experienced similar issues and found a way of addressing them.

shadowleaver

Mountains,

I actually arrived at something resembling your approach myself. It really is calming to compare how you feel about something that happened a while ago to how people will be feeling about today in a while from now. Pondering my own smallness in the grand scheme of things has also proved relaxing-- some people are terrified when they hear that they're but grains of sand in the Sakhara of existence, but for some reason I feel like a burden is lifted off my shoulders...

Peace!