Anxiety and the Doing cycle: when maps don't work

We all experience anxiety. For some people at some times the anxiety they experience becomes so extreme that they require professional help to manage it, but all of us have some level of anxiety all the time. At its simplest, anxiety is the feeling which arises for us when we want two mutually exclusive things at the same time.

Joe has started a new job that he really likes but he is afraid that he is not making a very good impression with the boss. He has been a few minutes late every day this week. Getting the boys up and dressed and fed and off to school just takes more time than it should.

But Joe is feeling hopeful this morning. He is out of the house on time and traffic looks good. Barring a major problem he should make it just on time. As the thought "major problem" goes through Joe's mind, he looks at the instruments on the dash to assess the condition of his car and the gas gauge catches his eye. It is on empty.

So Joe experiences anxiety. He wants to be at work on time and he wants to get gas. If he doesn't stop and get gas he might be very late to work. Or he may not get to a gas station after work. He wants two apparently opposite things at the same time.

We want to just note here that if Joe had the foresight to notice he was low on gas yesterday evening on the way home, he could have stopped then or at least been aware that he would have to stop this morning. When we anticipate and address these apparent conflicts they go away without causing discernable anxiety.

As we don't address the conflicts the anxiety grows in intensity until we notice and address it. This is what anxiety it for, to bring our attention to problems so we can give them our full attention.

Problem Solving: The Doing Cycle

You may recall back in chapter three as we looked at how we build our perceptual maps we introduced the observation that we are engaged always in three interrelated activities: we are assessing the current situation; we are deciding how we want things to be different; and we are selecting and implementing a strategy to create change.

Joe looks at the clock on the dash and the gas gauge and tries to determine how much time he has and how much gas is in the tank while he estimates the miles to work and the fuel efficiency of his car. He adds to the mix his awareness of where there are gas stations and how long the lines are likely to be at each one and the time to get in and out. He checks to make sure he has his wallet hoping the credit card is in it. He tries to remember if he has his boss' phone number with him so he can call if he runs out of gas and then decides that is not a good plan. He pulls into a convenient gas station.

Joe is rapidly cycling through a series of steps in problem solving. He is gathering information about his current situation. He is clarifying his goals. And he is selecting strategies which move him toward his goals. He is developing a strategy for resolving a conflict. We all do this all the time.

As you read this you are noticing what time it is and you wonder if you will finish this section before you put the book down and get to sleep or do the dishes or whatever else is on your task list for the moment. You have things to do. You know what at least many of your goals are and you have a sense of the strategies you have to invoke to create what you need. And you are doing all of this with very little conscious awareness most of the time.

But, from time to time, we find that we don't know what is going on. We are paying attention--sometimes close attention--but we can't figure out the current condition. We become anxious.

Or perhaps we know what is going on, but we can't figure out what it is we want to have happen. There are a number of possible and even desirable outcomes available but they are not all possible so we can't figure out what we want. We become anxious.

Or perhaps we are clear about what is going on and resolute about what we want to have happen but we can't seem to settle on a strategy for creating what we need. We have several options open to us but each has shortcomings and may not work or may cost too much so we aren't sure what to do. Perhaps we feel as though we have tried everything and nothing seems to work. We become anxious.

So anxiety is the feeling we have whenever the doing cycle gets stuck. It is the natural and normal response to a restriction in our ability to get things done and it draws our attention to problems so we can use the light of our awareness to illuminate and resolve them.

As long as we are functioning optimally this process works well and smoothly. But sometimes we get overloaded with anxiety. Sometimes a problem arises and our attention is brought to it by our anxiety and we begin to address it but before we resolve it another problem arises...and then another... and another... and pretty soon we find ourselves flooded with anxiety.

So the current condition is that we are overwhelmed by anxiety, the target condition is that we be anxiety free, and the strategy is... to go shopping, or have a drink, or smoke some pot, or maybe some crack.

When the anxiety is no longer a way of bringing attention to a problem but becomes a problem itself, we look for ways to soothe ourselves. And there are many ways we can do this. We can listen to music, take a walk, go fishing, meditate, pray...

Ways of Being

The cycle of doing has as its goal to create an event in which a specific problem is solved. Ways of being also create events but they are ones in which certain qualities can be nurtured.

Some people go fishing to catch fish. But many go fishing to be fishing. There is a quality which arises in their awareness when they are on the banks of the river or lake or ocean and they watch the line and feel the tension and just wait.

Some beginning meditators get anxious about whether they are meditating right. This is normal. But meditation is not a way of doing; rather it is a way of being. Whatever arises is what arises. Meditation is simply observing in an attentive way whatever it is that arises in our awareness, and then letting it go. It is not trying to fix it or solve it or understand it. Simply observe, and let it go, and see whatever next arises.

There are many schools and forms of meditation and there are many things we do which are meditative which may not ever be identified as such. What they all have in common is that they provide an opportunity for us to step back and observe. We move to a location in our own interior from which we become a witness to our own experience.

We function best when we have a balance between our doing and our being. If we spend all of our attention on doing we get a lot done, but we can be overwhelmed by anxiety. If we spend all of our attention on being we are able to be at peace... but we never seem to get anything done. The trick is to find an appropriate balance.

The pace of contemporary culture in the developed world is one in which everyone is pretty much busy doing. This has been a shift from what we most often think of as "primitive" cultures in which much time and attention went to simply being. In today's world we don't have time to just be.

It is possible that the now ancient notion of keeping a Sabbath--setting aside a day each week to just be--came from the observation of how human relationships are damaged by a move to a more work intensive society instead of the more laid back existence of hunter-gatherer bands.

We are out of balance and we are so busy doing and have so little time to just be that we get more and more stressed and become more and more anxious. So instead of addressing our anxiety by being, we find ways of doing which soothe the anxiety... at least in the short run.

Joe was late getting to work and he got a warning from his boss about his tardiness. That was just the start to an overall bad day, so after work he decided to stop into the bar for a couple of drinks. It was after 7:00 when he finally got home and he and Jane got into a huge fight so he slept on the couch. In the morning he had a hangover. The only time he really felt good all day was while he was at the bar, so he will go going out drinking again tonight.

The problem with using mood altering chemicals to soothe our anxiety is that they work... in the short run. When we use something to soothe anxiety which works we tend to use it again, and again, and again. We become addicted.

We will not go into a deep analysis of addiction here, but it helps us to notice that the addictive behavior, whether to chemicals or to behaviors like shopping, biting fingernails, food, sex, or video games--is a reaction to the anxiety which we all experience. We are not able to durably change the addictive behavior without addressing the anxiety that gives rise to it. We all feel anxiety. We all get overwhelmed. We all self-soothe.

Some of us limit our self-soothing behavior to ways of being, but most of us also act out; that is, we act on the anxiety in a way which projects it out into our behavior in the larger world we inhabit. We eat when we aren't hungry. We watch TV when it bores us. We smoke cigarettes in spite of knowing they are killing us.

So the acting out is an effort to soothe the anxiety we are feeling and it works. But it doesn't actually address the cause of the anxiety, only the experience of it. For us to actually stop the acting out we would have to know what is causing the anxiety which spawns it. But as long as we do the acting out the anxiety is soothed so we don't feel it. How might we know what it is we are actually anxious about so we can address and resolve the conflicts we are having with ourselves?

To address the core issue we have to feel the anxiety. To feel the anxiety we have to stop the acting out. We act out to not feel anxious. We stop the acting out in order to feel anxious. We feel anxious in order to discover the unresolved internal conflict which is separating us from our best selves.