The Zen Diarist

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Worrying: how to stop this pointless habit

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Live fully in the present instead

Worrying has become more commonplace these days and mental health is at a low ebb, so many reports say. That’s bad news. Better news is that most of us can do something about everyday worrying and improve our sense of wellbeing. Those nagging thoughts are completely pointless, totally illogical and we don’t need to entertain them at all.

Worrying is a plague in itself

Worry is part of the plague of thinking too much, and being overloaded with information that comes at us from all directions only exacerbates matters. If we observe our thinking processes, we will quickly notice that one thought inevitably leads to another. Worry is simply a chain of thoughts with a backdrop of fear – a fear of something either not turning out as we want it to, or turning out as we don’t want it to. It’s a harmful habit that we need to quit.

Worrying – the opposite of our true nature

Our true nature is clear unbounded consciousness. In rare moments of clarity, we may have brief glimpses of it, like a completely cloudless sky. It isn’t out there somewhere, nor inside us. There is no inside and outside. It simply is, and that pristine unboundedness is who we are. After a few seconds – longer if we are lucky – something stirs, thoughts come and the clarity is lost again. However, if we learn to become still by being relaxed and focused in the present, some of that clarity will return and start to infuse our lives, in everything we think, say and do.

No magic fix – but there is magic to be found

There is no magic fix, we just have to keep training ourselves to come back to the present, taking time to gaze, to stop and breathe, to wonder, to love. Those moments are the magic of life. Yes, there will be things we need to do for others, but we are of far more use to this troubled world when we become a still and loving presence than if we fill our life with “what-ifs”.

How to live now is the theme of the book: The Art of Not Doing

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Can we let go of needing to know?

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If there is one thing we can be certain of, especially now, it’s that nothing lasts for ever. The temporary nature of everything in the universe is scientific fact, of course, and central to most spiritual teachings.

Over the years, a number of people have said to me that they find the notion of impermanence quite depressing – yet it’s supposed to help us and cheer us up!

Nevertheless, conditioned as we are to aim for health, longevity and maybe prosperity, we can feel a bit wobbly and disconnected when everything familiar seems to be falling apart.

How much do we really need to know?

Feeling adrift, it is natural to look for something to hold onto. We are ruled by our minds and emotions, so that often comes in the form of seeking information – lots of it.

Isn’t it great that we seem to have almost limitless access to information? Well, not necessarily. Information is not the same as knowledge.

Real knowledge resides in the boundlessness of pure consciousness and is accessed not by facts but through stillness and clarity.

We have all probably experienced that clarity many times, even if just for a few seconds. It usually occurs when there is a gap in thinking that gives us an “aha” moment.

Aha – how about an information fast?

If the information we seek leads us a little closer to the experience of pure consciousness, that’s great. Information as education should do that.

The trouble with most of the news, theories, rumours and banalities of social media is that they do the opposite. They actually pull us away from our inner nature.

Instead of peacefulness and unity, the mind careers into divisiveness, analysing and judging. Once that begins, the process is very hard to stop. It is like having an itch that, once scratched, moves somewhere else and needs scratching again.

If your mind is not peaceful, why not try a news and social media fast for a few days? After the initial withdrawal symptoms, you may feel surprisingly better and upbeat.

More of this in The Art of Not Doing

Guided meditations

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Taking refuge can give us what we really want

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When there’s a storm blowing, people and animals take refuge from it and, in a sense, that’s what many of us are doing now. There are plenty who are still working, of course, and others very busy looking after young children or with other responsibilities. But for the majority, it is a form of retreat, or can be. Time to reflect, perhaps, and time to enjoy being oneself. It has certainly caused me to reflect on many things, including a couplet from one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s breathing meditations: “Breathing in, I go back to myself. Breathing out, I take refuge in my own island”.

Taking refuge is finding safety inside as well as out

For many years, I felt slightly uncomfortable with that. It seemed quite at odds with John Donne’s famous phrase, “no man is an island”, with which I was sternly admonished as a teenager, and which thereafter always echoed in my brain. Suddenly, though, in this enforced retreat it makes sense. Staying at home takes care of the physical refuge. It also provides the opportunity to go further than that and bring the mind home, too, closer to its natural state.

Bringing the mind home

A good start is to resist the urge to check news and social media many times a day. We just don’t need so much information. It simply irritates the mind, uses up enormous amounts of energy, and drains our qi. Why shorten life unnecessarily? Taking refuge reverses that process of looking outwards all the time. It allows the mind to come to a more peaceful place, where true creativity lies. Surprisingly quickly, we can be satisfied with less and soon find fullness, here and now. Isn’t that, deep down, what we want? What we really, really want?

Drawn from The Art of Not Doing: How to Achieve Inner Peace and a Clear Mind

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Habits – when and how to manage them

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Forming habits, now there’s a thing. Someone told me once that it takes three weeks to form or break a habit. I’m not sure where that came from or whether there is any evidence to support it. Nevertheless, the turn of each new year has features editors of newspapers and magazines publishing articles on the new habits we urgently need to acquire or lose. Is that a habit of theirs they could safely shed, I wonder?

Habits don’t like awareness

We all know that new year resolutions generally fail before the end of January. Except the one not to make any, which I find works well and lasts all year! Old habits die hard, so the adage runs, and in any event it would be silly to suggest that we should have no habits all. Many are very useful, like washing our hands after we have been to the bathroom. If only everyone did. The problem comes when our repetitive thinking and behaviour (which is what habits are) have a negative impact on ourselves and on others. Then there is something we can, and should, do.

Just observe and break the chain

The key to change for the better is not self-flagellation, dieting, running up mountains or taking ice baths, interesting and challenging though such activities may be. Rather it is to become aware of what we are doing and why we are doing it. Simple awareness can work wonders because it is the portal for our innate intelligence. Try it sometimes; better still, often. Before doing anything, pause and observe. Break the chain of one automatic response after another. Starve the habit of oxygen. Those few moments of comparative silence allow something rather good to happen. What it is, though, you must discover for yourself.

Do less to accomplish more – read my book The Art of Not Doing – How to Achieve Inner Peace and a Clear Mind

Free guided meditations

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Stop the world? You can’t, but you can stop yourself

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Stop thinking “Stop the world, I want to get off!” Most of us probably feel like that from time to time. The world does indeed seem mad, so it’s perfectly understandable to want to escape. But what we see isn’t so much “out there”. It’s what the mind makes of all the information we take in. The pictures we have are inside, the result of a meandering mind that conjures up all sorts of images and conclusions. In the process, it takes our vitality with it. So perhaps it’s not the world that needs to stop – we do.

Stop thinking – or stop over-thinking?

Stop thinking? It’s not a bad idea but the mind is in an almost perpetual state of motion. It is not used to being in a state of “not doing”. It will engage itself in almost anything, so long as it doesn’t have to stop and become aware of itself. Perhaps we are afraid of stopping because if there is nothing to think about and nothing to focus on, what is left? Most of us have a fear of the unknown and of having nothing to cling onto, so we busy ourselves in the practice of chronic avoidance. That needs to change.

Don’t keep spinning the wheel because it’s not going anywhere

The mind is like a wheel that is always spinning. If we want the mind to slow down, we have to stop feeding it rubbish. When the mind is whirling from one thing to another, it seems impossible to do anything about it. But we can learn to pause – and we must if we want to reconnect with our true state of being. Stopping is more than a matter of preserving health. A pause gives us time to breathe and to appreciate everything we have. When we appreciate and feel grateful for life, we value and respect ourselves and others. The world then seems a better place, and maybe we don’t need to jump off after all.

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  2. Action: Why everything you do and say is more important than you think
  3. Habits – when and how to manage them
  4. Thinking too much? Why it can make you ill