“The outbreak of the neurosis is not just a matter of chance. As a rule it is most critical. It is usually the moment when a new psychological adjustment, a new adaptation, is demanded.”
- Carl Jung
I used to think anxiety was a demon. I felt like it haunted and possessed me. Unable to see what I felt in anyone else, I thought I was broken. ‘If only it would go away, then I could live the life I want to live.’
That has all changed. Now, when I notice the return of the shakiness, the flurry of irrational, often intrusive thoughts, it’s like hearing the voice of a wise old friend. A friend with a message. A guy who speaks only in uncomfortable but brutally honest truths. He will tell you exactly how it is. He knows you better than you know yourself, so he’s always the first one to know that something needs to change. He’s the first line between you and your soul. All he wants is for you to be in open, honest alignment with your True Self.
Most of the time, when we hear his whispers returning, we panic. We think, ‘oh no! I thought this shit was gone! I thought I dealt with it last time!’. And when we panic, he panics, and then we just freak everyone the fuck out!
Then we do everything we can to shut him out. But tryna shut him out is like trying to reject an invitation to Hogwarts. You start by chucking the envelope in the bin, pretending you never saw it, and next thing you know your whole house is 3 feet deep in raining envelopes.
You can even go on holiday to try and get away from him. But this guy is like fucking Hagrid at your front door. He’ll find you, and he’ll kick down your door with birthday cake in hand. You put the shotgun in his face and he bends it backwards and ties a bow with it.
And when he gets into your house, he will tell you straightup: ‘Yer a fucking wizard Harry! And you’ve gotta get the fuck out of muggle town, because this shit is draining your chi!’.
And chances are you won’t believe him. You don’t want to, because life is safe the way it is. But somewhere inside you know that if you don’t go, shit’s not gonna get better for you.
And if you resist this shit, trust me, it will persist. It will keep getting worse for you until ‘the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing.’
The problem is that you’ve been taught not to believe in magic. We’ve been taught that discomfort is our enemy.
When we view something as an enemy, we refuse to listen to what it has to say. That is why we need to befriend this chap. Accept that he is here, lean into him and work with him. If we don’t, our lives will start to look like a Harry Potter movie if Harry never went to Hogwarts.
But even once you befriend this guy, following his guidance is no easy task. He asks of you to die to the new you that you are yet to become. To shed the skin that you currently identify with, so that you may see what lies beneath. To take a leap of faith into a life which you currently can’t imagine.
The more you do this, the more you learn that you can trust him. He always eventually leads you into a life that feels fuller and deeper, more real and authentic to who you really are. He always pulls you into alignment with who you really are.
No need to fight or fret too much about him. Befriend him. Hear what he has to say. Know that he is only a visitor. And then allow him to do his work, and he'll leave.