Get Out, LIVE!

This feeling that I always have makes me wonder why I am anxious. The time consumed in learning about my anxiety adds to the problem and makes it a more frustrating experience. I have learned that I should not carry luggage from the past, but what is there in the past? Which past?

My past has layers that, integrated with such complexity, make it so hard to remember which part is causing the heaviness and why.

Each time I try to remember how I reached a place where I feel the internal weight of the void - what turns my life has taken to put me in this place where I do not belong- I add more layers to my anxiety.

So, if contemplating the past is not the anticipated solution, what can I do to help find an answer?

It is so funny - and maybe more enlightening- to learn about a type of self-defense mechanism called “Spiritual Bypassing” while working on this posting. Believe it or not, I think I got the answer I needed.

What is “Spiritual Bypassing”?

While seeking a more significant meaning in our lives and making a more profound connection to the universe and probably to our inner self, hoping to discover what the true purpose of our existence is, we get distracted by the beautiful images of spirituality that we create while pursuing our inner peace and happiness. We deny all the actual problems, avoiding the pain and the darkness of our realities.

In short, we avoid any problematic situation by creating a beautiful “mental” place where we can hide until the crisis passes.

When we use spirituality as a self-defense mechanism, we hinder ourselves from learning and growing. We need to know how to deal with depression rather than deny it and pretend that we are ok. We need to acknowledge our grieving when we lose someone rather than pretend that we do not care. We need to admit that we are vulnerable and exposed to all types of mistakes that we should learn from them rather than ignore.

Again, my past has layers, though these are the layers of images I have created to avoid managing my problems. I have anxiety because I am not living; I am only hiding in my colorful bubble while life passes by me. All that I need to do, for now, is to break out of the fantasies and jump into real life to learn and grow… spiritually.

Dana Obeid