Archive for September, 2009
My Mother’s Anxiety and Depression (Detaching from Parental Anxiety)
This post was written for my mother, and about my mother’s anxiety and depression disorders in her life due to her abusive parents. It’s not to say that she is always suffering, but she suffers more than most people with “mind problems”.
One of the most frustrating things we human beings go through when we finally decide we DO want enlightenment, in an attempt to stop personal suffering, is dealing with the insanity which is all around us, and in our families.
We have family and friends who are still caught up in their own affairs and egos (as we all are), at the same time we are trying to tame our own egos, to stop the insanity it brings into our lives, and the lives of those who come into contact with.
For instance, I just had a family camping trip with my parents in the United States (Montana to be exact) and although it was great to see them, I was mystified at how out of connection my own mother seemed to be. A lot of it had to do with being away from home and away from Canada – I think.
It was plainly obvious that my mother is still plagued by strong feeling of grief, guilt, doubt, fear, general anxiety, and remorse.
Her basic inclination, even as she approaches her 70’s is negative, yet she tries to maintain a positive outlook. It’s plain to see the stress in her eyes, and it saddens me to see how much she has suffered at the hands of her own ego for all her life.
Now I don’t mean to say this as a negative or judgemental (bad judgement) thing regarding my mother. When I think of her now, I think of her with love and compassion, and see her standing their in the morning walking her little dog, and starting her new day. I feel a strong feeling of compassion for how she suffered greatly under the egos of her father, mother, and siblings.
You see – my mother was beaten and abused as a child. She was physically abused, verbally abused, and emotionally abused. She was taught to learn fear, guilt, pain, and sorrow every step of the way. Her father (my grandfather) truly believed that life was HARD and suffering was the name of the game. He suffered from a MASSIVE ego which justified the beating and abusing of his children, and the neglect of his wife. By all accounts, he was raised by people with the very same intellect. What are the odds that my mother would grow up knowing peace, tranquility, and a view of REAL life, which is actually beauty, love, compassion, and fearlessness – not a chance baby! But alas, the world is changing and more and more parents are tuning into the new age spirituality and getting away from guilt and fear based religions.
I see my mother walking home from school dreading what she was going to find, and experience, as she opened the door to her childhood home. I see her hiding in her room, which was organized to the tee, in an attempt to gain some sort of sanity in her young life. The tragedy is so great, that my heart sinks at this imagery. (don’t worry, this gets better)
As I said to my wife this morning, while I was eating my Eggs Benedict at Ihop, our parents’ examples are examples of lives we can use to learn from – not completely emulate.We must see the positive examples our parent’s set for us (which had many and mostly) and completely detach from any negative examples.
When I was a younger man, full of ego and brashness, I rebelled against my mother (and father to some degree) and told myself, and her, that I would not conform to her view of the world, or even the view of the back yard. I made it clear that I was going to go my own way, and that I knew better of what life was all about. The truth was that I KNEW the truth, but didn’t understand it. It’s taken me 30 years to even begin to understand and KNOW the truth. I feel like I am just beginning to learn now.
The truth is that the egos and insanity of past generations in our family, are automatically programmed into our child’s mind, and we learn to emulate our parents, IF we don’t learn to be witnesses of our lives through consciousness. When we begin looking at our family behaviors, and see our parents and grandparents objectively for what they are and were, we begin to break the chains of the insanity we inherit.
When my mother and I were talking about the anxiety (and depression) issues she has had in her life, my life, and my brother’s life, she mentioned that she was glad my brother and I never had children of our own. She was glad we never had children because, as she put it, “the chain is broken”, and the suffering can now end. I don’t see it this way.
I’ve thought a great deal about her comment since she said it (too much for sure), and it still baffles me that she sometimes looks at life with such a cynical lens. To even think such a thought shows the level of ego and destructiveness that still dwells inside her mind. when I think of her comments here, I still see my mother as the little girl walking to school crying because her father had strapped her legs with a belt, leaving painful cuts and bruises for her classmates to see. It saddens me – but at the same time it teaches me something very important.
What is important is to “break the chain” as my dear mother put it. To break the chain of ego, insanity, and destructiveness – in the very moment we breath today’s breathe. We must completely break the chains of ego we have created, and those of our parents, and their parents. To break the chains of fear, shame, and loathing, whilst we visualization them (our parents) in a glowing light of pure love.
What was so difficult for my mother, was that her father (and mother) had such strong egos – there was very little time for her parents’ true light and love to shine through. I know, and my mother knows, that her parents did have light and love to share with the world, and they did – but it never seemed to be often. At least that is what my mother, and her siblings thought. The children of this family were so tightly gripped by fear, resentment, shame, and dysfunction, that even when their parents had moments of compassion, sanity, and reality, they couldn’t see it. They could only see the past infractions and insanity of their parents, and dreaded the future bouts of insanity soon to come. The reason my life has been so much different, and why my outlook is so much clearer, is because I got to see the light of truth emanate from my mother and father far more often.
The reason my brother and I have suffered with depression and anxiety is because we were greatly effected by my mother’s pain and suffering. We were spared the more intense suffering that my mother and her siblings experienced, but nevertheless and ALAS, it was, and is present. But that is changing for me.
Not only do I understand my past, and the past of my parents, I understand the fundamental truth of life. I understand the insanity of ego and it’s destructive affect of the people on this earth. I know what satori feels like because I have experienced it. I know what “the light” looks like, and now the true relationship I have with my parents, their parents, and their parent’s parents.
Although my parents will always hold an intensely special place in my heart, my compassion for all human beings of earth, and all animals on earth, are no less intense. I see my parents as the people that gave me birth, cared for me, and feel a sacred bond with, but I don’t see my love for them as MORE than what I see for a stranger. This may sound crazy to some people reading this, but in fact this is an important reality in the new world coming. We must give the same respect and love towards strangers as we give our own parents.
Dear Mother, I have broken the chains already – the chains that you are talking about, that is. I don’t believe in the chains of fear, shame, guilt, anger, remorse, and ego’s insanity. I don’t believe in the fantasy of your parents’ evils, and the evils you imagine you have carried out. I don’t believe in a world that is frightening, and full of peril. I don’t believe that I am a carbon copy of you, and your parents. I am nothing more than another living and breathing soul on this earth, that was REALLY brought here to share love and compassion with all.
I know that to the ego controlled mind this could seem like a horrible insult, a detachment, a slap in the face, a disowning of sorts – but it is truly the exact opposite of these. When I detach myself from the negative fantasies of earthly ego-based humans, this includes my family. I detach from what is NOT real. I detach from what is fear, worry, guilt, pain, and disillusion. I embrace what is a real in you and in all human beings.
Dear mother, I embrace you in pure love and compassion. I embrace you as what you truly are – pure love and empathy. I know that this is not what you see often enough, but you know this to be true. The mother I’ve seen smiling as she contemplates a thought that is cheery. The mother that lovingly considers her two boys every day. The mother that bathed her two boys, loved her two boys, fed her two boys, and protected her two boys. The mother that taught her boys of right and wrong, and wrestled with every advancement of our young and adult lives. Yes – I fully and finally embrace with you with pride.
No mother, I detach from your fear and your fantasy of fear. I embrace what is truly real in you. So when you speak of your torment, and the past that emotionally crippled you so much that you could spend the majority of a month in gloom, I must detach with love. I see through these fantasies of gloom and fear, only seeing the TRUTH of you. The bright and clear truth of your actions and your dreams. I see the pure essence of your God connection and refuse to see you as a victim any longer. I refuse to see myself as a victim, and my brother as one too.
I fully except MY RESPONSIBILITY to see the truth if life and light. I FULLY EXCEPT my responsibility to detach from fearful fantasies, and embrace glorious reality. No longer will I let my egoic mind completely overtake an entire day or week. As a matter of fact, I will not allow my egoic mind to ruin even 10 minutes of my day if possible. Oh – I’m very aware of the human egoic mind now, and I put my own on notice. The real boss is my God essence – my third eye, so to speak.
So worry not my dear mother, I love you for what you really are. I see you for what you really are, even if you cannot at times. I except you for exactly what you really are, and do not see your egoic mind as you – the same as I do not see my egoic mind as me.
So fear not my dear mother, the chain has been broken. The full light of awareness and consciousness has made everything crystal clear. The egoic chains of destruction have been broken, shattered, and destroyed forever and ever – amen. The only thing left on the horizon, is light. In this light I see you for the beautiful human being you are today and all days. I see only what is real, and not what is false in you.
You see dear Mother – the chains were never really there. They were a mirage – a ghost – an fantasy – a dark nightmare. They were never there. They existed completely in our frightened minds, and the frightened minds of our handlers.
I will no longer support these chains with my flesh and bone. I will endeavor to destroy any imaginary chains before our flesh perishes from this earth.
Anxiety and Stress – Out of the Blue
Posted by Jacob in Stress Management on September 6th, 2009
What do you do when you get an anxiety attack or high stress levels out of the blue? Well, we’ve been through this many times on Sane Advice haven’t we. We just accept the current situation and accept the fact that we ALL have some “bad days” no matter how centered and relaxed with “think” we are.
So last post I was actually writing in the middle of a full blown panic attack which was quite the experiment for me. I could still think and type words on my computer, but I was literally in a huge anxiety fog or cloud. I tried to analyze what was going on in my life, and figure out why I was so freaked out all of a sudden. I looked at my personal life, my relationships, my sleep patterns, eating patterns, exercise routine (or lack thereof), my financial situation, my fun factor, my business, my medication – my health, and on and on and on and on. Of course thinking about it didn’t help much – just made it worse of course.
Then all of a sudden it lifted. For no rhyme or reason, my fear, extreme anxiety, and stress lifted. So out of the blue, the stress came on hard, and then the stress just left. The only thing I did different that seemed to help allot was the meditation I started doing with my brother and sister-in-law. they had just come back from Whistler, B.C., where they went to a Deepak Chopra event that lasted 6 days and nights. They went deep into the practices of relaxation, physical and mental centering, and you name it. They are meditating twice a day now, and it has changed their lives for the better. I will also be meditating going forward because it did make a huge difference in how I felt. Meditation may be the reason my anxiety just floated away out of the blue.
One thing I noticed before the stress came, was my “stinkin’ thinkin”. For some reason I was telling myself that everything I saw was crap. No matter how much I tried to remind myself of the truth – the truth being that everything is actually beautiful and perfect, which makes the ego mind very angry. In fact, when the ego mind is angry and making itself miserable, just hearing the truth drives it crazy.
I know enough now about how the ego mind works, that I should know better than to let it run amuck – right! – right!? ……… wrong. We all have our days (and sometimes weeks) when our egos take full control of our minds and bodies. When the ego is having full rein of our day(s) it goes hard like a starving bear in bakery.
I told my wife what was going on, and I said to her,
You know when the universe told my ego about enlightenment, it thought it heard entitlement.
She said,
Did you just make that up?
We both agreed that was kinda funny, so i thought I would share the line with you. You see, life is strange – we wake up one morning and decide that everything is pure bunk, and we completely throw out everything that is real and true. We know that this is the ego sensing some weakness, and pouncing into have a hay-day with misconceptions, exaggerations, fear, anger, and all around STINKIN’ THINKIN’. Now I didn’t make up that old phrase. That was something I heard my mother use after her Al-Anon meetings and readings.
I can see that in the future of my own life, these bouts with stinkin’ thinkin’ will be less and less frequent. I truly believe everything I say here on the blog, and I truly believe what Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Michael Beckwith, the Dali Lama, Eckhart Tolle, Jesus, and Buddha are saying. The step that I (and we) need to take is from believing to KNOWING.
We can read all of the blogs and books, go to seminars, watch DVDs, and listen to CDs until we saturate our minds with the truth – that helps – I’m not saying it doesn’t, but we have to get to stage of knowing, and not just believing. This is where meditation and lifestyle comes in. This is when discipline comes in. This is what the ego dislikes intensely.
The ego still wants to be lazy, sleep in, eat whatever it wants, never exercise, watch T.V. for many hours at a time, smoke, take drugs, drink alcohol excessively, and complain whenever possible about everything it sees. When you change these lifestyle patterns with discipline knowing comes in and believing becomes concrete.
Imagine never watching the news, reading a newspaper, or sad and violent television programming. Imagine never filling your body with cigarette smoke, or chewing tobacco. Imagine never drinking more than one glass of wine in a two month period. Imagine meditating twice a day for 20-30 minutes. Imagine exercising every day. Imagine only eating good food and never to excess. Just imagine.
For most of us humans floundering around, we have trouble imagining the above, because we have never lived liked that, and we shudder (or should I say our egos shudder) at such a lifestyle. I just read the above paragraph back to myself and it scares the crap out of me! (just kiddin’) But just imagine how we would feel. I read that and I think of how much that would change the lives of the people around me. I would be living a much different life of sure.
My suggestion to all (and to myself) is to slowly start bringing that lifestyle into reality. Start by eating “a little bit” better. Start meditating 5 minutes a day. Take a really short walk around the block every couple of days. If you smoke cigarettes, try cutting back a few cigarettes a day. You can do that by not smoking from pure habit, and only when you are really having a nicotine withdrawal reaction. Just start slow, and move towards healthier habits. DO NOT go hard and make yourself miserable by infuriating the ego. Be kind to your ego and treat like the spoiled little whiner child that it is. Slowly take your ego by the hand and compliment it on it’s efforts. Tell your ego that you are just going to back off the unhealthy habits “a little bit”, and tell your ego you have no intention of getting rid of it. Tell the ego the truth – it will always be there and a part of you, but it doesn’t have to fear anything. Say to your ego,
Everything is going to be O.K.
Which it is. The ego does like to hear these words too. Don’t forget that the ego is frightened at the prospect of ANY change at all. It fears goodness and happiness changes, it fears badness and unhappiness changes too. It wants everything to stay the same, because it’s barely hanging on to accepting what it real and what is now.
So when you are making these changes in your life, little by little, remind your ego that everything is going to be O.K. You can use affirmations which you can repeat over in your head. These affirmations are a wonderful method of quieting the frightened ego and it’s childish fears.
So when you see that out of the blue, you are feeling frightened, angry, unsatisfied with what is, or just plain sad and depressed, just know that it’s the ego at work, and it’s days and hours are surely numbered – and they are. The ego’s total control usually only lasts a day or so in most humans, before reality sets in and they begin to feel better.
For those of us who have BIGGER egos, we can go into the pain for weeks and sometimes months at a time. We end up sometimes taking medication just to calm ourselves down. We sometimes consumer unhealthy things like alcohol, drugs, and massive amounts of nicotine to try and feel better. Those of us with the big egos will suffer more, but we TOO swing out of the funk and begin “getting real again”. That’s when we can start making some gradual changes towards a better lifestyle.
Gotta run – gonna go play some golf today.
Love ya – Jacob
Learning To Relax With 10 Minute Meditation
Posted by Jacob in Meditation on September 3rd, 2009
At Saneadvice.com we want to help our visitors learn to relax without the use of medication. If you can learn to relax and remove stress from your life without medication, it’s what you want to do first.
The most important thing for you to do on a daily basis is meditate. There are many resources online that you can use for learning the art of meditation, like the TM site, and we at SA would like to put up a very simple and easy meditation technique that is only 10 minutes long. This meditation should be done twice a day, but three is better, and one is just helpful. Do it once in the morning before you start your day, and once later in the day when you have finished all or any chores, work, etc. Instead of turning on the TV as soon as you have some time to kill, meditate first.
I am going to use some sample videos from Claire Diab that will prepare you for your meditation. These are Youtube clips I put up so you can try meditation, without having to invest anything money wise -- just time wise. However, these clips are far from the entire DVD which goes through everything in MUCH more detail, so if you want to learn much more about mediation, please see Claire Diab’s web site and order her books, DVDs, and CDs there. Sane Advice is a non-profit blog for anxiety suffers, so we do not profit from linking to Claire’s web site. We just know she truly cares about helping people and making money is a natural bi-product of success.
Now on with the meditation process. These clips come from Claire’s DVD called, “Breathe….Move…..Meditate”, where she guides you through a 10 minute, 20 minute, and 30 minute meditations, including the pre-meditation breathing exercises. Here is a bit from her site;
Claire Diab will teach you mantra meditation, breathing techniques, chakra toning and the six directions of the spine. These powerful breathing techniques help to purify and cleanse your lungs, which in turn purifies and nourishes every single cell in your body.
If you have never meditated before, you can use a simple and effective mantra which is provided by Claire as well. You will use the mantra SO -- HUM -- NAMAH. You make these sounds to yourself slowly and easily, so you can pretty well do this anywhere. This is silent meditation. But first the breathing exercises to do before we start the mantra.
Breathing Exercises Before 10 Minute Meditation -- Close Your Eyes
- First breathe deeply and gently in so your stomach is moving in and out, and do this about a dozen times to relax yourself. Try and clear your mind at this step best you can, because we are getting in to the flow of the meditation already.
- Then you breathe in through your nose twice in a row, then exhale twice in a row. These are short little breathes. So this 10 times and then take a break for a moment to breathe easy. Then do it again for 10 more times -- then breathe easy. Do the whole cycle 3 times.
- Then you breathe through your nose quickly, in and out, in and out, in and out. Do it 10 times, and then take a break for a few breathes. Do this quick in and out breathing through the nose 10 more times, and then take another break. Do the whole cycle 3 times.
- Alternate nostril breathing is the next breathing exercise. Hold one nostril closed and breath in through the other and hold your breathe for a moment. Then release that nostril and close the other which you just took your breathe in with, and exhale. Keep your finger closing the nostril you are closing now, and inhale. Once you inhale, hold your breathe again, switch your finger to the opposite nostril holding it closed and exhale. Repeat the whole process a few times. See video below for reverse nostril breathing.
- Breathe in and out normally for about 10 breathes, just like you would breathe if you were not even paying attention to your breathing. Just relax. You are likely feeling quite relaxed now, but the best is yet to come. Stay with me here.
Start Your 10 Minute Meditation
Now start your 10 minute meditation period. Close your eyes, and slowly, calmy, gently, repeat the mantra from above;
SOOOOO - HUMMMMM -- NAMAHHHHHHH…………………SOOOOO - HUMMMMM -- NAMAHHHHHHH
If you hear noises in the background, just focus back on your mantra, SO -- HUM -- NAMAH. If you have any thoughts that disturb your mantra, just go back to the mantra SO -- HUM -- NAMAH.
If you have never meditated before, you will find that your mind will fight back against you somewhat and disturb your thoughts. That is normal. Just focus back on the mantra, and after awhile your mind will calm down, and after a further while you will feel a sensation of nothingness when your mind has calmed down completely and you in your true and natural state.
Just 10 minutes a day, twice a day, is amazing. If you can do 30 minutes twice a day even better.
I will be posting Youtube video clips to show these steps as well. Once again, these are just small clips of Claire’s instructions.

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