The Opposite of Effort
Think it's relaxation? Guess again!
Anxiety tells us that if we’re feeling stressed we’re doing it wrong. It whispers in our ear that there’s a better place out there, a place where we never have to feel bad, afraid, ashamed, exhausted. Anxiety, as you know, is a liar.
Never believe anything anxiety tells you wholesale. Anxiety is like your friend with borderline personality disorder. She tells you that more people would like you if you wore green.
With this little sentence she has managed to convey to you that less people like you. Not to mention it’s your fault. Oh, and you’ve been doing it wrong for a long time.
Anxiety lies with a piece of the truth.
Yes, if we’re stressed we may be doing something wrong. But it’s not likely the thing anxiety says it is.
Here’s the deal. The opposite of effort is not relaxation. It’s a different kind of effort.
We have it in our minds that if we were “doing it right,” it would all feel “good.” But we may not be able to define what that good feeling is.
Those of us who have been fortunate enough to cross over to the other side will tell you that the place you’ve been looking for is just a different kind of effort. It’s a manageable kind, one that’s in your control, and that makes it pleasurable. Not the euphoric relaxing state you’ve been told it must be.
Here’s a physical analogy.
If I told you to “stand up straight” you might find yourself squeezing your spine into a solid upright column, like an Egyptian statue. You’d feel powerful for about five minutes. Then you’d either collapse with exhaustion or forget what you were doing and go back to your usual posture.
That’s because standing up “straight” isn’t what you thought it was. When you erect yourself like that, you’re intensely engaging a very few muscle groups to hold up the weight of your torso. Many of those muscles really weren’t designed to do that for a long time, and even if you make them strong, all you’re doing is reinforcing a neurotic postural idea at the expense of true posture.
What is true posture? The musculature of the entire spine proportionally active to help you balance, from lowest to highest vertebrae, with the ribs participating in front and the pelvis engaged and aligned from below. The reasons so few of us can keep all that going are varied. We’ve lost contact with many parts of ourselves and no longer use them.
And so we tend to believe that standing up straight should either be some kind of effortless thing, or the opposite, that it’s got to be constant hard work in a small place. It never occurs to us that there’s a kind of cooperative bodily effort that would work better and would feel good.
The same is true of any situation, be it a relationship or a work-habit, where we think we have to kill it all the time so we can eventually relax. “If I just make enough money, I’ll never have to worry about money again.” “If I just make him love me, our relationship will be smooth sailing.”
No. You have to be mindful of money all the time, no matter how much or little of it you have. And when you’re in a successful relationship, you’re dancing with someone who needs your regular attention (whatever that means for the relationship).
If anxiety is telling you the opposite of the effort you’re putting in is some kind of future ecstasy, then anxiety is lying. It behooves you to start rethinking the goal you have invested in.
To some extent, you may think you need your anxiety. You might believe that it’s got the answer to your problems. You may worry that if the anxiety goes away, so will the solution you’ve been longing for.
The truth is, once you embrace the idea that you must be mindful and present, that what you’re looking for isn’t the cessation of effort, but a better kind of effort, then you won’t need your anxiety any more. It won’t be doing anything for you.
This is a great way to leave it behind.