Daily Meds Vol II: Survival

Anxiety, nervous energy, or any form of mental discomfort are remarkable phenomena when you really stop to consider them. They first manifest as survival responses, meant to keep us safe in new or threatening situations; but slowly, they become natural states of being for most people as self-awareness grows with age. The fact that we can even feel these responses is itself amazing; we are so highly tuned to the world that your chemistry constantly varies based on the slightest changes in threat level. But therein lies the problem: we all want to survive for as long as possible, but nobody wants to live a life in a state of emotional captivity. The problem is that we are very rarely under any real threat, and yet the mind treats all threats in a similar way. We have to learn to be more discerning in our analysis of that which enters our life.

Daily Meds, or Daily Meditations, are quick-hitting bits of practical advice to contemplate before starting your day. If you can resist the temptation to check your phone or turn on the news first thing in the morning and, instead, start your day with quiet, focused reflection, then you will begin attracting the highest quality outcomes into your life. Such is the basis of the Law of Attraction.

For many, practicing negative mental routines becomes a lifelong obsession. Difficulties in childhood, and influence from those we must obey to survive, become ingrained as inevitabilities, even though they really aren’t inevitable at all; just present at the moment. People in positions of power think that you, the child, must act according to their worldview, a worldview which likely stinks of painful survivalism itself. In other words, they are relying on the condition of your behavior to make themselves happy instead of calibrating to true happiness, which can only be discovered through unconditional love. When you’re told over and over that your behavior isn’t good enough, and that you must change to fit the world’s prescription of success, you become obsessed with the opinions of others; or you rebel with reckless abandon. Either way, you have become a master of negative emotion, and the cycle just perpetuates another generation. But it doesn’t have to continue this way.

If you think I’m advocating for a lifetime of blaming your parents for your anxiety, or chasing every negative emotion down to its specific childhood root à la the talk therapy method, think again. The blaming, the worrying, and the constant thinking are the faulty calibrations. All negative response is just a defense mechanism of some kind, and all that a defense mechanism does is proclaim that you are fragile and able to be broken if the world doesn’t make concessions for you. You think you're being strong, sassy, or independent, but really you’re (unknowingly) creating an un-winnable scenario for yourself: I want to be happy, but that’s only possible when the world concedes to me, and when it doesn’t concede I feel unhappy, but I know it will never concede with perfect consistency, so I guess I''ll just keep screaming for change. All sorts of insanity springs forth from this mindset, but deep-seated resentment is most common. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’ll never feel happiness, ever, if resentment dominates your daily life.

So how do we escape the cycle? The answer couldn’t be simpler, but we as humans love to complicate it. We love to argue for our limitations and justify our positions; positions which, ironically, often sprang from childhood belief systems which were never really ours to begin with—just a code that was enforced upon us. If you want to really dive deep into the answer to anxiety, I suggest reading my book The Integrity Method: Rebuild Your Identity, Create Your Fortune (on sale at Amazon). The basic answer, though, is this: prioritize how you feel. Don’t settle for negative emotions. Always strive for a better feeling thought, and then another, and then another. You may feel naïve or foolish or weak at first for choosing the path of unconditional love and everlasting peace, but once you witness the profound impact this choice has on you and your world—the people you love—you will wonder how you ever allowed the pain of mental anguish to rule your life. Living with the purpose of holiness won’t threaten your survival, either. You’ll begin thriving in ways that are indescribable.

T.K. Sanders is the author of The Integrity Method: Rebuild Your Identity, Create Your Fortune. Go to www.inforlife.club for more information on personalized coaching.