Lesson 2: The Anxiety of Mattering and Not Mattering
Two kinds of anxiety arise with respect to this profound existential issue: the anxiety that arises when we begin to sense that our work doesn't matter to us and the anxiety that arises when we realize that our work matters very much to us (and what a burden all that mattering puts on our shoulders!). These core existential anxieties exist for every intelligent, sensitive person who has "peeked behind the curtain" and thought for herself about the nature of existence and her place in the universe.
As you work on your novel, painting, or song accept that you will be made anxious by doubts about whether your creative efforts "really matter." These are doubts that afflict all contemporary creative people in a way that they never afflicted an indigenous potter, carver or weaver. The great painters at the turn of the twentieth century who fell in love with African art recognized that those tribal artists worked with a pure power because they did not doubt what they were doing. By contrast they, in their avant-garde Paris, were plagued by doubts about the meaning and purpose of life.
We must accept that we have moved to a point in the life of our species where enormous doubts about the nature of existence provoke persistent core existential anxiety in every creative person. We deal with those doubts by announcing that it is our job to make meaning, even if the universe does not care about meaning. We embrace the profound paradigm shift from looking for meaning and wondering about meaning to making meaning out of whole cloth and get on with the creative work that it is in our heart to do.
HEADLINE
Anxiety arises in us when we fear that our efforts do not matter and anxiety arises in us when we try to do creative work that matters to us. Since anxiety arises in either case, decide to do work that matters to you, even if that provokes anxiety. Refuse to countenance the thought that you and your efforts do not matter--really banish that thought--and accept that when you opt to matter you will provoke anxiety that you will then have to master.
TO DO
Opt to matter. This is a decision, not a given! Decide to be the hero of your own story and to prove the exception by doing your creative work despite your doubts, anxieties, and life difficulties. Plan for your creative work, schedule your creative work into your daily routine (preferably first thing each morning), and do it despite your doubts about you, the marketplace, and the universe.
VOW
I matter and my creative efforts matter.
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TEACHING TALE
The following teaching tale features Ari, a fictional creativity coach who lives and works in an unnamed desert location. Modeled on the Sufi teaching tale, this tale employs naturalistic and fantastic elements and presents a lesson or a moral in fictional form. A teaching tale of this sort may or may not be your cup of tea. If it isn't, please proceed to your ongoing work of learning and using your anxiety management tools. If it is, please enjoy!
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THE DANCER WHO DIDN'T MATTER
Magdalene, a dancer, came to the oasis.
"I have too many interests, too many talents," she said. She had on the bluest dress, which made her eyes look wild and fierce. "First, I dance. But I also have a painter's eye. And I love to write. I've been keeping journals for years and years and have thirty fat journals filled with my thoughts. I do collages, digital photography, raku. I write songs. I want to put this all together into something, I want to figure out how to concentrate on one thing, because--" She hesitated. "The fact of the matter is, I never complete anything. I start all these incredible projects but then something else starts to interest me more and I begin on it. That's what's been happening," she ended, trailing off as if her thoughts had failed her.
"The thing you want to concentrate on? What is that?"
"I don't know. I want help with that."
"You have some ideas, no doubt."
"Well, I thought I might do a family history, maybe an oral history or a video history of my family, with my own drawings included. I've thought of doing a novel about fifteenth century France--I've made notes about that. It would be about a young woman who stands up to the French Inquisition and is tortured and sentenced to be burned at the stake. But a young priest helps her escape. I've had the idea to do that novel for the longest time."
"You could do those things," Ari said blandly.
"I could." Magdalene fell silent. "I have so many things I want to do!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I can't seem to choose."
"No," Ari said, "it isn't quite that."
Magdalene colored. "You think I'm just avoiding-"
"No. You think that you're just avoiding choosing. I don't think any such thing. I think the problem is quite different. I think you believe that nothing is worth doing, that neither you nor your efforts matter. The problem isn't that you have too many interests and talents. The problem is that you don't believe that you matter."
"That isn't true!" Magdalene cried. "I know that art matters!"
"I didn't say that. You don't believe that you matter."
Magdalene slumped down. Ari noticed that a cool afternoon breeze had come up. He could smell the scent of sweet jasmine tea from the tea shop a few doors down, the scent carried on the desert wind.
"When you told your parents that you wanted to be a dancer, what did they say?" Ari inquired.
"They told me to get a job and dance on the side," Magdalene replied softly.
"They told you that dancing didn't matter."
"Yes."
"When you thought about showing them your poetry, what did you think the next split second?"
"That they wouldn't be interested. That they would tell me to get my real homework done."
"They told you that poetry didn't matter."
"Yes."
"When you hung things on the wall--"
"They told me not to make holes in the wall."
"They told you that visual images didn't matter."
"Yes."
"And music--"
"They hated how much money I wanted to spend on music. And the kind of music! They hated that I always listened to music. They couldn't believe that I could do my homework and also listen to music, even when I brought home straight A's."
"They told you that music didn't matter."
"Yes."
"Did you ever try to talk to them about anything you held as sacred?"
"No."
"Because they didn't believe in the sacred."
"They went to church--"
"Did they believe that anything was sacred?"
"No."
"Did they believe that you were sacred?"
"No."
"Neither do you."
Magdalene's eyes welled up with tears.
"What should I do?" she asked after a long moment.
"Decide to matter. Affirm that you exist. Call yourself sacred."
The desert silence embraced them. At a corner of the oasis, near the Great Well that was encircled by twelve date trees, a man with one leg played a reed flute. His song drifted on the breeze and entered through the open back door.
"I always wanted to write a story about summer camp, when I had my first period," Magdalene said in a dreamy voice. "That story always felt different from the other things I wanted to do. Those other things were clever, intriguing, exciting. But this little story, it had a different feeling."
"You could see your soul in that story?"
"Yes."
"Write that story. Will it matter?"
Magdalene hesitated.
"That's the wall that confronts you, the thought you just had," Ari said. "That story has your soul in it. But the instant I asked you if it mattered, an existential doubt so huge that it swallowed up all of your reasons for existing rose up like bile."
"I hate that I've been ruined this way," Magdalene whispered.
"So, the question is, Do you exist?"
Magdalene began sobbing.
"You'll write this story?" Ari continued.
"Yes," she replied between her sobs.
"If you can't, you'll call me. We'll talk."
"I'd rather come back!" Magdalene exclaimed suddenly. She sat up and brushed back her tears. "If I can't write this story I will come back and see you again."
"It's more than seven thousand miles," Ari said, but not in a way meant to discourage her.
"I know! But I matter enough to make the trip. I do exist!"
MORAL: What people say and what you encounter may reinforce your sense that you do not matter. Do not believe that false evidence!
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YOUR ANXIETY MASTERY MENU
Highlighting: Deep breathing
Below is a list of the 14 anxiety management techniques that you are learning. The technique that we are focusing on in this lesson is highlighted. Spend some time with this technique and learn for yourself if it is a technique that you want to add to your arsenal of anxiety management tools.
1. DEEP BREATHING
2. Cognitive self-help
3. Incanting
4. Physical relaxation techniques
5. Mindfulness practices
6. Affirmations and Prayers
7. Guided imagery
8. Stress reduction techniques
9. Disidentification techniques
10. Ceremonies and rituals
11. Reorienting techniques
12. Symptom confrontation techniques
13. Discharge techniques
14. Preparation techniques
Deep Breathing Techniques
Anxiety, stress, and the rigors of everyday living cause us to breathe shallowly as we rush through life. Just paying attention to our breathing helps to reduce anxiety and is a core element of practice in many disciplines, including Zen Buddhism. Here is how Philip Kapleau describes the importance of breath attention in The Three Pillars of Zen:
"Zazen practice for the student begins with his counting the inhalations and exhalations of his breath while he is in the motionless posture. This is the first step in the process of stilling the bodily functions, quieting discursive thought, and strengthening concentration. It is given as the first step because in counting the in and out breaths, in natural rhythm and without strain, the mind has, as it were, scaffolding to support it."
There are many breathing techniques available to you. For example, Christopher McCullough in Managing Your Anxiety describes an exercise he calls "Circling your breaths" as follows: "As you start to inhale, you slowly bring your attention up the ventral centerline of your body from the groin to the navel, chest, throat, and face, until you reach the crown of your head. As you exhale, slowly move your attention down the back of the head, down the neck, and all the way down the spine."
Even simpler is the breathing exercise described by Stephanie Judy in Making Music for the Joy of It: "Anxiety disrupts normal breathing patterns, producing either shallow breathing or air gulping in an attempt to conserve the body's supply of oxygen. The simplest immediate control measure is to exhale, blowing slowly and steadily through your lips until your lungs feel completely empty. As long as you make a long, slow exhale, the inhale will look after itself."
It may seem odd that paying attention to something as automatic and everyday as breathing could really help with anxiety, but it can. Centuries of meditation practice and contemporary mind/body research arrive at the same conclusion, that breath attention is an anxiety-reduction tool of real value.
TO DO: Try out Stephanie Judy's simple "exhaling" exercise. See if you would like to add it to your arsenal of anxiety management techniques.
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