Say Goodbye to Anxiety Forever

I experience anxiety intermittently throughout the day. I have good days and not-so-good days, but a few days ago, I discovered a really effective antidote to anxiety. Drum roll please~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The cure for anxiety is: gratitude! Before you roll your eyes and say, “Oh, I’ve heard that before. Gratitude doesn’t really work for me,” hear me out, because I used to be one of those people who thought gratitude was overrated.

I was listening to the Hay House radio on Saturday and learned of a Harvard-trained, medical scientist named Joan Borysenko. She spoke about how we can create a neural circuit of gratitude in our brain by practicing the feeling of gratitude everyday. I am sure we all have done something like keeping a gratitude journal or listing on Facebook the three things we were grateful for that day. I kept a gratitude list using an app on my phone and wrote down 3-4 things everyday for about a couple of months.

The result? Nothing. I didn’t feel any more grateful than I was two months ago.

Then, Dr. Borysenko said something that made a light bulb go off in my head. She said in order to create and strengthen the neural circuit of gratitude, we have to infuse it with the true feeling of gratitude—not just with thoughts about what weshould be grateful for—and strengthen it with daily practice. That’s when I realized why the gratitude app didn’t work for me; the practice was just a chore, something I needed to check off before the end of the day.

After listening to her on the radio, I immediately sat down and thought of one thing I was deeply, truly grateful for. I had attended an event to commemorate Korean War veterans earlier that day, and as I watched the footage of the war, I felt a heartfelt thanks to those who had sacrificed their lives while fighting in the war. So, I said to my self, “I am deeply grateful for the veterans,” and repeated for several minutes while feeling the feeling of gratitude.

Amazingly, when I awoke the next morning, instead of anxiety rising up with the thought of what I needed to do that day, I felt grateful. I was grateful that I was given another day, another chance to be better. So, I took advantage of that feeling and stayed with it for a few minutes, creating a momentum and strengthening my neural circuit. It’s only been a few days, but I already feel better. Whenever anxiety rises, I look for something to be deeply grateful for and give my thanks.

I realized that in order to weaken my habitual feeling of anxiety (or whatever negative emotion ails you), I needed to let its neural circuit wither by not reinforcing it. And to do that, I needed to divert my energy to something else—in this case, to gratitude—before it gains momentum. By deliberately choosing gratitude over anxiety, I can choose my daily reality. This will take time and commitment, but I think it will be a worthwhile investment.

So, I will let you know how this goes. Better yet, you can try it with me, and tell me how it went for you! I will keep you posted!

Love Marriage: Me and Myself

Two years ago, I embarked on an intense spiritual journey that included leaving the religion I was brought up in, mustering up the courage to pursue my dream, and healing from my past. Although I have much more work to do, I have experienced a monumental shift in the way I look at life. I’ve learned many lessons along the way, but as I look back on the journey, I keep coming back to this one truth: everything I want and need are in the present moment. This deceptively simple truth aligns me to a power greater than myself, as it allows me to become more receptive to inspiration, miracles, and love.

So, what I strive for these days is not so much how many gigs I land, or how much money I make, but how aligned I feel with God, the Universe, the Infinite. I have learned that one of the most important lessons we can learn in this life is to learn how to receive God’s unconditional love, which is the same thing as loving ourselves unconditionally. This also means forgiving ourselves over and over and over again for not measuring up and falling off the wagon. When I realized this, I changed my internal dialogue from, “Oh, you are feeling anxious again! When will you learn that fear is only an illusion!” to “I love you even though you are feeling anxious.” These loving, forgiving thoughts have changed my internal state completely. I have learned that when we feed our negative emotion with resistance and self-judgment, we strengthen the very negative emotion we are trying to eradicate, creating more resistance and becoming enslaved to the vicious cycle. But when we step out of the cycle, we feel whole.

Now, I gauge my daily success based on these two questions: How do I feel about myself, and do I feel grateful? I know I am off God’s grid if I am experiencing fear and anxiety and judging myself for feeling that way. But when I am aligned with God, I experience internal abundance, and love and gratitude flow easily. And from this place, I receive guidance to navigate the seemingly complicated labyrinth of life. But in moments of clarity, I know that each step is a destination and in each moment, I am standing on holy ground.