As a psychotherapist, not a day goes by that I don’t sit with anxious people, including myself. The thing is, if they could find something to calm them down, they wouldn’t be looking at me. In other words, anxiety becomes a problem when nothing reassures; and not finding anything reassuring becomes itself a source of anxiety, leaving people trapped in a downward spiral.

Enter a deep enough understanding of the three principles behind all experience to the rescue. These three principles that underlie all life are MIND, THOUGHT AND CONSCIOUSNESS. No one can really tell us what they are, but we all know they exist. They are as palpable as our experience and the means by which any experience is possible.

Fortunately, we don’t need to define them, any more than we need to know how our cars work to drive them. I suspect that any definition would miss the boat by limiting them, and I’m pretty sure they are unlimited, therefore indefinable. However, understanding that these three principles are the source of our experiences, and not what happens to us, allows us to change our relationship with our experience. Yes, everything we experience comes not from what happens to us, but from how we are making use of these “divine gifts,” as Syd Banks called them.

What reassurance does this understanding of the three principles provide? The assurance that:

• There is nothing fundamentally wrong with us (mind, thought and consciousness), just think there is, and when we do we get anxious.
• Beyond our scared, confused, and polluted thinking, we all have the potential to think clearly, to tap into wisdom—the limitless intelligence of the mind.
• Because of this limitless intelligence, we are only perplexed for the moment, and we can be sure that in time some new thought will occur to us, some new perspective that will provide the missing link.
• These principles are the creative force behind our moment-to-moment experience, and they inclusively and exclusively explain the role of thought in creating our moods, which, again, depend not on what happens to us, but on what and what happens to us. How do we do it. think about what happens to us.

Just as the more mature understanding of parents enables them to remain calm when their young child is distressed, a sufficient understanding of the three principles enables us, in our roles as parents, teachers, employers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, lovers , or friends to remain calm enough even when we find that nothing we do or say reassures our loved ones. And our ability to remain calm, secure, calm, and confident enough impacts our distressed loved ones into beginning to calm down.

Once they have calmed down enough, they are in a better position to come to see for themselves what we are beginning to see for ourselves: that behind all life is innate intelligence, health, and healing; that at its base life is deeply organized, organizing, creative, intelligent and evolutionary; that ultimately, our state of mind and our happiness do not depend on anything outside of us, but rather come from our thinking.

I’d say I’m still as anxious as ever. My anxiety goes back to when I was three years old, stuck in a horrible dilemma: waking up in the middle of the night with a bad urge to pee, but not being able to go to the bathroom because of the monster under my bed. that it would eat me the moment I moved to one side; and on the other hand, the danger of urinating on my bed and my father eating my head for doing so. Today among the myriad objects of my anguish are:

• being fired
• getting sweaty
• being rejected
• get cancer
• Losing my head
• lose my health
• end up homeless

Because I seem to be as anxious as ever, you might think that understanding the three principles of mind, thought, and consciousness is useless. And I would agree in terms that this understanding does not give me more control over my thoughts and feelings (my experience). But I disagree because understanding where my experience comes from (the three principles), and the inclusive and exclusive role of thought in creating my experience, allows me to take my experience with a grain of salt. I don’t have to take what I’m experiencing so seriously. I’m not that scared about it. As I often say, “if it weren’t for my way of thinking, I wouldn’t be panicking right now.”

I KNOW I have nothing REALLY to be afraid of, I just THINK so. I understand that the threat of these dreaded catastrophes ultimately cannot and does not prevent me from being happy and enjoying life, what I call “the delight of existence.” I KNOW this terror will pass. Always has, always will. I KNOW that the terror I feel is more like the terror I feel in a horror movie or on a roller coaster, and I remember how I pay to be terrified.

Ultimately, my understanding of the three principles allows me to be completely confident that my state of mind is not dependent on not getting fired, sued, etc. I can see the potential I have to experience a good feeling and a good state of mind even when I am fired, sued, get cancer, go crazy, or end up homeless. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not being glib and imagining that I wouldn’t go through hell if these things happened. I’m pretty sure I would, but I’m also sure I don’t have to stay in hell for these situations, and I know that hell is made in the mind, by the mind, through thought and awareness, not by what happens. If I didn’t have an opinion about these “catastrophes”, it wouldn’t affect me.

As Syd Banks said:

“We are all but a thought of heaven…

If we can find that thought.”

May this short article guide you in the direction of heaven.