One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.
One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.
When you are worried, and you say to yourself, “All right, worry. Get with that worry,” it neutralizes the worry because you are not worrying about not worrying anymore.
Alan Watts • Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969
Anxiety is simply insight that we haven’t yet found a productive use for, that hasn’t yet made its way into art or philosophy.
Alain de Botton • The School of Life: An Emotional Education: An Emotional Education
The ability to feel anxiety, self-distrust, or guilt is an asset: these are alarm signals warning of danger to our well-being. Such emotions can be painful, even devastating, but if they cause a person to stop, to question his or her policies, perhaps to seek professional help, then they serve a useful purpose in protecting the person’s life. If th
... See moreNathaniel Branden • Honoring the Self: The Pyschology of Confidence and Respect
You are only really there when you let go of everything and do not depend on any fixed idea or belief for your sanity or happiness.
Watts,Alan • Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion (Alan Watts Love Of Wisdom)
To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.
Alan Watts • The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.
Alan Watts • The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
a state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.