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What Does Anxiety Have to Do with a Rubber Band?

A lot of people are feeling it. That subtle anxiety just under the surface that sometimes bubbles up and knocks you off balance. The ugh you feel when you read the news, or notice that you have a flat tire… or wake up on a bad hair day.

It’s usually nothing dramatically life changing. Just something that’s going to take more time or money or mental focus than you have available at the moment.

And then you start thinking, what else could go wrong? Which is exactly the wrong thing to think if you want things to go right, because Life has a way of answering according to how you ask the question.

On a personal level, the cause of your anxiety could be something as minor as a disagreement with a stranger on Facebook, or as major as a cancer diagnosis. Whatever the source, it shakes your foundations a bit… or a lot.

On top of that, we have collective unrest fueled by rising inflation, a shifting job market, ongoing wars that destroy the lives of people we may not even know, yet their pain and fear is woven into our collective consciousness. We hear about plastic in the ocean, starving whales, widespread fires, animals going extinct, trafficked children, heatwaves that boil potatoes in the ground, unbridled pollution, and so much more that it becomes overwhelming.

It’s tempting to put a face on it… that idiotic president, or those greedy corporate fat cats in expensive suits. But to some degree we are all tangled up in the system. Maybe that’s why the anxiety is so hard to shake.

And maybe that’s a good thing.

Here’s where my rubber band analogy comes in.

You know how a rubber band builds more and more tension the more you stretch it? When it reaches maximum tension, two things can happen. The band breaks, unleashing it’s own kind of chaos (like snapping in your face), or… it is released toward a target, intended or not, with a force equal to the amount of tension it was holding.

Seems to me, our collective rubber band is getting stretched about as far as it can go without breaking and sending our whole system crashing down around our ears… but I’m betting that’s not going to happen. At least not in the timeline I’m choosing to occupy.

The other option—the one I’m choosing—is that we identify a desirable target and direct the released tension toward it. With all the tension we’ve built up, the rubber band will have a whole lot of stored force to propel it toward our chosen target.

But it doesn’t happen all at once. Life will keep presenting us with challenges that add more tension. So we have to keep returning our focus to the target every time the tension rises… and let it go again.

We need to do that both in our individual lives and collectively, because collective change starts with each of us.

Change is always an inside game, because metaphysically speaking, that’s all there really is… but that’s a rabbit hole for another day. Just allow that it might be true.

Allow that maybe… you can actually change the whole scenario right from where you are. At least the scenario you personally experience.

Choose Your Target

At the moment, right where we are might feel like the rubber band is stretched so tight our collective arms are shaking with the effort of holding on. We don’t want to let go because we don’t know what it will hit, or what it might destroy…. like we’re aiming a slingshot at nothing in particular. Just hanging on.

There’s a tremendous amount of energy there, just waiting to be released toward a target. Our job is to choose the target.

So I ask you,

• What do you want your world to look like?
• How do you want to feel when you wake up in the morning?
• What kind of world do want your children and grandchildren to inherit?
• How do you want to see humans relating with Nature and each other?
• What are you willing to focus on long enough to see it manifest in your life?

Ask yourself questions. Use your imagination. Dream big.

That’s your target.

And once you have a clear picture, start to replace the dread, the confusion, and the horror at what’s going on in the world with a clear, repeated focus on your target.

Your mind can only focus on one thing at a time, so every time you shift your focus to your target, it has to release whatever is causing the tension for as long as you keep focusing on what you want.

Train your brain to keep going back there every chance you get—until it becomes a habit (which apparently takes 66 days to anchor).

Clearing Your Pesky Old Habits

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been inundated with negative programming all your life. Between news programs, the slings and arrows of life in general, and disturbing information shared by well-meaning siblings, you know way too much about what has gone wrong and how bad things can get.

Like finding out that 99% of all meat, dairy, and eggs sold in the U.S. comes from animals raised in horrendous factory farm conditions. And just this morning I read that women in Afghanistan are still prohibited from getting an education beyond elementary school. And… well, you get the idea.

It may not seem easy to let those kinds of things go. It’s all real stuff after all, and it’s not pretty. Our natural inclination is to want to stop it.

But if you know anything about how universal laws work, you’ve heard of the Law of Attraction—or as Bashar puts it: What you put out is what you get back. Your beliefs, focus, expectations, definitions, and energetic orientation shape the reality you experience.

So change your focus. Change your beliefs about what’s possible. Start expecting something better… and then something even better than that.

Whatever that is, that’s your target. Aim for it.

Whenever you get pulled away from your focus by events in your life or in the world around you, just turn your focus back to the target. Again and again and again.

Then the released rubber band will have nowhere else to go but toward your target.

It will get easier with practice.

Which is not to say you don’t also need to take action. Physical action—even as small as picking up a piece of trash, donating to a cause you believe in, choosing organically grown products, or ordering an oat milk latte—is the way things change in the physical world.

Such little acts may seem inconsequential in the whole scheme of things, but they signal massive shifts in your consciousness… and that’s how reality changes.

Before you know it, the world you experience will start looking and feeling different. Probably not all at once.

You might notice a particularly sweet birdsong on a foggy morning, or happen to see an article about a company selling toilet paper and using their profits to provide wells and toilets to people who don’t have reliable access to clean water and sanitation (a little plug for Who Gives a Crap TP company—a shining example of how to pick a target, take action, and change the world).

You could wake up with a new idea that shifts your reality, or just find that you’re being nicer to your kids.

Bottom line, your focus will change your reality, because what you put out is what you get back. That’s one of the five unchangeable laws of the universe.

In case you’re wondering what the other laws are, according to Bashar:

1. You exist… always have, always will
2. Everything is here and everything is now
3. The One is All and the All are One
4. What you give out is what you get back
5. Everything changes except the first four laws

What About When You Can’t Let Go?

Sometimes tension keeps sticking around no matter how many times you shift your focus back to your favorite target.

I’ve been there too. That’s when I pull out my little bag of tricks. I’m using one of them right now.

• I write. Writing gets things out of my head and onto paper… or a computer screen where they are much easier to release.
• For persistent emotional static I often use EFT, AKA Tapping, to clear and calm the nervous system and shift limiting beliefs. It can work like magic when you pinpoint the underlying source of your tension. I’ve been helping clients clear their angst for nearly 30 years with EFT and its cousin Matrix Reimprinting. If you think it might help, I invite you to learn more here.
• Another surefire way to get myself back in harmony with my target is to get outside–ideally with bare feet in the soil and a relatively mindless task to perform, like mowing the clover or tying up tomato vines. Nature has a way of putting things into perspective like nothing else can.

I’ll conclude by offering a grudging thank-you to our presidential buffoon and his not-so-merry band of cronies. They’ve pulled the rubber band so tight that I can practically hear it twanging as environmental protections are bowled over, prices rise astronomically, social programs for the needy are obliterated, and the lies… oh the endless lies keep tumbling from their tongues.

They’ve helped to make my personal target crystal clear. Which, in case you hadn’t guessed, is pretty much the opposite of everything they do and stand for.

My beautiful, beautiful target.

A New Earth Golden Age of harmony, cooperation, and abundant prosperity for all life.