There is a part of a human soul that is not anxiously engaged in the daily struggle for survival. This part of the soul is called the Witness. The Witness knows that everything that happens, happens so that we can learn something. The cosmic law is that if a human is learning and witnessing, they will be helped. If they refuse to witness their life and learn from it then they must be forced to learn. Learning from life helps a person to deal with the anxiety of living most of the time without knowing what the next step is.

A useful skill for human beings is to learn how to contact the inner Witness who is constantly remembering how life was before things got anxious. To do this it is necessary to develop a practice to consciously draw attention away from the anxious parts of life and transform the anxiety into gratitude. Most anxiety has roots in childhood experiences in which we are forced to give away our power to someone else. To deal with these anxious shadows it is useful to learn to focus attention and redirect it to the Witness.

 An effective technique for strengthening the mind to deal with anxiety is to regularly ask questions of ourselves but pretend as if we don’t want an answer. This allows us to watch our mind sample the different aspects of a question. For instance, we can ask ourselves things like, “What am I grateful for in my life?” Asking a question like that is the first part of the exercise.

After the question is asked then the next part is to listen intently as the question disappears into silence. This is a deeper level of witnessing. To begin with, this exercise is done at one time of day in order to establish a rhythmic force in the mind. After a time the Witness appears to us spontaneously, usually when we are bored or starting to feel some sort of anxiety. Often boredom is the doorway for anxiety.

 Control of the mind is the beginning of this work. In this exercise the most important part is to consciously refrain from trying to find the “right” answer about what we are grateful for. Simply pick something that we are grateful for in the moment. It may be as simple as an extra hour of quiet or the fact that we didn’t get indigestion or a million other simple things. Not expecting “right” answers all of the time makes it much easier to develop an inner practice. The purpose of inner work is to eventually become self motivated and flexible when solving life problems. Without working on the inner self everyday, going inside of ourselves to look for solutions to problems that are creating anxiety is a descent into hell. Without daily work on ourselves any change in life usually moves us towards crisis.

To overcome anxiety, the key is to establish rhythm in the inner life. In order to establish a rhythm, for a period of about five minutes, repeat the question to yourself listening into the silence each time you ask it. Over time, try to stretch the listening time between each repetition of the question. Start with a few seconds of silence after the question, “What am I grateful for in this moment?”. Try to expand the silence for thirty seconds or even a minute. Then ask the question again and try to expand the silence. You may get a different answer each time.  That is OK too, but it is not the focus of the work. The Witness doesn’t care what the answer is…it just is focused on the attention it takes to ask the question and expand the silence. It may help to write down each answer as it comes and then forget it and ask the same question again. Try not to dwell on the answer, which will change as the day changes. The Witness is eternally present and is not invested in the answer. The Witness is invested in strengthening the process of learning no matter what the question or the supposed answer.

 It is also very good to choose a particular time of day to do the exercise. This creates a rhythm that helps the work along. In five minutes it may be possible to ask the question and listen into the silence many times. The key is to keep asking and keep listening to the silence. The exercise is simply to repeat the sequence: question / listening.

Once the rhythm of question / listening is established at a particular time of day, the exercise often appears in the mind during times when stress or anxiety is developing in life. To be more useful in life, the question / listening can be tailored to the particular circumstance by choosing a theme that is linked to the anxiety.

Suppose, for instance, we are experiencing anxiety about the war or terrorism or the economy or global warming. All of these are linked to oil and the use of fossil fuels. None of them can be solved by any personal effort because they are too big and out of individual control. This is the perfect recipe for anxiety. To overcome this we can focus the question we are asking around the issue of gratitude for all that we receive from using fossil fuel. Exercises aimed at establishing gratitude in contexts where we have no control over the issues can go a long way in healing anxiety.

This exercise is called approaching the Witness.