The Shifting Sands Paradox

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Transcription The Shifting Sands Paradox

Our anxious lives can be compared to the experience of being trapped in the middle of a large pit of quicksand.

In this pit of emotional quicksand, we feel like we have been struggling desperately for years with no way out.

This metaphor helps us understand why our usual strategy of fighting anxiety is completely wrong.

When a person falls into quicksand, their natural and instinctive reaction is to struggle to get out.

Driven by fear and panic, they struggle, kick, and try to crawl away, believing that this will save them.

This reaction is the same one we have when we feel anxiety: we fight it with all our might to get rid of it.

We believe that if we just try hard enough, we can overcome it and finally be free of our discomfort and suffering.

However, in quicksand, struggling to get out is a terrible idea that only makes things worse.

When you lift one foot to take a step, your entire body weight shifts to the other foot.

This doubled pressure, along with the suction of the sand, causes you to sink much faster and deeper.

It’s the exact same thing with anxiety; the more you fight your thoughts and feelings, the deeper you sink into them.

The only way to save yourself from quicksand is to do the exact opposite of what your fear is telling you to do.

You must immediately stop fighting and spread your body flat on the sand to distribute your weight.

By doing this, you will stop sinking and may even slowly roll to safety out of the pit.

In the same way, the solution to anxiety is to stop fighting it and adopt a new strategy.

This action of stopping fighting and spreading yourself flat on the sand is the physical representation of the concept of acceptance.

Psychological acceptance involves stopping fighting the reality of your feelings and thoughts, allowing them to simply be.

By stopping re

the quicksand paradox