To explain – anxiety has most likely been a survival pattern that was at some time necessary when you were very young, but now that you are old enough to be able to think and fend for yourself it is no longer useful, in fact it has become a painful and habitual obstacle to enjoying and appreciating being alive. This aspect of your identity can safely and sensibly be abandoned – all you need to do it to see it, with the intent to abandon it, and become aware whenever it pops up wanting to reinsert itself into your life.

One possible beneficial result of this course of action is that you might be able to avoid taking some “minimum dose of SSRI” with serious side-effects and also relieve your poor gut from unhealthy chemicals (like adrenaline and cortisol) produced by a constant feeling of anxiety.

You may remember what I wrote to James on July 14 –

You can also acknowledge and realize the fact that pain is part of being alive, especially when getting older. You take care with what is medically possible, but even more importantly, you stop objecting to having pain simply because it is useless and therefore silly to do so. You will also be surprised how much the feeling of pain is reduced when you no longer object to it. Miguel only recently confirmed this to you.[emphasis added].

As a feeling being ‘Vineeto’ has experienced this time and time again, and nowadays any pain that occurs is simply something going on in the background which does not interfere with thoroughly enjoying and appreciating being here. 

It is indeed possible to enjoy and appreciate being here even when pain is happening –

[Richard]: In other words, an apperceptive awareness of an actual happiness/ felicity is not dependent upon experiencing sensate (bodily) pleasure; an apperceptive awareness of an actual happiness/ felicity occurs all the while sensate (bodily) pain is happening as well.

[Richard]: And it is such good fun! Then, everything you do in your daily life, moment to moment, is taking advantage of multiple opportunities. Every moment again is an occasion to improve your lot ... when you are interacting with someone, either face to face or on the telephone ... or a back-ache: ‘Oh god, how terrible!’ ... another opportunity. It is bad enough to feel pain, why make it worse by adding an emotional suffering like ‘I feel terrible’? To feel terrible, emotionally, on top of the physical pain is simply silly when it is possible to disentangle oneself, emotionally, and still feel good about being alive, about being here. This is being sensible, is it not? To feel good, if not happy, all the time?  

SHASHANK: Comparatively speaking, I have seen that physical pains like back or shoulder pains are much easier to bear !

Hi Vineeto If you can share a bit…what sort of painkillers did Richard have to take for his back situation and was it something he had to take daily ?

VINEETO: Here Richard explained about his back-pain – it doesn’t sound like “much easier to bear!” to me –

[Richard]: […] without going into too many details MRI scans showed what CT scans did not reveal (spondylolisthesis of L5, displaced forward at age 24, nowadays complicated by age-related bone stenosis pinching the right sciatic nerve ... resulting in a ‘breathless’, debilitating pain all the way down to the small toe).

For instance, towards the tail-end of the DVD video-shoot taken on the river bank (in which I did not talk much) it became increasingly difficult to stay sitting there ... indeed, I had to call an abrupt halt to the video-shoot, eventually.

There is no benefit telling you what medication Richard took – you will have to discuss your personal situation with your own doctor.

Cheers Vineeto