The Panic Button

By Martha Beck


Narrow Your Time Aperture


It took me decades to learn how to surrender expectations. I wanted to let go; I just didn't know the procedure. Then a meditation teacher put it in terms I could understand. Imagine, he said, that your life is going badly—you're underpaid, and you've just discovered that your spouse has started smoking. You go for a walk in the woods, trying to clear your head. Anxiety eats at you: Should you demand a raise? What if your spouse gets lung cancer? Troubling scenarios spin out in your mind. You can't stop worrying.

Then you walk around a rock, and there it is: a bear.

At that moment, it becomes almost magically easy to stop obsessing about your lousy job and your spouse's lungs. You have no trouble surrendering your worries—in fact, as you sprint back to the safety of your SUV, you let go of verbal thought altogether. You've attained the enviable clarity meditators call one-pointed attention.

This is how you let go of expectations: by giving full attention to the snafu at hand. Forget about finishing your errands and focus on holding this bandage to this cut, right here, right now, until the bleeding stops. Do what is needed with full concentration: Find the spare tire, turn off the water valve, call your therapist. Be here now, and you'll realize there's nowhere else you ever need to be.
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From the April 2007 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine


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