The Generation of Stress, Anxiety and Depression through the Construction of Self

Stress, anxiety and depression are often lumped together on the ledgers of mental health, and from a Buddhist perspective, you could say that there’s good reason for this. In its quest to understand the proximate causes of these categories of suffering, Buddhist theory of mind pushes into what is often confronting territory. It points the finger of blame squarely at our inability to let go of attachment to specific outcomes, a need to control and pull the strings of our own experience. This is brought about by stubborn identification with thoughts and narratives about how things ‘should’ be. Through practice, meditation offers a remarkably simple and effective balm to suffering brought about by stress, anxiety and depression. 

Now, before we go any further, I want to take a moment to say that nothing in this article is intended to minimise whatever you, or anyone else, might be going through. Stress, anxiety and depression, as you probably know (as I certainly know), can have serious implications in our lives. I appreciate that so some, the ideas we will traverse in this article might sound like ‘it’s all in your mind’. It’s not intended that way. I know how difficult it can be, in the depths of despair, to see the way through the forest for the trees. This shit is real. If that’s you right now, I encourage you to firstly keep on with whatever measures you’re taking to balance your mental health; secondly, understand that depending on where you’re at in your mental health journey, this could simply be taken as an academic exploration to the very centre of the layered onion of the human condition. Let it digest. Meditate on it. Maybe come back to it again in the future. It might strike a different chord then. It might even pay to 

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Stress, anxiety and depression are brought about by attachment to expectations that life turns out in a particular way, while observing (or fearing) it to be different. I want to be clear here: it’s the attachment to the expectation, not the expectation itself, that brings about the suffering. That is the nuance. Let’s say you do something because you want to please a particular person, but instead, they get upset by your well meaning intention. Your reaction to their displeasure can probably be characterised by some sort of grievance. Maybe you’re upset, maybe bewildered, maybe distraught, etc. 

The expectation that your action would please them is not the problem. It’s perfectly fine, even admirable, to want to bring someone pleasure. The question is what happens after the disappointment, and there are two categories of response. The first acknowledges an error, takes responsibility and responds appropriately. This sort of reaction is characterised by empathy and a balanced perspective of the facts. The second reaction is characterised by stress, defending the action and becoming preoccupied with restoring the other person’s approval. 

In the latter response, what’s happened in a psychological sense, is that there’s been an identification with the initial thought of pleasing them. By “identification with the thought” I mean that you have taken that initial thought, which arose in the mind, and subconsciously decided that this is something that defines who you are. The mental structures of self-identity have latched onto the thought and said, “Yep, that’s me, I’m that. Now let’s prove it”. Then, when instead of this person being pleased, they become upset, a simple conclusion that the thought was ‘bad’ or mistaken, extends to a conclusion that you yourself are ‘bad’ or mistaken. The affront is to your self-identity, not just the seemingly nice intention, and that hits a whole lot harder.  

The Buddhist picture is that self-identity is not a permanent thing, it’s more like a collection of stories and experiences. When you say “I am a father”, “I am a good person”, “I am someone who cares”, etc, the “I” is getting the definition from these concepts and experiences. “I” doesn’t come first followed by experiences and concepts, experiences and concepts come first and we intuit that there must be an independent ‘I’ that is living them because this seems to make the most sense. There seems to be an independent observer. It is in this way that the identity is constructed–essentially, in retrospect. If you attune your awareness enough, you can actually observe this seemingly instantaneous process happening. Our belief in ‘I’ reaffirms itself through daily interactions and societal constructs, and we start to refer to the world in an ‘I, me, mine’ paradigm. 

This extends not just to the world around us–“my car”, “my job”, “my relationship”–but also to the thoughts that arise and pass away within the mind. We tend to believe that thoughts are ‘mine’, and ‘I’ am them, but Buddhism teaches us that this conclusion is a step too far. Self-identity and thoughts are two different things, we need not conflate them. Sure, thoughts are arising within the architecture of the mind-body complex of which ‘my’ consciousness is aware of, but that does not mean the thoughts are the same as the consciousness doing the observing.

The logical result of this reasoning is that when someone gets upset at my actions, it isn’t necessarily a criticism of my personality or identity. They are firstly upset at the action, not the actor. Criticism of the actor may come, but to immediately assume it is a mistake of identifying with the thought that ‘this person is upset’.  

Depression is particularly interesting because it’s made all the worse by this self-identification and what observed negative outcomes (which present as thoughts) mean for ‘me’. It’s not just that shit things are happening, it’s that shit things are happening ‘to me’, and that means ‘I’ am a shit person. This extreme self-reflective rumination is often subconscious, or barely conscious, but it is one of the characteristics of depression. 

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This obsession with identification is important to understand because it is the common root of so much suffering. This is what the Buddha saw through on the night of his enlightenment, it was the final piece of his puzzle. He saw that there is no permanent aspect of experience, no ‘soul’, no ‘spirit’ that is inherent and indivisible. The thing that we animate into an experience of selfhood is really just a collection of independently arising processes, seemingly stitched together into a stream of consciousness that we identify is ‘I, me, mine’. He then realised that permanent liberation from suffering can only be achieved through apprehension of this process of identification. The self, and all of its stories about how things are and should be, must be let go of. This is, in a nutshell, the Buddhist project: the permanent dismantling of the architecture of identification.

It would logically, then, be easy to swing the pendulum to the conclusion that all self-identity is ‘bad’. But no buddhist worth their salt would try to hawk you that idea. Mental health is complex, and forming a cohesive identity is a very important step in becoming an integrated person. Self-identity helps us organise our experiences and understand our responsibilities. It helps us to get by in the ‘real world’ where we own things and maintain relationships, where the system relies on entities and division. So often, it is a kind of not-knowing who we are that is the source of much mental suffering. 

So where does that leave us? To understand oneself more fully or to deconstruct identity? The answer is both, and it depends on where you are in your spiritual journey. Buddhist practice is often presented as a path, along which there are many signposts. The signpost of becoming a fully aware and integrated self comes before the signpost of abandoning identity. But the two can mutually coexist as aspects of the same path. The great Buddhist teacher Sangharakchita taught that before identity can be forgotten it must be known. He promoted a structured approach to emotional and spiritual development, which goes hand in hand with stable mental health. 

The first step is integration. You need to get to know your ego (self) intimately if you have any hope of eventually seeing how it is constructed. You need to know your triggers, your stories, the neural pathways that you fall into time and time again. You need to know your privileges, your biases, how your misfortunes and fortunes have shaped you. You need to see how these are different from other people’s. You need to know your flaws as well as you know your assets. This process of discerning attachments and aversions is achieved through mindfulness of breathing and basic insight practices like Vipassana meditation. 

These types of basic meditation also give us a way to start working through identification, rather than simply understanding it intellectually. By intentionally relinquishing thoughts and coming back to the breath and body (or other anchors of mindfulness), we coach the mind that it doesn’t need to grab on all the time, and that when it does reactively grab, it’s OK to let go. It is through this progressive loosening of the mind’s attachment to experience that the idea of a self first begins to become less rigid. 

Following a process of integration, we need to learn to love what we discover about ourselves. It’s not about simply learning to be OK with your biases, triggers and scars, it’s about loving who they made you. We need to fall in love with ourselves to the point where the love overflows unconditionally from our being. If the eventual goal is to dismantle the ego, ask yourself, will the structures of self be more pliable and amenable to the upcoming operation of self-remodelling if they know they are loved unconditionally or if they are beaten and ashamed? Self-love is absolutely critical to the whole process, and disintegration of self becomes destabilising and nihilistic when self-love is not present. This deep level of self-love is founded in present moment awareness and accelerated by Mettā-Bhāvanā meditation. 

It is only when a high level of self-integration and self-love have been achieved that more advanced insight practices into the impermanent nature of self (and reality) should be attempted. Attachment to self-identity is stronger than you can imagine, and if you try to break it before it’s ready, cracks can appear where they’re not intended. Preparation, stability, pacing and the right guidance matter. Plethora insight practices are taught throughout the Buddhist world, and these include contemplation of the body, feelings, and mind, aspects of experience, and even the very liberating practice of contemplating one’s own death and decay. I know it can sound beyond strange that contemplation of your own death can liberate you from suffering, but if you learn to be OK with not being here, you have learnt to truly let go and be at peace with the current of the universe. Doesn’t that sound nice? The key to all of this, is, as the Buddha saw, to understand the impermanent nature of self and all experience.   

I know all this non-self stuff can sound pretty twisted, who are you if not the things you define yourself by? We learn to stand on the shoulders of who we are, of who we’ve become, and we spend our whole lives building up and protecting this identity, like Gollum guarding his ring, his “precious”. But on the spiritual journey, eventually you need to question the whole concept. How are the stories about who you are holding you back? How are they locking you in place? What is the true nature of this observer you call ‘I’? Ultimately, self-identity is not a beacon of who you are, it’s an anchor to who you think you should be, and it is exactly this idea of ‘I should’ that is the deepest root of stress, anxiety and depression.