I'm not too satisfied whith the two scales metaphor. The two scales are unrelated and therefor difficult to understand.

I propose the pendulum metaphor as an alternative. You have two dimensions of a pendulum: one is the amplitude the other is the string between its sinker and attachment. They are clearly related and the metaphor is easy to understand since almost everyone have some experience of a pendulum. 

The pendulum metaphor below. It's a remake of the two scales metaphore.

Comments welcome. Feel free to use.

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A Pendulum

Imagine a feeling, any feeling or emotion. How long will it last?

Imagine a pendulum. The higher you lift it in one direction, the more power to swing up on the other side will you give it. You will perhaps notice the power in it’s weight and resistance, more when you let it go.

It is with feelings as with the pendulum – they swing! Inexorable! You may like one side more than the other. If you try to fight the pendulum and try to get it high up on the side you prefer, you will give it power to get high on the opposite side (the one you dislike). You may for a short moment stop it or lift it higher then it’s natural cycle (provide). It will though consume and lock your own power. And sooner or later it will anyway go to the side you dislike – and with the extra power you’ve been giving it! Fact is that in the moment you notice a resistence in your strive to get the pendulum in your disired direction, it’s power is in the opposit direction.

If you on the other hand are willing to let the pendulum swing, you don’t lock your energy in the pendulum and you do not give the side you dislike any extra energy. For some persons it may swing more than for others. Some might like it, others are getting seasick. Willingness is not equal to like it when it swing. Willingness is to change focus. Instead of sitting in the sinker, it is to climb up the string to the attachment! It means you have acceptance for all feelings.

At the attachment of the pendulm can you let it swing without getting seasick. The whole of you are not swayed by the swing, but the swing is still there.

Let’s take anxiety as an example:

It is when you are really unwilling to have anxiety that anxiety is something to be really worried about. It is as when anxiety is high and willingness low the anxiety clings hard. And how hard you press the pendulum the harder the anxiety clings. You give it more power. So what is favourable to do is to shift focus from the power of the anxiety in the pendulum to acceptance and willingness. Climb from the sinker to the attachment of the pendulum. You have, in vain, tried for so long to control your anxiety. You can not change the swing (at least not from the position in the sinker) but you are free to climb to the attachment. 

That is not a reaction, not a feeling, emotion or thought – is is a choice.

You have probably been at the sinker – you might have been in high swing. That might be the reason you are here. What needs to be done now is to climb up to the willingness in the attachment point of the pendulum.

In doing so, sitting at the attachment wherer willingness is high, I can guarantee you what will happen to your anxiety. I’ll tell you exaclty what will happen, and you can hold an me as a solemn promise. If you stop trying to control anxiety it will be low – or high.

I swear. And when it is low it is low until it is not low any longer. When it is high is will be high untill it becomes low again. I’m not teasing you. There just aren’t enough words for what it is like to sit at the attachment of the pendulum compared to sitting at the sinker.

These strange words are as close as I can get. I can say one thing for sure, and I guess your experience says the same thing – if you want to know for certain where you have the anxiety, there is something you can do. You only need to glide down to the sinker (were willingness is low) and follow it. And sooner or later, when it swings up the anxiety side you don’t want to be there any longer. Then you go in clinch with the pendulum and give anxiety power. It’s very predictable.

If you on the other hand again climb to the attachment where you willingly can let the pendulum swing – you can let it swing both ways! Sometimes there is anxiety, sometimes not. And in both cases you will keep out of a useless and traumatic struggle that can lead only in one direction. Sitting at the attachment of the pendulum and willingly letting it swing without an urge to control the swing (you are not getting seasick and you don’t favour one side) the unnatural unease dissapear and only the natural unease remain.

You can’t say how long it will linger, but one thing is certain - I don’t say the unease will disappear, what I say is that if you give in your attempts to manipulate your unease the degree of unease will be set by your temporary, personal history. No more, no less.

Control works in some areas of life. But not in getting rid of heavy feelings or thoughts. Acceptance and willingness on the other hand work, it’s in your hand. There is a little trap here. There is a paradox. Imagine the rule we mentioned earlier is true: " If you are not willing to have it, you have it."

What can you do with that knowledge? If you are willing to have it – for to not have it – then you really don’t want it.

Are you then willing?! You can not fool yourself.