23 minute meditation

When we are anxious we're usually caught up in fearful or worried thinking about what might happen. Learning to work skillfully with our thoughts, observing them without identifying with or believing in them, and opening fully to the bodily sensations and emotions associated with anxious thoughts, is essential to finding lasting relief and release from anxiety. Mindfulness is key to working with anxiety, and stress, and worry, because we can bring awareness to the energy and anxiety, stress, or worry. We can allow ourselves to experience the feelings and make a choice of whether we act on them. Without awareness, anxious feelings or stressful feelings will often lead us into acting in habitual ways. With awareness however, we might still choose that habitual way, but we also now have the choice to just stay with our feelings. In this meditation, we will work with the energy of anxiety and stress to lay the basis for more healthy and beneficial responses to these urges or stimuli that occur.