The Three Anxiety Traps: A Stoic Practice For Meeting Fear
With Jon BrooksAnxiety can turn a cinema, a conversation or a simple decision into an emergency. I know that from experience. For years I left places early, rehearsed every sentence and treated the feeling as evidence that something was wrong with me. This six-lesson video course looks at three habits that kept that cycle running: treating anxiety as a personal failure, obeying every urge to avoid and trying to eliminate the alarm altogether. Through an edited interview series with Mike Slavin, who appears throughout as the interviewer, you will learn to recognise these traps, understand how they narrow your choices and find a safer, more deliberate response. Mike participated in the original recording and has given permission for his recorded audio and video contribution to be published in this course. The course draws on Stoic practice and my own experience. It is educational, not therapy or medical treatment. It may suit you if anxiety makes you shrink in social situations, overthink ordinary moments or avoid things you care about. By the end, you will have a simple way to meet an anxious moment: notice the impression, pause before treating it as an instruction, and choose one wise, manageable action.
Recognize the habits that keep anxiety in charge, then choose a wiser and safer next step.
About this course
Anxiety can turn a cinema, a conversation or a simple decision into an emergency. I know that from experience. For years I left places early, rehearsed every sentence and treated the feeling as evidence that something was wrong with me. This six-lesson video course looks at three habits that kept that cycle running: treating anxiety as a personal failure, obeying every urge to avoid and trying to eliminate the alarm altogether. Through an edited interview series with Mike Slavin, who appears throughout as the interviewer, you will learn to recognise these traps, understand how they narrow your choices and find a safer, more deliberate response. Mike participated in the original recording and has given permission for his recorded audio and video contribution to be published in this course. The course draws on Stoic practice and my own experience. It is educational, not therapy or medical treatment. It may suit you if anxiety makes you shrink in social situations, overthink ordinary moments or avoid things you care about. By the end, you will have a simple way to meet an anxious moment: notice the impression, pause before treating it as an instruction, and choose one wise, manageable action.
Meet your Teacher
Jon Brooks is a meditation teacher, writer and long-term practitioner of Stoicism. His work focuses on closing the gap between understanding Stoic ideas and using them in daily life. In this course, he draws on his own experience of anxiety to explore how fear, avoidance and self-judgement shape the choices people make.