Freedom From Anxiety

This is a guided meditation on using the techniques of mindfulness to detach from the thinking mind and drop into conscious awareness beyond thought – finding peace and space within. This is specifically designed to help you gradually overcome anxiety and panic attacks.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this meditation on freedom from anxiety.

Let's start with looking at what is anxiety.

Where does it come from?

How does it arise?

If we're able to look at its causes and the conditions for its arising,

We can then look at dismantling these causes and conditions.

So,

As you will have probably noticed,

If you become really aware of where your energy is when you experience anxiety,

You will notice that it's mostly in the head area.

So in the brain,

You will find that most of your energy is up there.

If you feel into the other parts of your body,

Your arms,

Legs,

Torso,

Heart,

Pelvis,

Feet,

You'll notice that there is not so much energetic presence in the rest of the body when you're experiencing a lot of anxiety.

It's because all of your energy,

Your presence,

Is located in your head.

So this is especially true for very extreme anxiety such as panic attack.

So what is the cause of anxiety?

So in my experience,

The main cause for anxiety is over-identification with thinking.

So thoughts are present,

Usually constantly throughout the day.

But as you might have heard on other meditations,

These thoughts are passing in and out of our mind space all the time.

So if you can imagine the thoughts as like clouds on a sunny day,

Then imagine these clouds just floating by through your mind space and out the other side.

What happens in anxiety and in its extreme form,

Like a panic attack,

Is these thought clouds come into the mind space and instead of passing out the other side,

We grab onto them,

We latch on,

Maybe with an iron grip,

And we start a dialogue with them.

If you can imagine this process happening,

So one thought comes in,

We grab onto it,

We start a dialogue with it.

Another thought comes in,

We grab onto that as well,

We start a dialogue with it.

Another thought comes in,

We reach out and we grab onto that also,

And we start a conversation with it.

Imagine this happening for even five minutes.

Imagine in five minutes we literally have hundreds of thoughts coming into our mind space.

If we're latching onto every one of these thoughts coming in and starting a dialogue with them,

Imagine the chaos that will ensue in our mind space.

So quite quickly our inner experience becomes like we are occupied by a crowd of people,

All grabbing onto a whole host of different thoughts and having a very loud and chattering conversation all together,

But about all different things at the same time inside our own mind.

If you look at it like this you can really understand why it's enough to drive you crazy,

And why panic then ensues because it's like you have a crowd of crazy people in your head,

All trying to work things out through conversation and dialogue with a whole host of different thoughts at the same time.

So this is the cause of our anxiety.

The conditions of being a human include the fact that thoughts are coming in and out all of the time of our mind space,

But we have actually got control over those thoughts.

We have access to a higher power or a deeper consciousness,

A deeper level of consciousness from which we are able to detach from the thoughts,

From where we are able to stop the grabbing on and the latching on process,

From where we are able to become the observer of our thoughts and thus disidentify with them.

Conversation with thoughts literally means seeing that that thought is not me,

It's not who I am.

So this is particularly powerful for very painful self-directed negativity.

So self-directed negative thinking,

Thoughts such as,

I am not good enough,

I'm a failure,

I'll never,

I'll always be blah,

Blah,

Blah.

So these kinds of thoughts directed towards the self,

Detaching from these thoughts is a very,

Very powerful way to disidentify with the thinking mind and to drop in to the space of I am consciousness,

To the space of who you are beyond thought.

And slowly,

The more that you practice this over time with consistent practice,

You will slowly learn to unravel the anxiety process.

You will slowly learn to detach from the thinking mind,

Drop in to the space of I am which is beyond all thought and slowly,

Step by step,

Anxiety will have less of a grip over your consciousness and over your life.

But it is a practice,

It takes constant practice.

So let's just start now doing a short practice around this teaching of letting go of anxiety.

So,

Dropping in to our meditative space,

First finding your comfortable seated position if you're seated,

Lying down if you're lying down.

So if you're seated,

Ideally,

You want to have both feet placed on the floor if you're on a chair.

You want to have your hands lightly resting in your lap,

Left palm in right.

You want to have a straight back.

You want to relax your shoulders.

You want to relax your face,

Your jaw,

Relax around your eyes.

If you're sitting cross-legged,

You want to try and also have a straight back.

Be as balanced in both sides as possible.

If you're lying down,

Just noticing the points of contact of your body with the floor,

Feeling the weight,

The heaviness of your body,

Having your palms open upwards,

Dropping into the beauty and the amazing experience that it is to be embodied as a human.

Feeling inside of your body,

Feeling all of the aliveness that is there,

All the energy that is circulating.

Coming in contact with your breath,

Noticing the in-breath,

Noticing the out-breath,

Bringing your consciousness really subtly to the point just beneath the nostrils and noticing the sensation of the in-breath,

The sensation of the out-breath.

Noticing also whether you're doing anything for this breathing to be happening.

Is there any willpower involved?

Is there any effort involved?

Have we listened for some moments to the sound of the waves coming in and out on a beach?

And from this space,

Let's come into noticing and observing our thoughts.

You can picture your mind as like the blue sky and your thoughts as like clouds passing in,

Passing out.

Now if you're experiencing a lot of thoughts right now,

Or if you're experiencing anxiety right now,

You might notice that it's like your mind space is full of clouds.

This is okay.

Just the noticing is the first step.

And something like a panic attack,

It might be literally like a big storm is brewing inside of your mind space.

So clouds,

Thunder,

Lightning,

Noise might feel terrifying.

But if we can step back and observe this storm.

There is a storm in my mind space in this scenario.

But as I am observing this storm,

Instantly I recognize I'm not the storm.

The storm is not me.

The storm is happening right now.

It's temporary.

Rain will stop.

The clouds will diminish and they will pass away.

So just practicing observing the thoughts.

We use here a consciousness which is non-judgmental.

So whether the thoughts are supposedly good or bad,

Negative,

Positive,

Uplifting or depressing.

We just notice them as thoughts.

We let go of all commentary.

And just noticing as you do this process,

Is there some space?

What is the space between your conscious awareness and the fit and the thoughts?

Do you feel a space?

This is the space of freedom and liberation.

Each time you find yourself,

If you find yourself in a dialogue or conversation with one of these thoughts,

Noticing the dialogue or conversation,

Stepping back,

Letting go,

Dropping back into consciousness.

Continually letting go,

Continually dropping back to awareness.

The beauty of this practice also is that as you become more adept at disidentifying with the thinking mind,

Feeling more freedom,

Slowly dissolving the effects of anxiety,

Slowly having less anxiety in your daily life.

You then develop another capacity which is to really start to be able to create beneficial,

Useful thoughts for yourself and then have a dialogue with these thoughts which are helpful and necessary for you.

So we're not demonizing the thoughts here.

We're not demonizing the thinking mind.

Thinking is useful and beneficial when we're able to use it for our own benefit.

But in order to do this,

We need to cultivate and develop our mind and our concentration.

Coming back to the breath,

Noticing the in-breath,

Noticing the out-breath,

Feeling into your body,

Relaxing the shoulders,

Relaxing the face.

Sensing the quality and the energy of your mind space now.

Is it different from before you began?

Is there more space?

Is there more distance between you and your thoughts?

If you do suffer from anxiety or panic attacks,

I recommend you doing this meditation at least once a day,

Either guided form or on your own,

Even for five or ten minutes.

It will help greatly in slowly assisting you in the process of this identification with the mind.

Thank you for listening.

Wishing you a beautiful day,

Morning or evening.

Many blessings.

Reviews

Thank you! This really helped me distance from my thoughts. I felt more relaxed after the meditation. Much appreciated ❤️

Very nice, thank you!