Letting Go Of Anxiety

In this 20-minute guided meditation we will explore three key insights:

1. Anxiety always lives in an imagined future that's made of thoughts. When we recognize thoughts as simply thoughts rather than inevitable reality, anxiety naturally softens.

2. Our worst fears rarely unfold as imagined. We'll reflect on how many times what we worried about didn't happen, and how the future that actually arrived was completely different from what we had feared.

3. We have the resilience to deal with whatever happens, just as we've successfully navigated every challenge that brought us to this present moment.

You will leave feeling more grounded and confident in your capacity to deal with whatever happens in your life.

Transcript

Hello and welcome into this guided meditation.

My name is Yakov and today together we will be exploring this common experience of anxiety or worry about the future and how we can ease it.

So first of all let's begin by settling down,

Close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths,

Feeling your breath where you feel it most distinctly,

Whether it's at the tip of your nose or in rising or falling of your chest or abdomen,

And just stay there for a couple of breaths.

And now let's ground ourselves in the feeling of the body,

So notice your feet and their contact with the floor,

And notice your body as a whole.

Notice your sense of aliveness,

That sense of presence.

Notice also your dark space behind your closed eyes,

That shimmering darkness behind your closed eyes.

The first thing I want us to notice is that in the present moment we cannot feel anxious,

We cannot feel worry.

There is nothing for us to worry or feel anxious about in the present moment right now.

Right now is simply what it is.

What is happening right now is that we are here,

We are sitting and this moment is happening.

There is nothing for us to resist because anxiety essentially is a form of resistance,

An idea of resistance to what might happen in the future,

Or the form of fear about what might happen in the future.

So right now there is no anxiety,

There is no worry because whatever is happening right now is already happening.

We can only feel anxious,

We can only feel worried about an imagined future,

Whether that future is in a day,

Tomorrow,

Or whether it's in a week,

A month,

A year.

And the level of experience in that imagined future is always a thought.

So see it for yourself now.

Pick something that you are anxious or worried about,

Or have been anxious or worried about recently,

And see that situation,

Although it may seem like it's real,

It may seem like it's something that's actually going to happen sometime in the future.

But see that at the level of our experience that situation is just a thought that we are having right now.

So what happens is we think that thought,

Or more accurately that thought comes,

And we imbue it with meaning.

We believe in its substance,

In its reality,

And we feel anxious as a result of that imagined scenario.

So a feeling of anxiety or a feeling of worry always follows a thought.

We cannot feel anxious or worried without first thinking about some situation in the future,

In the imagined future,

And then feeling follows that thinking.

And notice also that even though that situation may feel very real,

It may feel like it's actually going to happen,

Or we fear that it will happen the way we projected,

The way we imagined.

I invite you to reflect how many times something we worried about,

Something we felt anxious about,

When that moment,

When that situation came,

It was actually different than we imagined.

So our worst expectations actually didn't materialize.

So all that thinking,

All that anxiety was for nothing.

And sometimes also it happens that the situation came and something else happened.

Something that we also called undesirable,

But something that we could not have anticipated.

In which case anxiety was also quite useless.

We couldn't have foreseen that thing happening.

So all this is pointing out to the fact that even though a situation may feel like it's real,

It may feel like we are actually seeing an actual future that is actually going to happen,

What is only happening is a thought.

It's an imagined scenario that may happen the way we see it,

Or it may happen completely differently.

It may happen much better and the situation we fear will not materialize,

Or it may happen differently and something else will materialize,

But we cannot anticipate it now.

So just notice that all we experience is a thought.

We may get lost in a thought and if you notice yourself,

For example,

Being lost in a thought as I'm speaking,

As you're listening to this,

That's the experience I'm talking about.

That's the common experience all of us have of from time to time being lost in a thought.

So when we get lost in a thought that is making us anxious,

That's totally normal,

There is no need to judge yourself,

But that is what makes anxiety possible.

When we see a thought that would normally make us anxious,

When we see a situation,

A future situation that we project,

When we see it clearly as just a thought,

As just an image or a bit of language,

A dialogue,

Perhaps with somebody we are going to meet,

As a mini movie,

When we see it as just that,

Anxiety automatically decreases,

Worry automatically decreases,

Because we understand that what is happening is that we are imagining something being right here,

Right now,

We are imagining something in the future and then we believe in that imagined future and then we scare ourselves with that imagined future.

So when we see clearly this mechanism of imagining or projecting and then believing and then feeling worried about it,

It automatically diminishes,

There is no need to do anything.

But when we get lost in a thought,

That imagined situation becomes,

In a way,

Becomes us,

We kind of get lost in that scenario.

And that,

Like I said before,

It's totally fine,

It's totally normal,

It's a human experience of being lost in a thought.

But there will be a moment when we,

So to speak,

Wake up and we notice that we were lost in the thought and that thought was making us anxious.

And then we have,

We are like,

It's like we're standing at the fork on a road.

We have a choice of either believing,

Continuing to believe that imagined situation that is making us anxious or we can clearly see that it's just a thought that we are having right now.

And that situation is not guaranteed to happen the way we imagined it.

It may happen differently,

It is likely to happen differently.

And another thing I want to invite you to see is that whatever happens in reality,

Whatever situation happens,

We will handle it.

What I mean by that is,

We often imagine situations that make us fear that something will happen and we will not be able to cope with it,

We will not be able to deal with it.

But I want you to see that whatever situation you feel anxious or worried about in the future,

You will handle it.

Even if it happens exactly the way you worry or fear it will happen,

You will find a way,

You will handle it.

And the evidence of that is simply that many situations in your life have already happened where you found yourself in a difficult situation,

You found yourself in a challenging situation.

Whether it was a difficult relationship or a work situation or a physical challenge,

A health challenge and you have successfully handled them.

Simply because you're here now listening to this recording.

So if we have handled everything so far in our life,

We will handle whatever life so to speak throws at us or whatever happens.

So that realization helps to calm down that part of our thinking that is constantly scanning,

Analyzing,

Anticipating,

Forecasting,

Projecting the future,

That is afraid and is trying to manage the future.

That part of us that is worried about our survival,

That is worried about where the food is going to come,

Where the money is going to come,

If we're going to be able to handle work situations,

Relationships,

Any potential challenging health situation.

That part is absolutely normal,

That's part of a survival mechanism.

And realizing that we have successfully handled all of the situations in the past,

That means we will also handle any situations in the future.

So there is no need to worry so much.

There is no need to be so lost in imagined future,

Which is always ever just a thought.

So take a deep breath.

And just to recap,

The feeling of anxiety and the feeling of worry always happens as a response,

As a result of an anxious or worrisome thought that we believe is real.

So we feel our thinking.

We feel those projections that we believe are real.

We feel our thoughts.

The second point is that how often what we feared,

Worried or felt anxious about didn't actually materialize,

Didn't actually happen.

The reason we don't notice it is because when it happens we're already busy feeling anxious or worried about something else in the future.

We are already again carried out by that mind's tendency to try to control the future.

But notice if it's so in your experience that there have been many situations you felt anxious or worried about and they didn't come into existence the way you worried about.

So that imagined projected situation is not the reality.

It's just a possibility.

It is one of the millions of possibilities.

But when we believe it is the reality,

When we get lost in that thought,

Then we feel anxious,

Then we feel worried,

Then we feel fear.

And then thirdly,

I want to remind you that there have been many challenging situations you have successfully handled in the past.

And whatever challenging situations does happen,

Whether you can anticipate it,

Whether you can prepare for it,

Whatever happens,

You will handle it.

You're strong.

You're resourceful.

You have intuition,

The connection with the source.

You have support of people around you.

You can handle anything.

That happens to you.

So that's just an invitation for that part of us that is constantly worrying about the future to just relax.

To just relax a little like you feel your shoulders relaxing when you just take a deep breath.

They're like sliding down and becoming softer.

So that's the feeling we may have of that part of us that is always anticipating the future and trying to control it in attempt to save and preserve our survival.

That part can relax and that feels so good.

I hope this has been useful for you.

I hope something has shifted in you and you saw something that is useful to ease now or in the future when you remember about it,

When a situation happens,

When you notice yourself feeling anxious or worried,

Which is absolutely normal.

I hope what we talked about today will be useful for you when that happens.

That you only ever experience a thought.

That thought is not reality.

It's just a possibility.

And many times it didn't actualize.

And even if it actualizes,

You will be able to handle it.

So just remember those.

And thank you for joining me today in this exploration of how to ease anxiety and worry.

If you want to stay longer with this exploration,

Let it settle down.

Feel free to to do so after the meditation is finished.

And if you want to conclude,

Just stretch your body,

Open your eyes and have a great day.

And thank you.

And until next time.