Anxiety Sucks

Mindfulness gives us a way to face anxiety head-on. Not to over power it but to make friends with it. But we can’t do this all on our own.

Anxiety sucks.

Whether it’s plaguing your thoughts, crushing your chest, or churning your guts.

Anxiety can suck the life out of you.

Perhaps even more painful is the way anxiety holds you back.

From saying what you need to say.

From doing what you need to do.

From being who you need to be.

It can be so damn exhausting.

So what do you do with anxiety?

Drink more booze?

Eat more food?

Watch more TV, Youtube, TikTok?

You know how that goes.

But what other choice have you got?

How about facing it head-on?

Not in a kick-ass, get-shit-done kind of way.

Nor as another problem to be solved.

Think more like sitting down to listen to someone you love.

I mean really listen.

Listen so fully that they feel seen, heard, and held with love.

How would it be to do this with yourself?

To cultivate this way of listening so that what’s wounded within you can heal.

That’s what mindfulness is about.

But how do you do it?

Well, there’s plenty to say about that but I would start with this.

Find other people.

That’s the first thing.

Find people who know about this and who you get on with.

I like apps as much as the next person but there’s something about learning mindfulness.

If you try it all alone you end up going round in circles.

Or getting stuck in dead ends.

We need other people for this.

Which might seem like a weird thing to say. I mean the main image we have of mindfulness is of someone sitting alone with their eyes closed.

No, no, no.

Yes, you can meditate alone.

But really we learn this by being with other people.

We listen to them. They listen to us. We learn from each other.

Because mindfulness is also about being in relationship. With ourselves and with others. In ways that support emotional healing, psychological freedom and wise action.

So if you’re:

- suffering with anxiety

- and you want to explore mindfulness to help with that

...it might help to find people you like who you can explore this with.