Conquering your vicious circles of worry, stress, and anxiety with meditation

One of the most difficult things for me, as well as for most individuals, is not resisting stress with more stress. Alan Watts refers to this as a Vicious Circle, wherein, something happens that causes us anxiety and worry, and because these things aren’t good for our health we get additionally worried and anxious, and furthermore, because we feel so absurd for feeling anxiety and worry, we then become additionally worried and anxious about being worried and anxious in the first place.

This sounds ludicrous, right? That is because it is absolutely insane, yet, many of us do this more often than we would like to admit, however, I am not going to be most people, and I am going to come right out and say that I have done it and still do it sometimes in my life.

This, of course, is borderline insanity, but when we live in a culture that is all about the hustle and bustle, we hardly have time, let alone have the energy to make time to tend to all facets of our health – emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual. We live in an age where we can conveniently drown out our stresses with a good ol’ nicotine buzz (one of my go-to habits), alcohol (another vice I will admit to), drugs (this is one that I have most certainly struggled with in the past), sex, partying, gambling, food, television – the list goes on.

Simply put, our culture focuses on fixing the symptoms instead of fixing the disease, or rather, in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, “fix the sink, and not the well.” The entire purpose of meditation is to fix the well and not the sink. By sitting with ourselves, being mindful, and giving ourselves the loving attention we need, we can ease our stresses and anxieties of everyday life in a way that doesn’t diminish our energy and leave the problems untouched.

I personally love this collection of meditations because lately I have been getting so caught up in my head about the pain related to a certain breakup, that it makes it difficult for me to work, connect with others, be/feel productive, or have the courage to be intimate with others. These meditations are short and sweet, so you needn’t worry about having to set aside an hour or two to get your healing on. So, if you have a few minutes throughout your day, I recommend that you go through this program and find some that resonate with you. I can guarantee you will be satisfied with what you discover.

Listen to Reduce Stress with Soothing Meditation and more self improvement audio programs on Audiojoy — download free on iOS or Android.

Content Review by Sonya B. Patterson