77. The benefits of mindfulness when dealing with anxiety

Our minds are amazing at many, many things. Our minds are capable
of remembering the birthday of the ones we love, calculating a
budget for our next trip, thinking about our next writing
project, and coming up with questions for a podcast. Our minds
are also capable of ruminating, dwelling, coming up with strange
thoughts, announcing all types of bad scenarios, and many more
…why are our minds both so awesome and so challenging to deal
with at times? How can we skillfully and effectively deal with
our busy minds?


In today’s episode, I interview Josh Malina, host of the podcast
“Anxiety Book Club.” We discuss the different ways in which our
minds influence our physical and mental health and the different
approaches to dealing with them.


Josh and I discuss how mindfulness and meditation can help us
deal with our busy minds; he points out different times in which
anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and worry thoughts took him away
from being present and pushed him to play-it-safe.


You will hear from Josh how regular mindfulness practice has
helped him transform his relationship with his thoughts, become
an observer of his thoughts, and be non-judgmental of his
worries, fears, and anxieties.


We discuss in particular three practices: exposure exercises,
acceptance and commitment skills, and internal family systems.


I leave you with this quote:



“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months
over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together,
justifying what could’ve or would’ve happened… Or you can just
leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.”– Tupac Shakur




Key Takeaways





What is OCD

What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder

What is Internal Family Systems

What is perspective taking

Values

Exposure therapy

Talk therapy

Transcendental meditation

Choiceless meditation

MBSR






(*) Show notes and resources of this episode


(*) Receive free weekly science-based, compassionate, and
actionable skills to stop ineffective playing-it-safe


(*) Figure out your playing-it-safe profile in 5 minutes
and identify the key thinking strategies that keep you living in
your head


(*) Learn ACT skills for anxious achievers by taking Dr.
Z. ACT courses


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