 Welcome to the anxious morning every weekday morning will take a few minutes to go over important lessons that you can use in your anxiety recovery journey The anxious morning brings you support education inspiration encouragement and empowerment Read or listen quietly on your own time free of the endless noisy scroll of social media Use the information to help you along the path to recovery from panic disorder Agoraphobia and other anxiety problems for more visit us at the anxious morning comm This morning as with almost every morning I sat on the sofa in my usual cross-legged position and intended to sit in silent meditation for 10 to 15 minutes My brain had other ideas Sometimes in life We are slogging through the mud to get from point a to point b There are things on our minds that are stressful or they cause us emotional upset or distress The challenges we face at those times can sometimes drag us into worry overthinking or rumination traps We can easily become consumed with our problems. We can become overwhelmed by our discomfort and our fear When this happens, we often find ourselves focused intently on the discomfort the fear and the thoughts that drive them and fan those flames These are the times when a strong meditation practice can really help we get glued to our thoughts and how we feel Sitting for a few minutes to practice detaching from the negative or unpleasant chatter in our minds helps us more effectively and confidently navigate through it During these times meditation makes undesirable things easier to handle But what happens when the chatter isn't based on fear worry or rumination? What happens when there is no discomfort? I am currently working on quite a few excellent projects including the launch of this email newsletter that you're reading right now I really love what I'm doing and I'm excited about it There's chatter in my mind now, but this is positive chatter. I am not being driven by fear or avoidance I'm not building catastrophic stories in my head. I am feeling no anxiety or worry over my thoughts Do I need to detach from that? Must I try to slow the stream of my thoughts or make space between me and them? I would argue that I most certainly do not The context around our meditation practice matters When we sit to practice we are often going against the grain In recovery we are going against what most of us would call a negative grain We're trying to navigate through a negative context using our meditation to help us do that But what if the grain is positive? Must we go against that to detach and focus elsewhere? My focus this morning was exactly where I wanted it to be and for all the right reasons Still I try to sit and meditate by focusing on my breath Instead I spent the entire time thinking about the anxious morning and what I wanted to write today I should have just opened my iPad and started writing Forcing meditation was not required in any way When you find yourself in a positive context, we are genuinely excited about something and are enjoying thinking about it Then think about it Anxiety gives thinking and feeling a bad reputation, but thinking and feeling are not always automatically bad If thinking and feeling is working for you in a given context because it is moving you toward what you want Rather than just away from what you fear Then go ahead and think and feel go for it We do not always have to meditate against the grain Tomorrow we'll take our first look at worry and worrying Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast and you'd like to get a copy of it delivered every morning into your email inbox Including a full text transcription head on over to the anxious morning dot email and sign up for the newsletter And if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify or someplace where you can leave us a rating or review Take a moment and rate the podcast and maybe write a small review. It really helps us out or just tell a friend about us Thanks a lot