LPT: Mindfulness meditation is not a new-age, mystical thing. It is a practical solution to manage everyday stress.
I keep coming across people who associate meditation and mindfulness with the more religious aspects of certain types of Buddhist practice, or with the people who believe in chakras or crystals or similar "mystical" things. I just wanted to post some straightforward tips I had about how meditation can apply to managing regular daily anxiety:
You will be able to apply the meditative mindset to your daily life with practice, but if you have trouble at first, don't be frustrated with yourself. When you meditate, you are sitting and watching your thoughts rise and fall, usually while being still in a quiet setting. When you are in your daily life and there is more overall stimulation, your thoughts form larger "tangles" that take more time to unwind. Try just practicing noticing the larger tangles develop without attaching.
What is meant by attachment in this situation? When you react and try to push anxious or negative thoughts away, you are actually pulling them closer. Any pushing or pulling of your own thoughts is an attachment.
This applies in the same way to thoughts you perceive as positive or thoughts you perceive as negative. When you have a positive attitude and mood you want to pull it closer, but because everything is transient, that sets you up for stress and disappointment when you inevitably can't maintain the positive mood
When you have negative thoughts you want to push them away, and when you give that a try your brain just responds to the attention you're giving the issue by amplifying it. It's like the stupid song that's stuck in your head.. when you fight against it it gets louder.
The thing about daily life is you can get carried away in the waves of activity and forget to notice how tangled your thoughts get. After awhile of that you're running on autopilot and you feel less control over own your thoughts and actions, and you might become nervous or overwhelmed.
Sitting in a meditation posture for a half hour to an hour a day at first will help you carry mindfulness through the rest of your day. During your meditation, you are not putting pressure on yourself. You are just watching your thoughts pass as if you are a mountain and the thoughts are clouds going by. You are not putting heavy expectations on yourself to be able to clear your mind, or to avoid being frustrated or angry, or to avoid thinking of embarrassing things. All of those things might happen, but you will just sit through them and watch them happen without pushing or pulling.
Throughout the rest of your day, try occasionally taking a few moments for a mini-meditation. It doesn't have to be in a specific posture, the key is to come back to mindfulness. Just direct attention to your breath. It doesn't have to be long, just focus on something simple and consistent/predictable in the spaces between activity.
An especially important thing is: if you get frustrated at your own continued anxiety despite your practice, notice that your frustration is just another element in the tangled web. Whenever you get the chance, be persistent and come back to your practice and allow yourself to let the thoughts settle again. It's like exercising a muscle, just persistently maintain the exercise, don't have too many expectations of the time-frame in which you'll see results, and the mindful muscle will grow stronger.
Also, if you start to see results, don't have expectations that you have crossed over a bridge that you will not return to. Everything is impermanent, our hurdles will continue to show up, but persistent meditation practice gives you tools to better recognize and manage your personal recurring anxiety patterns.
Meditation doesn't have to be attached to a particular belief system, it can just be a practical tool for you.
