Anxiety is a normal human experience — we all feel anxious or afraid sometimes — but excessive or chronic anxiety can wear us down and be detrimental to our long-term happiness and health. Plus, many of us are anxious about things that we don’t actually need to be anxious about.

In this talk, I shared some ideas on how to prevent and release needless anxiety.

Some key points that I covered are:

• We can feel undisturbed, undefended, and uncontracted in the moment — which is what we meditated on.
• In order to receive the present moment without fear, we have to recognize that the brain is a prediction machine and can be stuck in predictions, especially regarding fear.
• The scientific understanding of how the brain generalizes fear, including the biological and neurological mechanisms involved.
• Strategies for preventing and managing overgeneralized fear, including mindfulness, self-compassion, and self-awareness practices.

You’re welcome to join me live each week for these talks—for free—by signing up here. We always start with a guided meditation to set the tone for the evening. If you’d like to experience the meditation that accompanied this talk, you can listen to it here.

And you'd like to check out any of my online programs, you can receive 20% off by using coupon code PW20 during checkout.