How to Stop Hating Anxiety | Ep. 440

In this episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit, Kimberley Quinlan explores how shifting from hating anxiety to gently befriending it can radically reduce your suffering and help you live more in alignment with your values.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why resisting anxiety may be keeping you stuck in a cycle of fear
• How to respond to anxiety without fueling it or making it worse
• A simple shift from “good vs. bad” to neutral observation
• The power of willingness and how to soften your approach to discomfort
• A visualization strategy Kimberley uses to stay aligned with her values
• A calming guided meditation to help you practice non-hatred in real time

What If You Stopped Hating Anxiety?

What if the key to reducing your suffering isn’t getting rid of anxiety—but changing how you relate to it? In this powerful episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit, Kimberley Quinlan invites us to consider a radical new perspective: what if hating anxiety is the very thing that’s making it worse?

Let’s explore how building a new relationship with anxiety—one that’s rooted in compassion and willingness—can help reduce distress and move us toward the life we want to live.

Why Do We Hate Anxiety?

When Kimberley asked her community why they hate anxiety, the answers came flooding in:

• “It ruins sweet moments.”
• “It makes me feel out of control.”
• “It lies and distorts the truth.”
• “It affects my sleep, my peace, and my confidence.”

These responses are incredibly valid—and very human. Anxiety feels awful. But Kimberley reminds us that continuing to hate anxiety only adds fuel to the fire. It increases nervous system activation, deepens inner turmoil, and keeps us stuck in a cycle of fear and avoidance.

What If There’s Another Way?

Kimberley challenges the black-and-white thinking that says if we don’t hate anxiety, we must love it. Instead, she invites us into the gray area—into curiosity, neutrality, and even friendliness. This isn’t about pretending to enjoy anxiety, but about softening our relationship with anxiety.

From Resistance to Willingness: The Key Skills

Here’s what Kimberley teaches to help change your relationship with anxiety:

1. Drop the “Good or Bad” Label

Labeling anxiety as “bad” teaches your brain that it’s dangerous. Instead, try acknowledging it as uncomfortable—but not catastrophic.

Try this: “This is hard, but it’s not dangerous.”

2. Observe, Don’t Wrestle

Fighting with anxiety keeps it center stage. Instead, notice it, name it, and allow it to be there without trying to fix it.

“I see you, anxiety. You can come along, but I’m still living my life today.”

3. Practice Willingness

Rather than bracing against anxiety, open up to it. Soften your body, take a breath, and ask yourself: “How willing am I to feel this right now?”

Kimberley’s tip: The more intense your anxiety, the more willingness you need to meet it with.

4. Visualize Your Values

Each morning, Kimberley visualizes how she wants to show up—confident, kind, and present. Then, no matter how anxiety shows up, she commits to those values instead of the fear.

5. Thank Anxiety—Then Redirect

Remember, anxiety is just trying to keep you safe. It’s not your enemy—it’s just a little overzealous.

Try saying: “Thank you, anxiety. I hear you, but I’m not giving you all my attention today.”

Real-Life Examples: Applying the Skills

Here are some common anxiety struggles and how to respond differently:

Physical Symptoms?

Instead of focusing solely on your racing heart or tight chest, zoom out. Notice your whole body. Say: “It’s okay to feel this. I don’t have to fight it.”

Doom and Gloom Thoughts?

Recognize emotional reasoning—feeling scared doesn’t mean danger is present. Remind yourself: “This is a feeling, not a fact.”

Lost Time to Anxiety?

Gently take responsibility. You were doing your best. Now, choose differently. “Anxiety doesn’t get to run the show anymore.”

Interrupted Sleep?

Use the sleepless nights to practice a gentler mindset: “This is hard, but I’m not going to wrestle with it tonight.”

Ruined Sweet Moments?

Drop the perfectionism. Life is 50/50—some joy, some discomfort. Let both coexist.

Practice: A Meditation for Meeting Anxiety with Compassion

The episode ends with a soothing, guided meditation to help you sit with anxiety—not to make it go away, but to stop hating it.

In the meditation, Kimberley guides you to:
Acknowledge where anxiety shows up in your body
Greet it with curiosity, not resistance
Offer kind words like: “It’s safe for you to be here”
Remind yourself: “I’m doing the best I can. That’s enough.”

Your Weekly Challenge: Take One Baby Step

Ask yourself:
What is one small way I can stop fighting anxiety this week?

Write it down. Put it on a sticky note. Tell someone. Practice it again and again. Because building a better relationship with anxiety is a skill—and like all skills, it takes repetition and patience.

Final Words: Let’s Be Gentle with Ourselves

You don’t have to love anxiety. But maybe you can stop hating it. Maybe you can treat it like a chatty neighbor who means well but doesn’t get the final say. You can acknowledge it, even thank it, and then gently return to what matters most to you.

Celebrate your wins.
Be kind to yourself.
Keep practicing.

The podcast is made possible by NOCD. NOCD offers effective, convenient therapy available in the US and outside the US. To find out more about NOCD, their therapy plans, and if they currently take your insurance, head over to https://learn.nocd.com/youranxietytoolkit

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Transcription: How to Stop Hating Anxiety

What if I asked you a question that completely changes the way you think about anxiety, and you think about your inner experience of having anxiety, uncertainty, dread, distress, panic, and so forth. What would happen if you stopped hating anxiety? This is what we’re gonna explore today, and what you’re gonna find is the fact that you hate your experience of anxiety might be what’s creating a lot of unnecessary suffering.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking Kimberly, of course. I hate anxiety. It is uncomfortable. It makes me sweat. It makes me my tummy hurt. It makes my heart race. I hate uncertainty and anxiety, and that’s the problem, and I’ve just gotta figure out how to get it to go away, and I get it. We’ve all been there.

But science suggests. That our relationship with our internal experience can be what increases or decreases our own suffering. And what I want us to do today is explore number one, why you hate anxiety. ’cause I get it, I hate it too sometimes. But what we can do differently so that you can have a better relationship with your internal world and you can move on to reduce that suffering and go and live the life that you want.

So let’s do this together.

First of all, hello and welcome. My name is Kimberly Quinlan. You’re here at your Anxiety Toolkit podcast. This is where we give you a huge virtual hug and we give you effective, compassionate tools and strategies to help you manage anxiety. And today, let’s really get into it. Why do we hate anxiety? I thought this was such an interesting question.

So I actually poll my Instagram following and asked them like, what is it specifically that you hate about anxiety? And the response was, overwhelming. People flooded my dms with their experience, and here I’m gonna share with you some of the things that they said. They said it interrupts my sleep. It makes me sweat.

I always feel like I’m back at square one. It hits me out of nowhere. It tells lies. It distorts the truth. It’s a really scary feeling. It affects my self-confidence. It’s uncontrollable. That’s what they hate about it. They feel like they cannot hide from it. It takes me away from the sweet moments. A lot of folks said that, um, a lot of people said it, I fear it will never end or never go away.

It makes me feel like I cannot trust my gut or trust myself. A lot of people said it just stops joy and peace. It just takes peace and joy away from me. Others said it’s a illogical, and many people also said, I just don’t know how to make it stop. So first of all, I wanna validate you guys like yeah, we as.

Collectively. We hate anxiety. We really hate it. I remember when I’ve had my worst days, I remember hating my brain like I hate my brain. I would swear at my brain, I would say, you’re stupid. You’re bad. You’re wrong. Why have you gotta be like this? I’ve been there too. It is such a normal experience when you’re uncomfortable to hate on that thing, hate on ourselves.

But as you can imagine, when we say those things to ourselves and we hate. Parts of ourselves, like our brain or our anxiety, we’re going to create a lot of inner turmoil and increase the response our nervous system has. So let’s talk about today what we can specifically do about this, um, and hopefully get you closer to one that is more healing for you.

So often clients will even say to me like, what’s the problem here? Like, of course I’m gonna hate it. What do you, what do you expect from me? Uh, I’m gonna hate anxiety. Just like I would hate a really hot day if it was a really hot day, or I would hate, you know, a, a rash or a sunburn. Like, I’m gonna hate that experience.

Like, I can’t love it. What do you expect of me? And I get it. But what’s interesting is don’t you think it’s funny how we always assume that if we’re not hating something, we must be loving it, and that’s black and white thinking. So I am not suggesting today that you are going to practice loving your anxiety.

Maybe you could try that if that’s something you’re interested in, but that’s actually not what I’m suggesting. I’m actually talking about a little baby pivot to somewhere in the middle. So instead of hating it and instead of loving it. You are maybe more neutral or maybe you’re just more observing of it.

The reason being is if you’re in the hating party or camp, let’s say you’re someone who hates your anxiety. What that does is when you have anxiety, you are resisting it. You’re judging it, you’re labeling it as good or bad, and in this case bad. And what that does is that trains your brain to interpret anxiety.

As a bad thing, as a dangerous thing, as a threat, so that next time your brain spurts out anxiety and you have all these anxiety hormones going around your body, your brain is going to remember that you previously categorize anxiety as bad, and it’s going to. Um, floods you with a threat system saying This is really bad and this is dangerous, and we’ve said it’s bad and it’s going to create more and more discomfort for you.

Remember, your brain is constantly taking notes, so if you have something and you label it as bad, your brain will continue to categorize it as bad and will continue to sort of taunt you with it. So what we wanna do here first is acknowledge the good and bad that you’re doing this good, bad nature. And we wanna first acknowledge that it’s neither good nor bad.

It’s uncomfortable, but it’s not bad. It’s not good, it’s uncomfortable. And what we can do there is have a more neutral response to that meaning it’s something again that’s showing up in my body and practice not telling a story about. How bad it is. Sometimes a client will be like, this sucks and I hate it, and it’s so bad, and it’s like very catastrophic and I’m not here to take that away from them.

I don’t wanna invalidate them, but, but I wanna check in with them. How does it feel when you say that? Does it make it feel better or does it make it feel worse? And often They’ll say it actually, it feels true to me. But it does make me feel worse, and I’ll say interesting. I’m not trying to make you again believe that it feels great.

I just want you to acknowledge that your story about it creates more discomfort internally for you. It actually increases your suffering. Interesting. What story might you wanna tell yourself about it? And I’m gonna give it to them to ponder. Well, maybe I’ll just say it’s uncomfortable, or maybe I’ll say it’s temporary.

Maybe I’ll say it’s neutral. Maybe I’ll honor how uncomfortable it is, but I won’t add to the story of like, this sucks and it’s not fair and I don’t want it, and all those things. Because what we know is what you resist persists. The more you wrestle with it, the stronger it feels the longer it’s going to stay.

We know this. We’ve talked about it in so many episodes, so don’t wrestle with. Fear. I have this conversation with my kids all the time. They get into big fights with each other and they’re like butt bantering back and forward. And my youngest son will be like, why does this have to be the way? And I’ll say, because you, you both engage and like keep the, the bantering going.

Like if you don’t want to fight. Walk away. Like literally just walk away. Don’t keep the fight going by continuing to engage in it. And it’s the same with anxiety. You probably feel the same way if you’ve ever had a conflict with someone, like you can’t, you can’t make somebody change their mind, who you’ve been fighting with.

Like, you’re not gonna yell at them so much that they’re like, oh, you’re right, you’re right. You know, they, you’re just gonna keep arguing your point. And that’s the truth with anxiety as well, is. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just go, all right, you’re here. I’m not giving you my attention and I’m not going to wrestle with you.

I’m not gonna barter and banter and, and get, try to get you back on my team and get you to see my point. It’s just not worth it. And that is so the case with anxiety.

Now what I want you to do is create a new relationship with anxiety, right? A brand new one. So it’s almost like for the first time you’re going up to anxiety, you’re reaching out with your hand and you’re saying, let’s shake hands. It’s nice to meet you. Anxiety, tell me about you. And instead of. You doing the thing you used to do with anxiety, which is like, no, you’re wrong.

You’re right. Are you? And you’re just like, wrestling with it and I hate you. And why are you the way that you are? And you shouldn’t be here, and I wish you weren’t here. And you’ve just, you know, now you’re, the relationship is kind of very toxic and, and it’s very bumpy and scary and nervous to, and your nervous system is completely overwhelmed.

Instead, you’re gonna shake its hand and be like, okay, tell me about you. Anxiety is going to tell you all the catastrophic thoughts. It’s going to make you feel some feelings and some sensations in your body, and you’re actually going to practice going, okay, I’m just gonna observe you, but I’m not gonna let you completely disrupt the direction I’m going to today.

Like, I plan to be this kind of person. I plan to do these things. That was my, you know, my goal and my agenda for the day. These are my values. And so now that you are in the picture, now that you’re kind of hanging around. Um, I’m gonna let you do that, but you’re not going to take me away from the, the, the plan and the journey that I had planned for myself today and the, the way on which I wanted to show up.

One thing for me that I have been practicing for a while now, which has changed things for me, is every morning I do a little visualization about how I vi visually want to show up. So let’s say for this, for this PO podcast, I’m going to visualize me being warm and confident and encouraging and kind like they’re the, that’s the imagery I wanna bring.

Now what I’m gonna do is I’m actually going to practice, let’s say it’s a, if it’s an anxious day, I am going to image that, imagine that. While I’m recording this podcast, I’m also gonna let anxiety be there, but I’m still gonna stay in that, that value and that body posture and language of these values that matter to me.

I’m really clear about what that’s going to look like. Um, again, and then, so anxiety could be like chatting away, chatting away in my ear, and I’m be like, okay, you’re here. But I still have this goal to make this episode today, and I really wanted to get this point across. So that’s what I’m gonna be focusing on.

You can be here anxiety, but I’m not going to spend this time turning and looking at you and being like, get away. You’re wrong. You’re bad. Go be here. I hate you. Get rid of you. I’m just going to be here and sort of do a gentle kind roll of the eyes and be like, yep, you’re here. It’s okay.

Now a part of this is also me acknowledging that anxiety is just doing its job. It’s just trying to keep me safe. It’s trying to alert me to all of the potential problems, and thank goodness. Thank goodness for anxiety. I think we also, when we talk about changing our relationship with anxiety and uncertainty, when we talk about changing our relationship with OCD and panic and social anxiety and health anxiety, we’re really also here talking about thinking it and being grateful for the fact that it is trying to keep us safe, but.

It’s a little bit of a drama queen, right? Like you can understand like these disorders of our brain, they are over the top. They’re just like alerting us of every catastrophic thing. They’re just the, the alarm system is just too sensitive in this case. And so what we wanna do is we wanna make sure to thank it for doing its job.

But then again, to say, I thank you for telling me that. But I’m, I’m not going to validate what you have to say by giving you my attention. I’m not going to acknowledge that that is actually real. I’m going to actually stay here in the present because if, let’s say anxiety or your OCD or your social anxiety or health anxiety or depression, your panic, whatever it might be, is saying, this is really important.

And then you treat it like it’s important by giving it your attention, your time, um, you know, changing your behaviors, you reinforce that it’s important, and so it’s going to keep sending you the message that this is dangerous and important and you better act fast. We actually wanna break that cycle.

This is what we talk about in every one of our courses. Right is if you are, no matter what condition you have, if you have it and you respond as if it’s important and and dangerous and imminent, you are going to keep that cycle going. You’re gonna reinforce it. And so we have to intervene not by making the anxiety go away or hating it or pushing it away.

We intervene by not responding to it in that same way. Again, you don’t get into a fight with it. You don’t fight and wrestle with it on the ground because you won’t win that one. You, you won’t. It’s sort of like, you know, with politics today where let’s say someone has a different view, you guys could yell and scream all day and fight and wrestle and and com, you’re probably not gonna change their mind.

It’s going to be very. Fruitless in that all you’re gonna have done is spent hours fighting with someone who’s probably not gonna change their mind. Now that’s the case with anxiety as well. You’re not gonna be able to rationally change the way that it sees the world. It thinks it’s doing its job, it thinks it’s doing you a favor.

It’s go saying, all I’m trying to do is keep you safe. Why don’t you understand? And we contend to that kindly by going, thank you, anxiety. Thank you OCD, thank you. Health, anxiety, or depression. I get what you’re trying to do. But you tell lies, you are illogical. Like people said at the beginning, you make me think it’s real when really it’s not.

You overreact, right? So we can acknowledge that it’s trying to do its job, but we can also sort of gently parent it back to like, no, this is how we’re going to respond. I’m gonna take care of you. Um, you don’t need to take care of me. I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna show you how we’re gonna show up.

Another thing. What we wanna do here is practice willingness. When you have anxiety and you bristle, you know, like you pull away, you tense up, your shoulders are high, your hands are clasped, your jaw is gritted, you are fighting anxiety. And that actually is going to only increase the nervous system activation that you have.

Instead, we wanna say, okay, out of 10, how willing am I to feel this discomfort? Am I willing at all? Can I have a different relationship with this where I allow it to be there? I, um, sort of allow my chest to be tied, or I like loosen my jaw. It’s gonna feel scary, it’s gonna feel vulnerable, but I loosen my jaw.

I soften my shoulders, I soften my palm, I soften my stomach. I take a breath and I say like, I’m going to be willing to feel this. And across the board, in almost all cases, I have found clients say I actually, that’s the only time I’ve gotten relief is when I stop fighting. When I, I stopped the tug of war and I just had a willingness to feel it.

Now, we could actually go a little further in this and going, I’m actually gonna say bring it on. That’s where you really get to change your relationship with anxiety by saying, bring it. Come on, if you’re gonna be here. You know, do your thing and I’m gonna do what I plan to do anyway. I think that is even a more, um, it’s a little bit more aggressive, which is good, but it also helps train your brain, like your brain will.

I always imagine our brain’s like, oh, she’s not frightened of it anymore. That’s interesting. Okay. Okay. I can see. I can see that. Okay. All right. I can see. Oh, and then once you get through the event, you’re like, she was right. It actually wasn’t as dangerous. And so there’s new learning that’s happening, so that bringing on approach can be really helpful.

Now, I know we’ve talked about this before. I’ll say it again. Reid Wilson came onto the podcast many, many, many months ago, and he talked about like the degree of willingness. And basically the way he explained it, and I love this, is he said like if you’ve got a little bit of anxiety, like it’s not too bad, it’s sort of mild to moderate, you could practice a little bit of willingness, right?

You can practice a lot of these sort of more maybe cognitive skills and a little bit of willingness and so forth. But if your anxiety is way up here, 10 out of 10, it’s yelling and screaming at you. It’s like freaking out. You’re going to have to meet it with a ton of willingness, if not more than it is giving you.

So if it’s at a nine out of a 10 of anxiety, you’re gonna have to meet it with a 10 out of 10 willingness. If it’s a six out of 10 anxiety, you’re gonna have to meet it at a six or more willingness of really saying, yeah, I’m willing to have you, because again. What you resist persists. The more you fight something, the more it fights you back.

And anxiety is no different than that. Okay? So you have to be willing to put the, again, put the tug of war rope down and say, I see you. Thank you. I get what you’re trying to do here. But for here in the here and the now, when we’re looking at mindfulness skills in the here and the now, there isn’t any danger, right?

And we’re just having thoughts about it. Just because we think it and feel it doesn’t mean it’s true. And in the here and now, I’m actually going to pull my shoulders back, raise my head up high. I’m gonna take a swallow. I’m gonna do the gulp, right? I’m gonna take a breath and I’m gonna willingly have this feeling, but it will not let me change my goal and what my mission is in my life.

Okay. So I’m going to now go through some practical skills for some of the points that people on social media made. Just wanna sort of talk about some ways that you might wanna approach anxiety, um, and the diff because of the different ways that it shows up. So, let’s talk about first the physical symptoms of anxiety.

A lot of folks said it’s just so uncomfortable, right? It just. I just really hate how it makes me feel. So again, we wanna, in that case, acknowledge where it’s showing up in your body. Um, we wanna sort of give it permission to be there. Again, that’s that willingness piece, but we don’t wanna over attend to it.

If you’re really attending to the racing hard and giving that all of your attention. What you may wanna do is zoom out and look at your big experience, like what else is going on, what other parts of your body do you feel? What’s going on on your toes? What’s going on in your ears? Um, you know, how does it feel for your hair to like stand up at the back of your head or push against the back of your neck?

We wanna sort of zoom out and not give that physical symptom. All of our attention, because when we do that, we’re just hyper respon, being hyper responsive to it and giving, you know, again, validating it in a way that, um, with, again, giving it too much of our, you know, time and of tension. Now let’s talk about the doom and gloom thoughts.

Absolutely, I get it. Doom and gloom. Thoughts come with anxiety. That feeling of doom, like the world is gonna end. Like bad things are about to happen. Your job here is to practice Observing that and acknowledging that just because you feel something doesn’t mean it’s true. That’s what we call emotional reasoning, just because you feel it.

It doesn’t make it a fact. Instead, we wanna go, okay, I’m observing the feeling that bad things are gonna happen, and that’s just a feeling or a thought. I’m gonna bring myself back to the moment and allow that discomfort to be there. I might even shrug and go, okay, I see you. Maybe, maybe not, but we are not going to tend to it as if it is a fact.

The next thing is a lot of people says it takes a lot of my time and energy. Okay, I get it. But the thing here is you may have displaced your hate. To anxiety when it’s not anxiety’s fault. This is where I talk about personal responsibility and compassionate responsibility, anxiety. In the past, it does take up our time.

It does mean that we give it too much attention, but that’s not particularly anxiety’s fault. It’s actually because we in that moment, chose to give it our attention. Now, I’m not blaming you. This is not about beating you to yourself up, it’s saying. I chose that I was doing the best I could with what I had at that time.

Yes, it did take a lot of my time. It did take a lot of my energy up to tend to anxiety, and I’m now gonna choose something different. I’m gonna choose something. It’s not anxiety’s fault that I chose to do that. That’s just what humans do. Human beings, when we’re uncomfortable, our natural default is to.

Try and make it go away. That’s what, that’s why we’ve survived all these years. But if you have an anxiety disorder or a mental health condition, um, it, it’s very normal for us to engage in behaviors that do take up a lot of time. But we don’t wanna blame anxiety for that. This is where we get to take ownership of our time and say, no.

I will not let you anxiety, take my time up anymore. It’s about setting compassionate boundaries with yourself and saying, I get that you have been so convincing, um, in my past, but I’m going to bit by bit. Day by day, minute by minute, try to allow you to be there. And I’m not gonna let you take my time anymore.

I’m not gonna let you take my energy, take you away from special occasions. I’m gonna do everything in my power to strengthen this muscle where I let you be there. And I don’t let you take me away from the things I value and I love. Be very gentle with yourself here. You’re doing the best you can. You did the best you could with what you knew and what you had in that moment.

Now, there are a bunch of folks who said it interrupts my sleep and I hate that. I’m tired, I feel awful. I’m up for hours, and I get it. I get it. Again, we wanna embrace yourself with compassion here. Anxiety does really impact your sleep. It’s true. If you’re really struggling with this, please do go. We’ve got some episodes on your anxiety toolkit about sleep, or go see a sleep specialist to help with that.

Make sure you have a beautiful sleep routine, a bedtime routine that will help you. Um, and in this case too, in the night, if you are having a lot of anxiety. That is the perfect time to befriend that anxiety again, even though you’re not getting sleep in that moment, you’re getting the benefit of strengthening that muscle, of having a healthy relationship when it does show up.

So for me, if it’s anxiety’s bugging me at night. I might make sure I have a good sleep routine and go, okay, this is an opportunity for me to have a sleepless night, but not engage in that wrestle with anxiety and hate it. And, and again, anytime you feel your nose squinch up and you’re, you know, that, you go, okay, this is an opportunity.

I’m gonna let the rope go and I’m gonna stop fighting it.

A lot of people. A lot of people said that they just hated the fact that it hit them out of nowhere, and I get it when things hit us out of nowhere. It’s kind of alarming. It can be a big jolt to the system and very abrupt, but in this case, again, we’re gonna use it as an opportunity is when it does show up.

Slow down and go. Okay. How did I used to respond? I used to brace myself, maybe lean back, you know, take a big, ah, maybe you said a swear word or whatever. And instead we’re gonna go, okay, take a breath. I’m gonna lean in, right? I’m gonna change, I’m going to, um, maybe even greet it and go, hi, anxiety, I see you’re back.

You’re that one neighbor that always shows up at the most inconvenient time. I see you acknowledge you, but you’re not gonna be in charge here. Just come with me. I’m going to be gentle and do your best. Like again, touch your heart, close your eyes, maybe smile a little and be like, okay, I see you. Oh, this is so hard, but we’re gonna get through this together.

I, so many people said that it just ruins the sweet moments, and I get that. I get that anxiety has ruined some sweet moments for me as well. This is where, again, please be gentle with yourself. You are doing the best you can and this is where we can open up for imperfection. We were never promised that it was gonna be perfect, right?

We were never promised that we would get to have this all the sweet moments and have them be completely blissful. In fact. I spend a lot of time with my clients really talking about how expectations can be sometimes the biggest. Cause of our suffering. We have these expectations that certain days and events were just gonna be nothing but sweet, beautiful, pleasurable moments.

But that’s really not life, right? Life is not all, you know, having these perfect picture Pinterest moments. The truth is, life is messy. Um, every beautiful moment has had some. Discomfort involved in my life and when I dropped the expectation that everything, that those things were supposed to be perfect and that, you know, I deserved to have a perfect moment when I dropped all that and was just like, you know what?

Life’s mostly just 50 50 half of it’s good and some of it’s hard and some of it’s really scary. Once I allowed life to be 50 50. It was so much easier when I dropped this idea of it having to be perfect and 90% good and only 10% bad, and I made it pretty even. Ugh. The suffering was so much less. So give yourself some grace.

Allow there to be imperfection when there is joy and indulge in the joy. But when there is discomfort, also acknowledge that this is a part of being a human being. It’s a part of the human condition. And while it’s really, really hard, it’s also. And I am a part of being alive. It’s a part of the, the life we live as human beings.

No one is exempt from that.

Okay, so I’m actually gonna do a meditation with you guys here. Um, but before we do that, I do encourage you to stay for the meditation. I hope that you do. But before we do that, I sort of want you to think about some steps that you might take. So from all the skills I’ve talked about so far. What is one baby step that you can do?

What’s one thing that you can do that will reduce how much you are wrestling with anxiety? What is one baby step you can make to have a better relationship? With anxiety. I want you to finish this episode. Once we’re done, I want you to go and write it down. I want you to put it sticky notes as reminders, maybe alarms on your phone because this one tool, again, is so powerful.

But you will have to practice it over and over again. Building healthy relationships takes time. And when it comes to anxiety, you might have been having a bad relationship with anxiety for a very long time. You may have hated it for a long time, so it’s gonna take some time to train your brain to be a little bit different.

So identify, pick one thing you can do for right now, for this next week to help improve your relationship and tell your friends. Tell your partner, tell your kids, um, tell your therapist like, this is the thing I’m working on. And then ask them, can you hold me accountable? Can you check in with me? How can we do this together?

Is there somebody who’s also wanting to practice? Does this, um, maybe you wanna share this episode with them and say, let’s do this together. Let’s really work at improving how we respond to anxiety and how we relate to our anxiety. Something to think about.

So one more thing here is I also want you to just celebrate your small wins here. If this is hard work, this is not easy, so please celebrate the wins that you have. Celebrate every moment that you’re successful with this. Okay, I’m gonna do a meditation here with you. Um, I hope that it’s exactly what you need.

If you’re driving, um, please just listen to it, but don’t, you know, engage in any closing of your eyes or anything like that. Um, if you’re listening to this and you’re laying down, please use this. Anytime you find yourself wrestling with anxiety, I hope it is exactly what you need, um, to guide you through this practice.

So let’s do it.

All right, my friend. Let’s take a few minutes together to practice what we’ve just learned. If you’re somewhere safe and comfortable, allow your eyes to gently close, soften your gaze, let your hands rest easily on your lap or by your sides. Begin by noticing the rhythm of your breath. You don’t need to change it.

Just feel it. A natural breath in, a natural, soft breath out. We’re not doing deep breathing here. And if you like, you can imagine the breath as a gentle wave rising and falling in the body.

Now bring your attention to any place in your body where you sense anxiety. Maybe it’s a tightness in your chest, a flutter in your stomach, a heaviness in your shoulders, even a buzzing underneath your skin. There’s no need to push it away. Simply say to yourself, this is what anxiety feels like to me right now.

Now I want you to invite a little curiosity towards the sensation. Can you notice where it begins and starts? Where is its edges? Is it warm or cool? Does it move or does it stay still? You don’t have to figure it out. You don’t have to fix it. Just be with it. Sit beside it like a friend who’s having a hard day.

If any thoughts pop up like, I hate this, make it stop. I want you to notice those two. Maybe gently smile and acknowledge. You might even say to your mind, this is thinking, thinking. Label it as thinking, and then gently return your focus to your breath and your body. Now, you might need to do this over and over in your daily practice and in this meditation, and that’s okay.

If you notice your thinking, just label it as thinking and bring yourself back to the present moment. Right. This is how we practice non hatred. We do it by noticing it but not fighting it.

Now, I want you to imagine offering your anxiety, some kind words. You might silently say, I don’t have to love you, but I don’t have to hate you either. You might say, I know you’re trying to protect me in your own way. You might say it’s safe for you to be here right now. You might feel free to use words that feel right to you, right?

So if there’s something you wanna mention to your anxiety that is kind and caring, do so. And if you don’t, you can just sit with the intention of suffering around the areas where anxiety shows up.

Now, I want you to expand your awareness a little wider. Notice the space around your discomfort. Maybe there’s some calm around the outskirts of where you are noticing this anxiety. Maybe you can offer it a soft breath. Maybe you can put your feet on the ground or a soft touch if that’s what you need, where that area is, and you can remind yourself, I’m more than this anxiety.

I, there is more to me in this moment that this is temporary. This is not forever. And it’s not a sign of danger.

I want you to take three slower breaths now in through your nose if you can, out through your mouth, if that feels good to you. And with each exhale, just see if you can soften your breath a little. Even if anxiety stays present, we’re not trying to get it to go away. We’re just offering a safe, lovely, warm place for it to be and exist just like you are.

And then finally, you’re gonna offer yourself one kind thing before we close. I’m safe. I’m safe to feel this.

Or I can feel this and still live the life that I want to live, or I’m doing the best that I can. And that’s enough for today. Now, when you’re ready, you can gently wiggle your fingers and your toes, roll your shoulders, and at your own pace, open your eyes. And then you’re gonna move into the day giving yourself permission to have anxiety and making a commitment.

I’m not gonna hate you anymore. Anxiety. I’m not going to be so mean to you. I’m gonna be gentle. I’m gonna befriend you. I’m gonna walk beside you as we go on to do the things that we wanna do today.

So as we conclude that meditation in this episode, I wanna thank you for practicing with me today. I wanna thank you for being here with me today. You are so brave for being here with me as we navigate this goal of not hating our anxiety or discomfort or anything about ourselves. You could practice this in any area.

Maybe it’s a part of your body that you hate, uh, maybe it’s a part of your personality that you hate. You could practice this in any way. Now, thank you so much for being here. As always, you can go to cbt school.com. If you’re wanting to access our meditation vault, we have all of our meditations there. I often upload new meditations to the vault, so that’s there for you.

Or you can go to cbtschool.com. We have courses on OCD. Anxiety, depression. We have mindfulness courses, we have time management courses. Um, we are having new courses come out all the time. We have a BDD course coming out, so please do access those. Take check them out. I think you will love them. If you love what you hear today, um, I’m going to encourage you to share this episode or listen back to it as many times as you want.

This will not be a one time fix all. It will be something that you’ll have to practice. So please use this resource as. Often as you need. I hope that it was helpful. I’m so honored to be on this journey with you and I’ll see you in next week’s episode.