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Welcome to Episode 150 of the Mindful15 Podcast featuring short, practical lessons in secular mindfulness. I’m Monica Tomm.
Today I’m going to address a challenging subject: Anxiety. Mindfulness can be applied to anxiety in a number of ways, but the focus today is on using mindfulness to break the habit of avoidance, which tends to bolster anxious thinking in the long run.
But, before I get to that, I want to tell you about some changes coming to Mindful15. You may know that we have a membership site at mindful15.com on which we’ve posted a large collection of resources to support your mindfulness practice. Recently, we made the decision to transform the membership site into an interactive mindfulness community. Basically, we’ll be moving from a collection of passive resources, to an active, engaged community where we can all practice together.  We’re also planning to create a variety of mindfulness courses for those who want to delve deeper into the practice.
That’s all coming sometime this fall - no promises on a date yet - but to carve out time for this transition, we’ve decided to move to a bi-weekly publication schedule for the Mindful15 Podcast. Our next episode is called No More Waiting in Line and it will be published in two weeks. 
For those who like to tune in weekly, don’t forget that we have 149 other episodes already online! You’ll find them at mindful15.com or on the Mindful15 Youtube channel. Our subject matter is timeless, so these lessons never get outdated. And, there’s no need to listen to them in order, either. Jump around as much as you like.
Alright then, on to today’s lesson.
As a mindfulness teacher, I’ve discovered that a large percentage of my students decide to try mindfulness and meditation because they’re searching for a way to deal with stress and anxiety. At first, they’re just looking for ways to relax and to calm their anxious thoughts. And, yes, mindfulness meditation can help you relax. With practice, however, students discover that mindfulness can help them more deeply. It can teach them to actively manage anxiety.
The power of mindfulness practice doesn’t come from its ability to relax you. It comes from the way mindfulness teaches you about yourself and your habitual thought patterns, and the way it allows you to accept experiences without judging them. The resulting peace is much deeper than any relaxation exercise can ever be, but it takes time to grow the practice and establish a new relationship with anxiety-provoking experiences.
Let me explain how this works. Anxiety is a future-focused emotion typically based on unrealistic negative expectations about future outcomes. Maybe, for example, you have to give a presentation at work and you anticipate that you’ll humiliate yourself and your supervisor will think you’re incompetent and, perhaps, even demote you.
One of the most common reactions to perceived threat is avoidance. It can take a few different forms. In the example of the upcoming presentation, you might escape by quitting your job. Or, you might simply avoid the presentation by calling in sick that day or convincing a coworker to do the presentation for you. Or, you might just use partial avoidance. You’ll give the speech, but you will read from a screen without making any eye contact. Avoidance behaviours help you distance yourself from the perceived threat so you don’t have to experience the anticipated negative outcomes.
But whereas avoidance of a real threat can be a useful response, avoidance of an unrealistically perceived threat can simply reinforce the anxiety. Often, the perceived negative outcomes are blown out of proportion. When you avoid the potential threat, you never give yourself the opportunity to test...