Rewiring Your Relationship with Anxiety

About This Blog

In a world where anxiety has become as common as morning coffee, most people desperately search for ways to eliminate worried thoughts altogether. But what if the solution isn't getting rid of anxiety—what if it's learning to dance with it instead? Lodro Rinzler, a meditation teacher and author of "Take Back Your Mind: Buddhist Advice for Anxious Times," brings a refreshingly different perspective to mental health that challenges everything we think we know about managing anxiety.

Born into a Buddhist family and practicing meditation since age six, Rinzler isn't your typical wellness guru who discovered mindfulness during a midlife crisis. His decades of experience, from childhood meditation retreats to teaching at universities like Harvard, combined with his work helping major corporations integrate mindfulness practices, gives him unique credibility in understanding how ancient wisdom applies to modern mental health challenges. In his recent conversation with LaMont Leavitt on the Fountain of Vitality podcast, Rinzler offers something more sustainable than quick fixes or elimination of difficult emotions: a complete reframing of how we relate to the anxious mind.

The modern epidemic of anxiety isn't just about individual struggles—it's about how our brains, designed for a different era, are trying to process information in ways they were never meant to handle. From the constant ping of notifications to the endless scroll of social media, our minds are under siege. Rinzler's approach offers practical tools not just for managing anxiety, but for reclaiming the mental space that allows us to respond rather than react to life's challenges.

Why Everyone Thinks They're Broken  

The first obstacle to addressing anxiety effectively isn't the anxiety itself—it's the shame that surrounds it. Rinzler observes that nearly everyone dealing with anxious thoughts believes they're uniquely flawed, that their particular brand of worry indicates something fundamentally wrong with their mental makeup. This isolation compounds the problem, creating a secondary layer of suffering on top of the original anxiety.

This shame-based approach to anxiety creates a vicious cycle where people not only struggle with worried thoughts but also judge themselves harshly for having them. The result is a mental environment where anxiety feeds on itself, growing stronger through resistance and self-criticism. When someone believes they're the only person unable to control their racing thoughts, they often abandon helpful practices before giving them a real chance to work.

The reality, according to Rinzler, is that anxiety is fundamentally a universal human experience, not a personal failing. Modern life has created conditions that naturally generate anxious responses in virtually everyone. Recognizing this shared experience removes the additional burden of shame and allows people to approach their anxiety with curiosity rather than judgment. This shift in perspective becomes the foundation for developing a healthier relationship with difficult emotions.

The Information Overload Problem

To understand why anxiety has reached epidemic proportions, Rinzler points to a fundamental mismatch between how we're evolutionarily wired to process information and how we actually consume it today. Our brains developed sophisticated threat-detection systems designed to help us survive genuine physical dangers in our immediate environment. These same systems now fire constantly in response to digital information that poses no actual threat to our physical safety.

The shift from consuming news once or twice daily to constant information streaming has created an unprecedented challenge for our mental processing systems. Instead of reading a morning newspaper and setting it aside, people now refresh the same developing stories dozens of times throughout the day, consuming partial information, corrections, and updates that keep stress hormones elevated for extended periods. This pattern extends beyond news consumption to how we process information about friends, family, and social situations through social media platforms.

From a neurological standpoint, our brains cannot distinguish between reading about a distant crisis and facing an immediate physical threat. The same fight-or-flight responses that helped our ancestors survive encounters with predators now activate when we encounter upsetting headlines or social media posts. This creates a state of chronic low-level stress that manifests as anxiety, even when our actual circumstances are relatively safe and stable.

The Meditation Training Ground

Rinzler uses the analogy of physical fitness to explain why meditation requires consistent training rather than expecting immediate results. Just as someone wouldn't expect to walk into a gym and immediately lift heavy weights, developing mental fitness through meditation requires starting with manageable challenges and gradually building capacity over time. Most people abandon meditation after a few sessions because they expect their minds to become immediately calm and focused.

The training process involves learning to observe the constant stream of thoughts without getting swept away by them. Rinzler describes this as becoming familiar with your mental landscape—understanding the difference between the temporary clouds of thought and the stable sky of awareness behind them. This familiarity develops gradually through consistent practice, allowing meditators to recognize anxious thoughts as temporary mental events rather than urgent calls to action.

The goal isn't to achieve a perfectly quiet mind but to develop the skill of returning attention to the present moment when it inevitably wanders. This returning becomes the mental equivalent of a bicep curl—a simple action that builds strength through repetition. Over time, practitioners develop the ability to notice when they're caught in anxious thinking patterns and gently redirect their attention to immediate reality rather than hypothetical future problems.

The Simple Strategy That Stops Anxious Spiraling  

One of the most practical tools Rinzler shares involves asking a single question when caught in repetitive anxious thinking: "Is this helpful?" This simple inquiry creates a pause that allows rational evaluation of whether continued mental rehearsal of problems serves any productive purpose. While initial planning or problem-solving thoughts might genuinely be helpful, the fiftieth repetition of the same worried scenario rarely contributes anything useful.

The technique works because it engages the rational mind without trying to suppress or fight anxious thoughts directly. Instead of telling yourself to stop worrying—which often backfires—asking whether the thoughts are helpful allows your own wisdom to recognize when mental activity has shifted from productive planning to unproductive rumination. This recognition makes it much easier to redirect attention to present-moment activities.

Five Signs Your Anxious Thinking Has Moved from Helpful to Harmful:

1. You're mentally rehearsing the same scenario repeatedly without new insights

2. The thoughts focus on problems you cannot directly influence or control

3. Physical tension increases without leading to constructive action

4. The worrying interferes with your ability to engage in current activities

5. You feel more agitated rather than more prepared after the mental rehearsal

Rinzler emphasizes that this approach respects the intelligence behind anxiety while preventing it from taking over your entire mental landscape. Some worry serves a legitimate planning function, but endless rumination rarely leads to better outcomes—it just creates mental exhaustion and emotional overwhelm.

Creating Boundaries in an Always-On World  

Beyond individual meditation practice, managing anxiety in modern life requires creating intentional boundaries around information consumption. Rinzler shares his personal approach of reading news once in the morning from trusted sources, then setting it aside for the rest of the day unless something genuinely urgent develops. This boundary prevents the constant refresh cycle that keeps stress hormones elevated throughout the day.

The key principle involves taking control of your information diet rather than passively consuming whatever appears in your feeds or notifications. Just as you wouldn't eat junk food constantly and expect to feel physically healthy, consuming a steady stream of alarming or fragmented information makes mental health significantly more difficult to maintain. Setting specific times for news consumption and social media use allows you to stay informed without becoming overwhelmed.

These boundaries extend beyond news to include social media, work communications, and even conversations with friends and family about stressful topics. The goal isn't to become uninformed or disconnected, but to consume information in ways that support rather than undermine your mental wellbeing. This might mean turning off notifications, designating phone-free zones in your home, or agreeing with family members about when and how you'll discuss difficult topics.

Reclaiming Mental Space in a Noisy World  

The promise of meditation isn't the elimination of anxiety or the achievement of constant calm—it's the development of mental spaciousness that allows you to respond to life's challenges from a place of clarity rather than reactivity. Rinzler describes this spaciousness as feeling like you have more time in your day, even though the clock shows the same number of hours. This isn't magical thinking but a practical result of spending less mental energy caught up in anxious projections about the future.

When your attention isn't constantly hijacked by worried thoughts, you naturally become more present and efficient in your daily activities. Tasks that seemed overwhelming when viewed through the lens of anxiety become manageable when approached with a calm, focused mind. This creates an upward spiral where reduced mental clutter leads to increased effectiveness, which in turn reduces legitimate reasons for anxiety.

The journey toward mental spaciousness requires patience and self-compassion, especially during the initial stages when meditation might seem to make your busy mind more apparent rather than less active. This apparent increase in mental activity is actually a sign that you're becoming more aware of what was always happening in your mind—the first step toward developing a healthier relationship with your thoughts.

Listen to the full conversation between Lodro Rinzler and LaMont Leavitt at fountainofvitality.com to discover more practical strategies for transforming your relationship with anxiety and reclaiming the peace that exists beneath life's inevitable challenges.