Can Meditation Cure Anxiety?

Let’s be clear about the use of the word “cure” right from the start.

“Cure” implies that there’s a disease – something broken – and that meditation is the “pill” that will fix it.

In my view, (and I was a senior mental health professional for over 30 years), anxiety isn’t a disease, it’s just some thought processes that have got rather tangled up.

Think of a bad driver.  They think they know how to drive, so they don’t have a lot of insight into their own traffic-carving, passenger-scaring ways.  But from the outside, it’s fairly easy for someone else to see that they’ve just got into some bad habits.

Now, here’s the thing with meditation: You can be like the person observing the bad driver.

Try it now – you don’t even have to know anything about meditation to do this.  (And you don’t need to be feeling anxious either!)

Just notice your thoughts.  It doesn’t matter what they’re about.  You maybe thinking about what to eat for dinner or, it might be about your girlfriend or your job or … well … absolutely anything might float into your awareness.

Just let your mind run free for a moment or two and sit back, as if you’re about to catch up on your favourite soap opera on TV, and watch what it does.

Give it a moment …

There!  It doesn’t matter what those thoughts were about … what’s important is that you notice that you can notice your thoughts!

The “noticer” was not anxious was it/he/she?  The Noticer could just sit back, like relaxing on a park bench on a spring day, and watch the world of thought go by.

Not sure?

Try it again.  Just notice your thoughts.  Don’t censor, don’t interfere, don’t judge.  Pretend it really is an episode of a soap opera – you don’t know what’s coming, so you just wait and let the drama(s) unfold, don’t you?

Be like that.

See?

You can do it.

Now, here’s the real kicker.  Did you notice that when I pointed out that the Noticer is at peace, you were noticing the Noticer!?

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It’s like peeling away the layers of an onion, and the further in you go, the more peace there is.

That’s where meditation takes you.

So now I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about whether I’ve answered the question about meditation “curing” anxiety.