Listening Meditation to Calm the Anxious Mind

This is a “listening meditation” technique that uses one part of the mind for concentration so the anxiety mind can rest.

1. Sit still and bring your attention to what you can hear right now. You’ll probably notice that one noise jumps out at you – perhaps the loudest or most annoying.
2. Now, listen hard for what else you can hear at the same time. Closing your eyes can help. Do your best to divide your attention equally between every noise that you can hear. This will probably be challenging at first.
3. Notice when one particular sound has taken up your full attention, or when your mind simply wanders. Bring your attention back to all the noises and focus again on dividing your attention among all of them equally.

Do this for a few minutes and then notice how you feel compared to when you started.