Here are some tips for dealing with anxiety.
Most of this advice could be applied to any emotion that arises, along with the related thoughts.
Don't Try To Change It
Our conditioning supports comfort, confidence and personal strength. So when anxiety shows up, our mind instantly tends to label it as "wrong" or "bad". These labels are also enhanced by the discomfort of anxiety, and it can all end up as a huge bundle of resistance.
Anxiety in itself is a form of resistance. It claims to want something to be different, and usually this thing exists most strongly as imagination. The antidote to anxiety, and something that is quite a paradox, is to be okay with it. To accept it so fully, that it is as if you want it to be there. This may sound extreme, but you will be surprised at the result. This kind of acceptance leaves no room for problems, and it heals the resistive energy of anxiety. If you argue with anxiety you strengthen it, if you let it be, fully accept it without even wanting it to be gone, this is the inner climate it dissolves in.
It Isn't Personal
Anxiety claims to be extremely personal. The mind forms a conceptual identity (the self-image), and basis anxiety on this image of a person. This mental concept of who you are is only another thought. It is a conditioned identity. Who you are is the awareness in which this anxious self arises.
Notice that anxiety truly has a mind of its own. It comes unannounced, with no choice on your part. It charges thoughts with its own energy. Rather than being who you are, it is an energetic field that seeks to maintain itself. See that it is an energy fluctuation that lives in the body. Watch it without judgement. Then you naturally see that it is not who you are, and its grip is weakened without effort.
Enjoyable or Helpful?
Notice that this same energy of anxiety and the related self-image, somehow both hates and loves the emotional pain. Why else is it being produced? Notice that rather than it being "your emotion", it is a strange emotional addiction that plays itself out.
At the very least, we could say that something inside believes that anxiety is helpful. But is it helpful? To watch anxiety arise and to simply notice its futility, to notice its laughable impracticality, means it is no longer being taken seriously, and it will weaken.
The Unaffected Awareness
If anxiety is there, you know. If anxiety is not there, you know. You are here when anxiety is acting out or not. Anxiety comes to visit. It creates "an anxious person". You are also aware of this anxious person, so how could it be who you are?
If you wish anxiety to be gone, it stays. If you welcome it and be with it, it dissolves.
Be aware that whatever is happening, you are aware of it. A calm mind, a frantic mind, ease or anxiety - all arise and fall IN you. You are the awareness in which these things arise. Be aware of yourself as this. The awareness is not personal, it does not suffer what arises, it simply remains as neutral, empty awareness.
Anxiety No More
Some readers may already be aware of the website anxietynomore.co.uk.
It has helped many to effectively deal with anxiety:
Website: http://www.anxietynomore.co.uk/
For more tips for dealing with anxiety, visit the "How To Deal With Anxiety" Page.