why meditation used to make my anxiety worse

meditation isn’t always peaceful.

meditation has this reputation for being peaceful and easy. you picture someone sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, breathing slowly, totally calm. like they’ve unlocked some secret level of inner peace the rest of us are still trying to figure out.

and the way it’s usually shown, they make it look effortless. they sit down, close their eyes and it’s like… bam. they’re suddenly somewhere else. completely calm. completely centered. like they just teleported to a quiet mountain for a few minutes.

then they open their eyes, stretch a little, and go about their day looking refreshed and peaceful, like they just took a spiritual power nap and everything in their life is now aligned. meanwhile you’re sitting there thinking… wait. how did you get there?

because if you’ve never meditated before, or if you tried it once and it didn’t really click, that whole thing can feel very distant. almost like watching someone do a magic trick.

and the truth is, when i first started trying to meditate, it looked nothing like that.

for me, meditation actually used to worsen my anxiety. which is ironic, considering meditation is supposed to help with anxiety.

the hard part wasn’t sitting still. sitting is easy. we sit all the time. the hard part was being alone with my thoughts.

the first time i tried meditating in silence, i closed my eyes and within about three seconds my brain was like, great, finally. we’ve been waiting for this moment.

and then suddenly my to-do list showed up.

a random conversation from years ago popped into my head. i remembered emails i forgot to send. my foot started itching. i wondered if i should check my phone. i started thinking about if my dog needed to go out. did she go #2 earlier or just #1?

it felt like my brain had about 400 thoughts waiting in line, and meditation was the moment they all decided to speak at once.

and i remember thinking, am i doing this wrong? what’s wrong with me? but the thing is, no one really talks about that part of meditation. people talk about how calming it is, but the first step of meditation is actually noticing what your mind is doing. and sometimes what you notice is… a lot.

that’s why i often say the hardest pose in your practice might actually be savasana.

when you’re in a yoga pose, your mind has something to focus on. your alignment. your balance. your strength. your arm goes here, your hips rotate there, your core turns on.

your brain has a job. meditation removes all of that.

you’re just sitting there with yourself. and sometimes that’s the hardest thing to do.

there’s also this funny assumption that comes with being a yoga student, especially a teacher. people think that if you practice yoga, you must automatically be some kind of master meditator too. like we’re all just walking around completely calm and enlightened at all times.

i wish i could tell you that’s true. but it’s not really how it works.

even as a teacher, i forget to meditate sometimes. sometimes i skip it. sometimes i sit down to do it and my brain is like, oh you’re trying to do this right now? cute. think again.

but that’s the thing about meditation. it’s called a practice for a reason.

it’s not something you master once and suddenly you’re permanently calm for the rest of your life. it’s something you return to again and again.

and over time, you start to notice the effects.

for me, meditation eventually shifted from something that made me anxious into something i genuinely value. it became a reset button. a moment where i can pause, breathe, and check in with myself instead of constantly rushing to the next thing.

but that shift didn’t happen overnight. it happened slowly, through experimenting with what actually worked for me.

instead of forcing myself to sit in silence and hoping my brain would magically cooperate, i started exploring more structured breathing. different rhythms of breath. longer exhales. slower inhales.

giving my mind something gentle but intentional to focus on made a huge difference.

once the breath had structure, my mind had somewhere to go.

and that’s when meditation started to feel less intimidating and more grounding.

little by little, i found ways that meditation worked for me.

and the cool thing is that today we actually have more access to tools that help with this than ever before. guided meditations, breathing practices, apps, videos. there are so many ways to explore the practice instead of feeling like there’s only one “right” way to do it.

so if meditation has ever made you feel uncomfortable, anxious, or even a little weird, you’re not doing it wrong.

you’re just practicing.

and if you’ve tried meditation before and thought, this is not for me, i’m here to say there’s hope. seriously.

if meditation once made you feel anxious like it did for me, that doesn’t mean it will always feel that way. sometimes the practices that challenge us the most are the ones that eventually become the most meaningful.

so stick with it.

-daniela