The ‘Secular Buddhist’ shares 2 practices to soothe everyday anxiety and aggravation

Noah Rasheta is the author of three books and host of the popular Secular Buddhism podcast, where he explains 2,500-year-old teachings while setting aside spiritual elements that may turn some away from the practice. The show’s mantra, which Rasheta says at the beginning of every episode, is simple: “You don’t need to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist. You can use what you learn to simply be a better whatever you already are.” Rasheta takes a secular approach to Buddhism because he doesn’t want to take part in another religion after leaving the Church of Latter-day Saints. After suffering a breach of trust in his marriage, he scoured scriptures for meaning but came up empty. Some in the church said his marriage troubles were caused by his lack of devotion to the faith. “I started learning all kinds of things I didn’t know about church history and doctrine that were far more controversial than anything I had previously encountered,” Rasheta told Upworthy. “The more I went digging, the more I started to feel a second betrayal—this time from the religious organization itself.” Noah Rasheta’s retreat. Courtesy of Noah Rasheta Rasheta finds peace through Buddhist teachings “It was during that inner chaos that I remember thinking meditation was supposed to help with this kind of stuff, though I realized I didn’t actually know why,” he told Upworthy. This desire to learn meditation led Rasheta down the eight-fold path of Buddhism, where he works one-on-one with his students through retreats and online dharma talks. Many of those Rasheta works with came to Buddhism after being unmoored by a traumatic life event. “Most people show up because something in life suddenly changed shape and they had no say in it. They are looking for help regaining stability after their proverbial rug has been pulled out from under their feet,” he shared. A monk meditating. Credit: Pixabay Rasheta’s practices for dealing with anxiety Rasheta believes the best way to overcome anxiety is to observe your emotions and the sensations in your body. “The first step isn’t to try to feel differently; it’s to notice what you are feeling,” he says. “Imagine driving down the highway and being angry at whatever is bothering you, but then you suddenly notice that you are experiencing anger.” Rasheta continues, “You could ask yourself: is the part of me that notices I’m angry, the observer, also angry? If you ask that honestly, you realize the observer isn’t angry. The observer is just noticing and observing. That gap is key. Noticing what we are experiencing or feeling isn’t the cure, but it is the difference between the initial pain and the suffering that will follow.” “To start thinking through the gap between the experience and the awareness of the experience, the separation happens in the noticing, which you could also call curiosity,” Rasheta continues. “In my own practice, it has become much more natural to separate the experience from the awareness of the experience. That’s when the observer emerges: ‘I’m noticing that I’m feeling, and I also notice that I’m noticing what I’m feeling.’ You begin to discover these different gaps.” The practice is similar to a psychology practice called affect labeling, where you describe what you’re feeling and call it out to yourself. When we take a vague emotional state and turn it into something tangible, it becomes much easier to manage, understand, and process. Noah Rasheta speaking at a retreat. Courtesy of Noah Rasheta The ‘What else is here?’ practice The second practice to reduce stress and anxiety Rasheta shared is all about expanding your perspective in a tense moment. In the moment when you’re feeling stressed, ask yourself: what else is here? “If you are stuck at a red light and happen to be late for work, you are probably feeling annoyed, and that’s okay. But what else is there? Through curiosity, you might notice, ‘Well, at least I’m in a car and not on a bike,’ or, ‘At least I have a job to be late to.’ Both things can be true at the same time: you can still be annoyed that you’re stuck at a red light and yet grateful that you are in a car,” he told Upworthy. “This is different from positive thinking because you aren’t trying to swap the annoyance for gratitude. Positive thinking is dismissive of real difficulty, but this is a practice of addition, not subtraction,” Rasheta clarifies. “You aren’t trying to feel better; you’re trying to be better at feeling. This practice becomes exceptionally powerful if you do it regularly when the big things happen—when life’s biggest moments and most difficult Tetris pieces arrive.” Ultimately, Rasheta’s new view of the world is firmly grounded in secular reality and is a complete departure from his time in the Mormon church. These days he’s all about living life on life’s terms without striving for perfection. “For years, I approached life as if it were a game of chess: complex, but solvable. I believed that if I could just find the right teacher, read the right book, or meditate hard enough and long enough, I could figure it out,” he told Upworthy. “But life isn’t chess; life is Tetris, and you just don’t know what shape is coming next. There is no strategy to master because all you get is how you respond to the shape that shows up. When that finally clicked for me, it didn’t feel like defeat—it felt like relief.”